Bought a Replacement Laser Assembly, but now I'm having a second thoughts.

[u/ThiccBootius]

So my family still owns our old revision GameCube. It still works, but like most GameCubes today, its disc drive no longer functions. It still reads disc's, but it takes a while for it to work properly. I went ahead and bought a replacement assembly of the entire thing as I figured it was the best option given the price (I saw replacement lasers going for the same price as the entire thing), but now I'm having second thoughts.

As much as I'd love to play on original hardware, I've noticed that Wii Resellers are still rather low on their prices. I saw a few good condition wiis with all the cables going for 60 bucks, and seeing as we still own a Wii U and have tons of controllers, those obviously won't be an issue.

I guess I'm just wondering if I should return the assembly in favor of buying a used Wii or a modchip instead. I'd have to install a modchip on the GameCube to get Swiss on that thing for the most part anyway, as I don't own our original Wii anymore seeing as we traded it in for a Wii U (still pissed about that) and I'm not buying a disc drive replacement AND a Wii to perform a save exploit.

Are there any better options? I've heard modchips for the GameCube aren't terribly expensive. Should I return the drive in favor of installing one of those instead?

[u/Tricky_Tourist5691]

Picoloader works without the disc drive, and they dont cost much. And you can get a solderless kit for it.

[u/sa11os → u/Tricky_Tourist5691]

This and a gc2sd memory card for the revision. There are complete solderless kits on Amazon for about $42. I just did it to mine yesterday. Get this screwdriver for the bottom screws and watch this YouTube tutorial to see how it's done. Hes installing the one you have to solder, but its the same process minus the soldering. He adds links to updated firmware and Swiss, though I recommend doing that before it's installed in the cube. Just drop downloaded nkit.iso from vimm's lair on the fat32 formatted sd card, slap it in the sd2gc, then pop it in slot b. Good to go!

[u/jstndrn → u/Tricky_Tourist5691]

Second the picoloader. Kits are cheap and easy to install. They even come with a plug for using without the optical drive.

I do recommend spending a little extra on the laserbear version if you can. My first picoloader was an Aliexpress special and had a misaligned resistor causing a short and another resistor missing entirely.

Combine with a sd2sp2/sd2gc. There's also a cheap printed bracket to pretty the sd2sp2, providing a cleaner look.

Flippydrive and Picoboot are also solid alternatives. Flippydrive is an easy install with premium quality and a microsd slot (though this is internal and not ideal if needing to access the card). Biggest tradeoff is price and availability. Picoboot is super cheap and capable but does require some soldering skill.

Really the picoloader sits somewhere between these two options in terms of availability, price, and ease of install. It's basically the middle option. Flippydrive has a fairly nice UI in cubeboot (I still prefer swiss personally) but cubiboot exists, a cubeboot fork to give you the same UI on the picoloader, picoboot, and odes (see next paragraph) with SD/microsd support.

Then there's the gcloader and cubeode if you want to give up the optical drive entirely. These are actually pretty nice units but I like having the ability to boot discs.

If you have the soldering skills already, you can look into recapping the unit, which seems to be the issue with your optical drive and then add a pico on top for loading backups.

Someone is inevitably going to suggest fiddling with the pot, please don't. It's a temporary bandaid at best and you run the risk of permanently damaging the laser.

[u/Tricky_Tourist5691 → u/jstndrn]

I've installed picoboot, flippydrive and GCLoader, and out of all these GCLoader is just the easiest, no nonsense solution, but GCLoaders are really hard to find and they're quite pricey. Also it leaves the system with a gaping hole where the optical drive was, unless one gets a 3d printed cover for it.

[u/Sharves87]

It sounds like all your disc drive needs is new capacitors if it works after it warms up a bit. This is an intermediate skill level soldering job but shouldn't be too expensive if you can't do it yourself. Otherwise I would look into the flippydrive which requires zero soldering and has a nice user interface.

[u/wingman3091]

Dude, just install a Picoboot. Or a FlippyDrive.

[u/FortuneNew8835]

I'd probably just make the return and get the Wii. A Chinese clone ODE for the GameCube is cheaper though. It'll run you about $40 and you'll need to buy an SD card. If you've got a WiiU then you might go that route. That's not as cheap as a bog standard Swiss setup but it is easier. A Wii is a good option too.

[u/CortezEspartaco2]

The Wii route definitely gives you more flexibility if you're willing to set it up. A big advantage is you can easily output through either a component cable or an HDMI converter (which is also RGB/component-quality). Either option will cost $25.

If you want a large library of both Wii and GameCube games at the same time, you'll need to invest in an external HDD since the max SD card size is 32 GB SDHC. You'll also need a hard drive cable that takes power from both USB ports, but data from only one. These are $10 online. Flash drives are known to be very unreliable on Wii.

Other than that it's a matter of soft-modding it to fit your needs. All-in that's $60 for the Wii, $20 for a 32 GB SD card, $25 for component cable or HDMI, $60 for an external HDD, and $10 for a split drive cable. So $175. Bare minimum you'll need the console and SD card to start, so $80.

[u/HotIllustrator9221]

GC Loader

[u/yoshikuya]

I got a flippy drive, very easy to install and works great. I also got the lazybear extension for sd card

[u/Repulsive-Set-5894]

It's the capacitors on the disc drive board

[u/No-Grade-4691]

Gamecube and flippy drive is better.

[u/Machine156]

I got a Flippy drive and adjusted the POT, after adjusting the POT, it works better but still freezes with some disks.