*"Thee PICO hath no bounds... thy modding God's hath chosen PICO as thine vessel, now go forth and unleash the power of the PICO on all consoles, even thy dreaded PS4 & PS5."* - The Consoles of Fate (20XX)
@@RohanSpartin Obviously alot of people want old games hence why this mod video was made and new style chips on the old game scene. Almost everyone I know rather backlog new gen crap and play old games vs all these halfassed broken day one releases needing patches and being online constantly these days. Then you got them graphic snobs and frame rate flucks that complain constantly about this and that but ya the old gaming scene is far beyond these new gen game days. This is why all these mods and chips continue to be made because between the retro gamers and collectors in the retro scene old games are hard to come by these days which has made this mod scene's door opened even wider over the last couple years cuz everyone just wanna play on official hardware with mods over emulation limitations.
I did this right after it became available, one of the easiest and cheapest mods even with the soldering involved. I didn't use this tutorial (obviously) but it is better explained than the one I used at the time I did it, it wil make it easier for people to install the mod. 👍👍
Thanks for your help yet another clear and detailed walkthrough. Managed to snag a DOL-001 GameCube of FB Market place for £20. Now with £10 in parts and a 256Gb card I have a fully modded console. Cheers
Watched the entire thing in background. Will probably re-watch when I get ready for install! Something relaxing for the evening while I'm sorting my OG Xbox ISO images for a new build. I do have a GC Loader, but one of my GameCubes has it's drive dying and I already had it replaced one time. This is perfect for it now. Still would hope that more GC Loaders get in stock though.
Thanks for watching! Good idea on that, the silver console I used in here was a perfect guinea pig. Purchased as broken by a friend, given to me years ago, will boot but is in pretty awful shape and won't spin up or read discs. Now given new life thanks to PicoBoot!
Thank you for this, I just successfully modded my DOL-001 GameCube for the first time by using this video. You've made the instructions very clear and informative.
I can't believe how easy this is compared to other mods for other consoles. I always dread when I hear things like "scratch away at this via", "cut this trace" or "lift these legs" just knowing this is pure soldering to points, seems like the real hard part is getting the right type of screwdriver. Thanks for the awesome video I will deffo be doing this very soon.
You know i wish i had come to your videos first. Been searching for game cube help. Now ive attempted the mod and searching why its not working,, your vid pops up and mate,, really detailed and helpful fella you are,,ive got it in correctly and working. Thanks for the video! Brilliant.
Great video as always! I do have to say though that not all dol-001 gamecubes have the serial port 2 on the bottom. While you do have a good chance of getting one with the port it is possible to get one of those consoles back when Nintendo was phasing out the port before making a complete motherboard revision. I did my first picoboot mod a few days ago and I must say I prefer the Pico over the Gc loader. Its cheaper and you get the same end result.
you are correct. but let's also add the fact that there are still traces of that port on these motherboards. there is a mod out there that get us back what we used the sp2 for.
Pretty straightforward guide, managed to mod one of the gamecubes I have that I got for free from a sale. It was in pretty bad shape but I got it restored and adding this mod is just a nice finishing touch. 👌
Great video! One thing I do when working on computer components is that after I unplug I hit the power button to discharge PSU and any other components. Also if you're worried about solder then you can a hot glue gun with hot glue. If you only have 26 guage on hand you can double up on the wires and twist the ends together (however not recommended).
Oh that power button trick is always a good safety measure to take. I'm personally not a fan of hot glue (just personal reasons, don't really like using it) but I really like kapton tape!
Hi, thanks for the video, I’ve installed my pico by the side of the fan with a rubber grommet in the shield, I’m just about to sort the sd card with swiss but did have to change the thermo pads as they were dry. Keep up the great work 👍
I’ve Done 2 Picoboot mods I followed step by step and everything worked fine for a while but then all of a sudden I get Bluescreens on both GameCubes everything powers up but no video all I get is blue screen?
Yes, you can solder a sd (or microSD) card port to the motherboard of a 101 (lacking the serial port), ...but it's not for the faint of heart. It should be mentioned that Thingiverse hosts several files for really nice mounting brackets for the Pico.
This is such great timing. Got my pico and sd2sp2 inbound. I swear this is the 3rd console I've done where you've posted a video on it right b4 hand. What next so I can get it ready?
thanks for the guide! i accidentally ripped a bit of my GPU's thermal pads and my wires ended up being such a tight fit my 'cube doesn't boot into swiss every time, but i'm still happy with the results (and i'm too lazy to fix it)
Tried this but for some reason my GameCube doesnt boot to swiss i flashed the pi and the proper file for the ss card. I did notice that the pi doesn't have the file stored after reconnecting it amy thiughts ?
Just to check, if you take out the SD card, will the gamecube start up completely normally? With the Gamecube jingle and everything? I'd love to not have to lose that awesome startup screen haha.
