Gamecube LASER tweak

Well, I invested in a 100 pack of Ritek Ridata G05 disks. Have to see if it solves the problem..

 

HI fellas, I'm sorry for bursting your bubble!!
Electronics manufacturers work with different lots of parts, namely in this case Gamecube Motherboards. Due to variation in value tolerances, you will not always obtain the same performance from two motherbaoards, hence the need of trimpots. Here's a picture: you have a guy working in quality control for gamecube motherbaords, he has all sorts of equipment connected to the MoBo: oscilloscopes, frecuency counters, etc.. not only a meter connected to the trimpot terminals, and he is adjusting the trimpot to obtain the best performance of the MoBo according to the readings on the oscilloscope in relation with the rest of the components of the circuit.
So, YES you can damage your laser, or it will have a shorter life.
ON THE OTHER HAND: GameCubes are now only $60.00 CAN YOU BELIEVE THAT!!! So who cares about the Q.C. guy!!

 

where did you get a cube for $60, There still $150 around here

 

My goodness heaven!! When do you live? 2002???
Shop around buddy! Go to EBGames at your nearest mall.
They have been at $70.00 for the longest time.

 

Sorry, the price is for the Pre-Played console.

 

i have a pal platinum edition GC (the old plat with zelda).

I am trying to run the back-ups with but almost every game gives me a RDE, i'm using memmorex DVD-R 8cm.

is it possible i need the laser tweak to get rid of the RDE's during the games because memorex is a brand most people use in Holland and i burn at 1X speed.

anyone a good advice?

P.S.
Gamecube's kost 90 Euro's over here and you get Mario Kart 4 free

 

I now use traxdata 12cm DVD-R.
Verbatim (silver) and TDK12cm DVD-R would not work.

 

ok so i've had a decent amount of success with tweaking. my cube went from reading nothing to reading most anything i put in it, even if 5 of 7 DRE after 5-10 minutes.

i think when talking about DRE, it really has to come down to your laser, doesn't it? i mean, what would the BIOS have to do with loading 10 minutes into a game? really once the game is booted, that BIOS seems inconsequential.

i'm still looking for that sweet spot. i know at 500+ ohms my gc doesn't read anything but real gc discs. i also know that when it's down to 180ish, it's willing to read a lot, even if it will DRE. problem is, if i go above 200, it stops reading prodiscs, so i'm at a loss where to go from here.

anybody have any input?

 

Icerider . I'm From Holland too
The platinum Defenately needs de fix

(gewoon doen en je hebt nooit meer problemen)

Memorex 8cm DVD-R's are Perfect. No DRE's, if a DRE occurs you have a faulty image.

 

speedi what's the manufacturer id on those memorex discs?

 

I recently installed a VIPER on my A/B Gamecube release. It seems to work actually (with cobra 0.4) since I succedeed in booting different regions original. Unfortunately I haven't yet been able to burn a gcm image successfully. I tried with 8cm Hyunday and Ritek G05 but it didn't worked at all. Could you suggest me the best practices in order to burn these images. Thx. Juggero

 

Speedy,

dit you tweak a platinum edion?

was reading over at a other forum and there people were saying that the problems aren't related to the laser but to the 0.4 bios.
I also heard that 0.5 is coming out within a week.

is it wise to tweak my laser now or should i just wait for 0.5 :S

 

I checked pot resistance and it's 161 ohm. I got an A/B platinum GC. In other replies I found out that these sort of values are fine, whereas you may need to lower them in case they are too high. Nevertheless I'm not even able to see the content of an ISO 9600 dvd, although cobra stated it would be possible. I tried both 8cm and full dvds (ritek g05).
I know the swap procedures so I think it's something related to dvds type. no problems with originals, which I'm able to boot, independently from their region, or browse directly from GC. Please, help !!!
juggero

 

tht's funny jugero,

mine was around 160 also, tested with both moving up to 210 and down to 140 but both stil gave me the same lousy errors

 

I baught a 100 pack Cicero DVD+R... I burnt around 12 games so far and not a single problem. My laser around 180ish. these dvd's work perfect...

 

Hi juggero.

i also have a platinum A/B. i lowered my POT from 247 to 200. I tried with Verbatim Silver DVD-R and TDK DVD-R 12cm discs. But they didn't work. Try Traxdata DVD-R 12cm They work perfect.

 

just to update some good news. I found out that, in my case, the problem was... the burner !!!!!!!!
I burned a gcm image over a Hyunday 8cm with another DVD writer (NEC 3500 AG) 2x speed and then I followed the classic procedure (cobra 0.4):
1) with GC turned off I inserted an original
2) turned on then selected "boot dvd"
3) swapped original with a copy of something else
4) it started perfectly !!!

I haven't modified pot resistance. also, you can leave GC door open while you swap, insert, etc.

residual problems:

1) sometime it doesn't work but I read that next cobra's releases will be better
2) my backup didn't work whereas "others" backup were fine. I have yet to test ISO9600.

I ordered some nice Memorex 8cm, I hope they'll be better then these Hyunday. Also I think I'm going to change the faulty dvd writer (a Pioneer 107) with a new Pioneer 109. I'll let you know.

juggero

 

i got a solution 2 to my problem.

i removed the top cover and am using platinum 8X Dvd+R

atm with not a single DRE

 

Just my 2 cents.

I've got an older A/B cube that I bought, oh, 3+ years ago. The resistance was 550ohms. It would read 12cm Fujifilm DVD-R just fine, but not anything else (Verbatim-R, CMC+R, TDK-R, Memorex-R, CompUSA-R). I lowered it to 195, and all my other media started working too, but then I started turning it back up to see how close to original I could get while still working. At 480, I was able to read everything except the CompUSA brand. For the CompUSA, I ended up having to go back down 350. Which is where I left it. Seems to be working just fine for me. I only tried 12cm +R/-R media.

As far as -RW media.. I couldn't get any DVD-RW's to work, either mini or fullsize (Sony, Memorex, CompUSA).

I'm not exactly one to jump on the bandwagon to say lowering the value will ruin the laser, but at the same time, I know there is truth to it, especialy if you go to far. So it's probably best to set yours as close to original as you can get away with and still read the bulk of your media. It doesn't take that long to go through a trial and error proccess of testing different values. Took me less then 10 minutes to set mine at where it's at now, adjusting around 40-50ohms at a time.

Finally, my thoughts on tweaking to correct DRE's. I don't think they are related. Unless you got some really horrible low-quality discs, the consistancy is going to be uniform across the entire surface. So if the GC can read & boot a disc, then it can read the rest of it too. DRE's are probably being caused, in my logical opinion, by the burner you use, image you burn, viper bios, what ngc disk you boot with, and maybe some unknown copy protection.

 

i think the burner isn't the one to blame.
I got a plextor burner ,
when i burn a disc aand try it in my GC (for example RE4) it won't work, if i try the same disc in the GC of a friend of mine he can play for hours.

i rather think it's a combination of laser/bios.
for what the guy who modded my GC told me is that some versions of GC's didn't boot a single back-up with V0.3 but are working with 0.4 (at least some games do).

i think we just have to wait till the cobra Bios "matures"before we canh truly tell if it was the laser/bios/Media/version/burner/burningsoftware/etc.

there are 2 many guesses and NOBODY but then absolutely NOBODY knows 4 sure what the solution is for all the problems.