Cloning the Gamecube component cable

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Syntax
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Re: Cloning the Gamecube component cable

Post by Syntax »

Be sure to plug the programmer into the PC before attempting to install its drivers or else you will get an error.
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Konsolkongen
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Re: Cloning the Gamecube component cable

Post by Konsolkongen »

Good to know. Thanks again :)
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citrus3000psi
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Re: Cloning the Gamecube component cable

Post by citrus3000psi »

So I played around 3.0b over the weekend and having trouble with the updater.

I loaded vanilla 3.0b on to my GCDual and the updater still did not work. It just always says failed after flashing. Am I missing something obvious. Both files used are from the releases repo.

A side question, is Exomizer required to build the updater properly?
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Re: Cloning the Gamecube component cable

Post by Unseen »

citrus3000psi wrote:I loaded vanilla 3.0b on to my GCDual and the updater still did not work. It just always says failed after flashing.
That's weird - if it says that, it has finished writing everything to flash, but it was either unable to validate the signature of the main bitstream or found a mismatch between the calculated CRC of the main image and the one it wrote to flash earlier. Can you provide me with a full dump of the flash chip after a failed update?
A side question, is Exomizer required to build the updater properly?
No, but the resulting updater.dol will be 2-3 times larger.
thebigcheese
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Re: Cloning the Gamecube component cable

Post by thebigcheese »

Not sure if this thread is the place to ask, but since updating to Dan's 3.0b branch, I've been having issues with the RGB output. I don't think it's a firmware issue, but I am hoping for some educated opinions before I open the Game Cube up for the 80th time this month. This is for a GC Dual install in my Game Cube. After initially updating to 3.0, I had the issue where it wouldn't save my settings (or load at all) after restarting. Went through a lot of troubleshooting, mostly resoldering things, before finally it was determined that it was a firmware issue. I only bring this up by way of saying that I've reflowed solder and verified continuity probably 10 times at this point and everything looks good. But when I go to use the RGB out, everything looks yellow unless I pull up on the cable plug - I'm pulling up near where the cable comes out of the plug, so I guess the tip of the plug would be going down in this case. I thought it might be the cable (and the one I was using specifically for the GC is, in fact, a bit flakey), but I tried with a different compatible cable and it's the same thing. I verified that cable with my N64 and it has no issues. Similarly, using an official s-video cable with the Game Cube works perfectly. As I said, I've redone the soldering many times and verified continuity with a multimeter and everything looks good. I also tried cleaning the contacts of the multiout, but that's not super easy to do and didn't change anything. What's the likely culprit here? I don't want to just be reflowing solder blindly again hoping that something works better. Maybe the solder between the pins and the GC motherboard (rather than the GC Dual board) isn't great? Thanks.
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citrus3000psi
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Re: Cloning the Gamecube component cable

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Unseen wrote: That's weird - if it says that, it has finished writing everything to flash, but it was either unable to validate the signature of the main bitstream or found a mismatch between the calculated CRC of the main image and the one it wrote to flash earlier. Can you provide me with a full dump of the flash chip after a failed update?
Sure no problem.

Unseen wrote:No, but the resulting updater.dol will be 2-3 times larger.
Thanks

But when I go to use the RGB out, everything looks yellow unless I pull up on the cable plug - I'm pulling up near where the cable comes out of the plug, so I guess the tip of the plug would be going down in this case.
Sounds like your analog port is just dirty. Spray some rubbing alcohol in there and plug and replug the connector multiple times.
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Syntax
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Re: Cloning the Gamecube component cable

Post by Syntax »

I bet you filled the port with flux.
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Re: Cloning the Gamecube component cable

Post by thebigcheese »

Normally I'd be inclined to agree about it being dirty, but I've cleaned it pretty thoroughly at this point. Just today I cleaned it with DeOxit then 90% IPA, which didn't help, then I tried that same thing again later and it still hasn't helped. I've cleaned it two or three times before with just the alcohol, too. Specifically, it seems like pulling up and right (if I'm looking at the back of the console) or down and left both seem to resolve it, but I have to hold it there or it goes back to being yellow. It doesn't seem like any of this ought to be enough to move anything around internally, especially with the extra stability the GC Dual board provides (since it effectively doubles the thickness of the solder point), so I dunno. I could hit them with a bit of brasso, but that seems excessive. I've never had AV ports get THAT dirty before.
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citrus3000psi
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Re: Cloning the Gamecube component cable

Post by citrus3000psi »

By you having to physically move the cable its either 2 things.

Connection inside the multiout or the cable itself
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Re: Cloning the Gamecube component cable

Post by thebigcheese »

citrus3000psi wrote:By you having to physically move the cable its either 2 things.