I’m using 30 awg kynar wire for power and is working fine! You just have to be careful where are you putting the power because there’s a in and out power and they are next to each other! 3V3_EN 👍🏼 3V3(out)👎
you are right but 3V3_EN is only used for voltage enable signal, acts as a pull-up resistor pin. however the diagram says connect to 3V3(out) and it works without a flaw. but VSYS should be used for powering the system with 1.8V to 5.5V
I'm having issues when I go back to the Swiss menu to choose a new game it turns to a black screen and I have to power it down. On the root of the micro sd card it has the ipl.dol And I'm running the latest version of Swiss. I use R + Z + B + D-Pad Down to go back to Swiss
As always, this was a fantastic tutorial. I modded one of my GC tonight and it worked perfectly. It just so happened to have a broken DVD drive. Side note: I was wondering if you could update your amazon links for stuff like flux and the link since the ones you recommend are OOS.
Hey! Wanted to say good looking out and thank you for that. I did a bit of updating on my Amazon Shop recommendations. Unfortunately it looks like the exact same flux I've used isn't as readily available anymore, although I'm sure other RMA-218 flux is comparable.
I forced 480p on Spyro enter the dragon and getting game lag I'm using gcvideo Pluto hdmi with Pico Boot SD fat32 400gb other games run fine do you know of different settings I can try?
I've already modded four DOL-001s, three Japanese (2 orange, 1 silver) and one US (purple). I did the region switch on the japanese ones too so there are basically US. A few tips from doing my mods: (trust me, you'll want to read if you haven't taken the PicoBoot plunge yet) - Use solid core wire, stranded can be terrible if you have issues holding steady. I used 28 gauge for all wires, one notch higher than 26 but with my Pico's in the same spot as this video, I have had no issues. I will inspect them though. But try for 26 guage solid core wire. - Have replacement thermal pads handy. Only one of four GCs I modded were able to reuse the original pads. There are multiple thicknesses needed. Macho Nacho's video shows what thicknesses to use and where. I got this set that has all the sizes needed: www.amazon.com/gp/product/B09T9YGTRQ/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_search_asin_title?ie=UTF8&psc=1 - I started with the command strips from the beginning for the same reason: its what I had. I recommend getting them if you don't have any. Their whole purpose is to be easily removed by pulling the tab. This is where I highly recommend soldering on the top of the board. Why you ask... - I upgraded two GCs from the Pico to the Pico W (my mains orange and silver) and they work fine. With the command strips, I held the Pico, pulled the tab and the whole strip removed cleanly. If there were wires were on the back with the command strip, that could be trouble. Pulling on the wires could pull them off the the board and that is a pain. - If after doing the soldering and when booting, it goes to the normal GC screen, don't do what I did and unsolder and resolder all the connections (yes, I checked for shorts first). Make sure the SD card is installed. - NKIT ISOs WORK! 256GB SD card and with using NKIIT ISOs, I got almost 300 game ISOs. If you do the math, you can't get that many 1.4GB ISOs on a 256GB SD - No Serial Port 2? webhdx is working on a Serial Port 1 to M.2 slot adapter (where the network adapter goes). I think its working, just needing to mass produce it but there is no ETA - If the GC has a Serial Port 2, the SP2 cover will have "Serial Port 2" written on the cover. Still always ask. My purple GC has a SP2 but I got a replacement cover that does not have "Serial Port 2" written on it. I also got a replacement cover for my black GC. The cover has "Serial Port 2" written on it but it doesn't have a SP2. - Don't assume that a DOL-001 you might be looking at has a "Serial Port 2". I have a DOL-001 that doesn't. - If you got a GameBoy Player and Serial Port 2, get the SD2SP2 Pro (sometimes listed as SD2SP2 Por for some reason) So much easier to access the SD card
I got a GameCube recently and I wanted to do this till I realized that my one, while being a dol-001, it has no serial port 2. There is a little hole in the casing with a sheet of metal covering it internally and it looks like it’s never been opened so I assume it was made in the transition period from 001 to 101
EDIT: My wires were just too long. I’m stumped again. I tried it again, got good solders and made sure I have no bridges. Even the heatsink is clear. Yet I have no picture. If I hold BOOTSEL on the pico my GameCube boots up like normal with no issues. But when power is to the pico I have no signal. Any ideas?
Hey man I just installed picoboot and I'm using a sd2sp2 games work great but I can't get the cheats working for some reason. I downloaded a file with all the cheats named the rite way but no go. Any idea whats going on?
You didn't go over this in your video but you can also setup in-game reset to load Swiss after you've already launched a game: Make a copy of the "ipl.dol" file (Swiss) on the root of the SD card, rename the copy to "igr.dol", and set the igr.dol file as the in-game reset option in the Swiss options menu. You can then use the button combo "R + Z + B + DPad Down" to load back to the Swiss loader
Tell you what, so far investing in a Pico has proven to be a valuable investment, it is what I flashed my 360 NAND with and is now going to be the worthy successor to my original Gamecube modchip, it was sent to us not too dissimilar to the Doom Slayer.
Hi can you save games to the sd card?i did everything but unable to save game. I checked sd card and it has a save file for slot b but i am using slot A for sd gecko
I just tried the pico boot mod ... I'm not getting a signal output anyone. Funny enough, while pressed in the boot sel button and turning on the GC boots into the default way. anyone know that I might be doing wrong here? Already flashed the Pico and the pico led is green ... also used a multimeter to confirm my soldering and they all beep just fine.
I attempted this and after I reassembled my game cube it powered on but didn't have any video, the TV will flicker when I turn it on then nothing. Do you have any idea where I could've gone wrong?
Could be an issue with the soldering like some points being bridged. Double and triple check your work, worst case undo it all and make sure it can boot without a chip wired up.
@@MrMario2011unfortunately it wasn't as simple as a mistake was soldering, I must've gotten really reckless because I was frustrated with where gp4 connects to the console and broke the pin. . . That's gonna be fun to fix.
Installed the pico, turned on the console and no signal. The lights work, the fan works, however the disk drive does not. Ended up desoldering it and soldering it again only to get the same results… I then removed the mod and tested the GC by itself. Now it doesn’t boot into its main menu either… What do I do next?
Finally getting the stuff together to try this. I've ended up getting 24 aug stranded wire. Could you tell me if should I have gotten 26 single core instead?
I am having difficulty soldering the two wires to the surface mounted chip. Maybe the flux isn't enough or is bad, but solder ends up connecting multiple pins and requires me to use a desoldering weave and a solder sucker to clean every time. I was wondering if anyone could give any insight into things like tip size and if flux type (liquid, paste, etc) would be causing this. I've been soldering primarily prototype boards, but this was my first attempt at something as small as a surface mounted chip. Any help is appreciated!
In the description I have my Amazon shop link where I put all the soldering hardware I use in one place, along with some recommendations, hope that helps?
Great video! So just to be clear...you can still play your Gamecube discs (either original or import/burned), as long as we take out the SD Card or MicroSD card prior to turning on the Gamecube, right?
Hmm. Just completed this mod using 28 gauge. How concerned should I be? The (pretty well respected modding youtuber) whos tutorial i followed seemed to be using 30 gauge for everything.
If it works I wouldn't be all too worried, I just shared my own personal experience and recommendation based on that + the documentation provided. I personally had no sufficient power to the chip until I upped my wire size on power and ground.
What would happen if you booted the gamecube with a pico boot installed but no sd2sp or memory card sd card adapter installed ? would it function like a normal gamecube and just load it's normal home menu ?
will the games on the SD Card still read the memory card? i'm considering getting used memory cards to see what the previous owners were like and i want to get a lot of games by doing this
Does having a green light after transferring the file important? I seem to not get the green light and replugging it back in and checking the files, it somehow removes the file again. On another note, if i dont hold the button while plugging it on the computer, it does light up green so does that mean the file is in there even tho activating storage mode shows the file isnt there? My sd adapter hasnt arrived yet and i wanna make sure the pico is rly all set before i solder it in
It automatically flashes the file then ejects the usb mode. You won't see the flashed .uf2 file inside. You could solder the pico even now as you can flash anytime as long as you have access to its micro usb port. When you hold d-pad down button during gamecube boot, you see a log screen of picoboot checking for sd card even if you don't have any. If you see it, you are ready to go
Thank u both of u guys. Yea i am probably overthinking but rly im just scared of any bricking that can happen to my spice orange 😅 Modding is risky fun haha
I highly doubt you’ll respond to this, but what’s the possibility that this is compatible with the gamecube SD card adapter that replaces disc drive? If it is possible could you possibly use the Raspberry Pi Pico as a broadband adapter down the road when future updates allow for Bluetooth and or even Wi-Fi perhaps? Any insight and thoughts would be greatly appreciated
Hello i modded my device but one issue i am facing is any sd card above 16gb is not getting loaded by swiss. I am getting an error called ipl.cli file not found. Only 16gb and lower cards are not having this problem
Got a quick question buddy, will this work on a japanese GC and if so will everything display properly on our USA NTSC? i know the system menu will be in japanese but swiss and games will load in english, correct?
for your notes....now on to your other videos so i can get the program for fat32 on large drives. Update: guiformat. that's the one. copied the files to my computer, formatted, and copied them back. super easy fix. Extrems Jan 4, 2022 Collaborator What is the SD card formatted as? The reload stub doesn't support exFAT, and supporting it there isn't a high priority since all other applications don't support it either. Extrems Jan 4, 2022 Collaborator It must be either FAT12, FAT16, or FAT32. Extrems Sep 9, 2022 Collaborator The current combination is A + Z + Start. B + R + Z + Down is deprecated.
Man I wish I can find someone to do this for me. I have everythinng needed. But my Solder Iron gets really hot then its not able to melt seconds later. Not worth the risk. I have 2 gamecubes and 2 Pico's just incase lol.