Connection inside the multiout or the cable itself
Alright, after cleaning the multiout a third time, this time with a bit of Brasso followed by a couple rounds of alcohol to de-Brasso it, still no change. Knowing that the cable is good (verified with N64), I took it apart again and removed as much solder as I could from the RGB pins (really wish I had a desoldering iron for that, but oh well). I then used my small iron tip to really get down in there and flow some new solder. Everything is working again, so my best guess is that the solder was not good between the multiout pins and the GC board. Continuity testing showed they were fine with the GC Dual, but I didn't have good test points to check the GC board itself. Anyway, everything is working again. Thanks!
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Re: Cloning the Gamecube component cable

Post by ldeveraux »

thebigcheese wrote:
citrus3000psi wrote:By you having to physically move the cable its either 2 things.

Connection inside the multiout or the cable itself
Alright, after cleaning the multiout a third time, this time with a bit of Brasso followed by a couple rounds of alcohol to de-Brasso it, still no change. Knowing that the cable is good (verified with N64), I took it apart again and removed as much solder as I could from the RGB pins (really wish I had a desoldering iron for that, but oh well). I then used my small iron tip to really get down in there and flow some new solder. Everything is working again, so my best guess is that the solder was not good between the multiout pins and the GC board. Continuity testing showed they were fine with the GC Dual, but I didn't have good test points to check the GC board itself. Anyway, everything is working again. Thanks!
Where is your cable from? Please don't say Retro Access...
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Re: Cloning the Gamecube component cable

Post by thebigcheese »

It is. Most of my cables are, actually. They've all been good except for the one I got specifically for the Game Cube (to be clear, the known good one I was talking about above is my N64 cable, just happens to be sync on luma so it works with my GC install, too). That one needs to be fixed, but their contact form is broken and I can't seem to get a hold of them. So that's annoying.
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Re: Cloning the Gamecube component cable

Post by ldeveraux »

thebigcheese wrote:It is. Most of my cables are, actually. They've all been good except for the one I got specifically for the Game Cube (to be clear, the known good one I was talking about above is my N64 cable, just happens to be sync on luma so it works with my GC install, too). That one needs to be fixed, but their contact form is broken and I can't seem to get a hold of them. So that's annoying.
Damn, i knew it. Most of my cables are RA too, and if I could go back in time I'd buy RGC instead. So far I've had to resolder 3 of them because they stopped working or otherwise didn't perform well. I wouldn't count on your cable being "good" just because it worked with one console and not another. If I move my faulty connector of my mini 8-din cable to another console it will work based on how it's bent/twisted/inserted. It's a crap shoot that I wish I didn't have to fix.
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Re: Cloning the Gamecube component cable

Post by thebigcheese »

Maybe, but it IS a good cable in this instance :p It's one of their older ones from before they made everything with coax. It has what appears to be a reclaimed official multiout plug instead of the new 3D printed ones (which I don't like as much). It may not be individually shielded, but I've been using it for years and it works quite well. I also have a handful of RGC cables. At this point, it's mostly just custom cables that are still Retro Access because RGC doesn't offer what I need for those. I'll also mention that I have only ever had issues with this cable from Retro Access. I opened it up and one of the connections was clearly severed, but even fixing that wasn't enough, so I'm just going to use the N64 cable.
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Re: Cloning the Gamecube component cable

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citrus3000psi wrote:A side question, is Exomizer required to build the updater properly?
Correction: It was supposed to work without compression, but I accidentally removed an essential memcpy call during development that is needed to handle uncompressed chunks.

(semi-outdated) This unfortunately means that there is a bug in the flasher part of the firmware which is not updated using the normal update mechanism. I'm currently pondering if I should try to build a special update that updates the flasher itself - that will be quite a bit of work (probably a week or more) and it cannot be 100% brick-proof. If I instead just fix the bug and tell users to do a full reflash with an external programmer, I could release a fixed version tomorrow.

Outdated: And then there is also the issue if I should make sure that a flasher version with the bug cannot recognize newer updates anymore or if it should still be allowed - the probability of actually hitting the problem seems to be relatively low, a quick test with the binaries from 3.0a/b/c had exactly one affected chunk out of 3528.

Edit: Severity of the problem downgraded, I can add a workaround to the update generator to ensure it never generates a chunk that would trigger the bug. Building the updater will always require exomizer afterwards, but that only affects developers.
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Re: Cloning the Gamecube component cable

Post by citrus3000psi »

Having to use exomizer is not an issue. I was just seeing different things happen while updating when exomizer was not used.
Last edited by citrus3000psi on Thu Jan 30, 2020 1:15 am, edited 1 time in total.
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Syntax
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Re: Cloning the Gamecube component cable

Post by Syntax »

Could this be the cause of the glitchy hdmi audio I was hearing on certain boots?
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Re: Cloning the Gamecube component cable

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Syntax wrote:Could this be the cause of the glitchy hdmi audio I was hearing on certain boots?
No
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Re: Cloning the Gamecube component cable

Post by Unseen »

GCVideo 3.0d release:
  • GCPlug hardware configuration
  • new diagnostics mode in flasher
  • fix handling of uncompressed chunks in flasher
  • add workaround to never use uncompressed chunks in buildupdate.pl
The diagnostics mode isn't as extensive as I wanted to make it, but it should at least detect some cases of missing or swapped VData lines and missing audio signals. I suspect that VData0 may sometimes be problematic on Wiis, which may not always be obvious because it's the lowest-value bit and only signals progressive/interlaced as a flag bit. If you do want to use the diagnostics mode, you need to do a full reflash because it is part of the flasher instead of the main firmware for space reasons. It also needs a test pattern on screen which has been added to the updater.dol.

The GCPlug pinout was reversed from the published Gerber files, one tester reported it as fully working, I hope that wasn't just a happy coincidence.

This release will probably not do anything for those who have some issues with a WiiDual install, but if it's not too much trouble it would be interesting to know if the diagnostic mode finds anything. I have ordered a WiiDual (which I don't really need, but the things you do for science...) so I can hopefully do local instead of remote troubleshooting when it arrives.
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Re: Cloning the Gamecube component cable

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Unseen wrote:GCVideo 3.0d release:
  • GCPlug hardware configuration
  • new diagnostics mode in flasher
  • fix handling of uncompressed chunks in flasher
  • add workaround to never use uncompressed chunks in buildupdate.pl
The diagnostics mode isn't as extensive as I wanted to make it, but it should at least detect some cases of missing or swapped VData lines and missing audio signals. I suspect that VData0 may sometimes be problematic on Wiis, which may not always be obvious because it's the lowest-value bit and only signals progressive/interlaced as a flag bit. If you do want to use the diagnostics mode, you need to do a full reflash because it is part of the flasher instead of the main firmware for space reasons. It also needs a test pattern on screen which has been added to the updater.dol.

The GCPlug pinout was reversed from the published Gerber files, one tester reported it as fully working, I hope that wasn't just a happy coincidence.

This release will probably not do anything for those who have some issues with a WiiDual install, but if it's not too much trouble it would be interesting to know if the diagnostic mode finds anything. I have ordered a WiiDual (which I don't really need, but the things you do for science...) so I can hopefully do local instead of remote troubleshooting when it arrives.
Successfully updated my GCplug using the updater.dol over the Plug1 test build.
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Syntax
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Re: Cloning the Gamecube component cable

Post by Syntax »

Ill open and flash my WiiDual later today.
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Re: Cloning the Gamecube component cable

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Unseen wrote:GCVideo 3.0d release:
  • GCPlug hardware configuration
This is still separate from Dan's firmware? GCPlug is something different right?
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Re: Cloning the Gamecube component cable

Post by Unseen »

djc5166 wrote:This is still separate from Dan's firmware?
I cannot comment on the contents of third party closed-source firmware.
GCPlug is something different right?
The GCPlug binary from my repository should work at least on this and this.
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Re: Cloning the Gamecube component cable

Post by Lostdotfish »

Unseen wrote:
djc5166 wrote:This is still separate from Dan's firmware?
I cannot comment on the contents of third party closed-source firmware.
GCPlug is something different right?
The GCPlug binary from my repository should work at least on this and this.
Can confirm it also works on the blue chinese GCplugs from AliExpress.
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Re: Cloning the Gamecube component cable

Post by citrus3000psi »

I've uploaded 3.0c for the WiiDual/GCDual/GCPlug http://dansprojects.com/firmware/

This includes two commits that fixes two bugs with the updater.dol that are found in 3.0d. I compiled this before unseen bumped the version to 3.0d I will compile 3.0d soon.
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Re: Cloning the Gamecube component cable

Post by thebigcheese »

citrus3000psi wrote:I've uploaded 3.0c for the WiiDual/GCDual/GCPlug http://dansprojects.com/firmware/

This includes two commits that fixes two bugs with the updater.dol that are found in 3.0d. I compiled this before unseen bumped the version to 3.0d I will compile 3.0d soon.
Are these now software flashable or do we need to do it manually? I am unclear based on previous posts...
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Re: Cloning the Gamecube component cable

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thebigcheese wrote:Are these now software flashable or do we need to do it manually? I am unclear based on previous posts...
They should be software-flashable on 3.0 or later. If you already have 3.0c, the only thing that will change for you is the version number on the about screen.
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Syntax
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Re: Cloning the Gamecube component cable

Post by Syntax »

Unless you want to use the diagnostics mode right?

To get the full functionality of 3.0d you need to do a manual reflash.
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Re: Cloning the Gamecube component cable

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Syntax wrote:Unless you want to use the diagnostics mode right?
Yes
To get the full functionality of 3.0d you need to do a manual reflash.
Yes, but why would you need the diagnostics mode if the software-based update works for you?
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Re: Cloning the Gamecube component cable

Post by Syntax »

Ok so update via boot.dol and if you have an issue then manual flash and run the diagnostic.

Got it.
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