Trouble making Wii Component Cables

[NFG]

A lot of people are having the same problem: Black and white images where glorious colour was expected.

This thread is for you, let's hope a solution is discovered!

It seems to me that the Y channel is used to make green in the complicated component decoding process.  For whatever reason the TV is not receiving or using the red and blue channels.  

Theories and fixes: Post below!

[Dark]

Make sure pins 8 and 10 are bridged properly and everything will be okay for black and white issues.

[Guest]

Apparently two people in the main thread chalked it up to connection tightness and they got color + 480p when they made sure the connections were tight.

I don't know. I tried for several hours today and all I could get was Luma. In fact getting Luma alone was very easy. Getting even one of the color connections to work was nearly impossible as was getting pin 8 and 10 jumpered. I was trying with the twist tie method, but tomorrow I will go to the store and get Acco #1 paper clips.

Still, I tried my level best with those twist ties and even with bare wire ends and I could never get any color.


The whole experience makes me angry at Nintendo for having put me through all this crap because they couldn't be bothered to properly produce component cables before launch.  

[Guest]

I found if you're getting a black and white image, make sure you're getting no output from your composite video cable.  If you are you haven't shorted 8 and 10 correctly.

I had an different problem though.  I managed to get the pb channel working (could get green and blue), but no matter what I tried the pr channel didn't seem to work.

[N]

I tried the twistie tie method and after much hard work and tweaking was able to get everything working except Pb.  But the connections were not reliable.

I think it's important to understand how the connector works - you can't just jam some metal in there, it needs to made sideways contact with the wii plug.

I'm now building connectors using paperclips bent into a shape like this:

Code Select Expand


 �_
 / \
 | |
 | |  
 |______   __
        \_/


I'm still getting B&W only but I haven't shorted 8+10 yet.  Maybe that has to be shorted before it will output Pb+Pr?

[Dark]

Well I didn't have a voltmeter handy so I didn't want to mess with the bridge to 8 and 10 while the system was on because I didnt know if it had a current running through it and how strong if it did.

I doubt it would have hurt me either way. I put some electrical tape on my fingertips though, and messed with the bridge while the system was on and BAM. It worked.  

[Dark]

Here is my theory.

Right now people are doing it two ways.

One involves moving the composite pin to the component pin.

Then the other way of leaving the composite and making a new pin.

For people that move the component pin you have no choice but to bridge 8 and 10 to get color. I have no idea why and I have no idea if my theory proves true, but this is my experience and what I've come to believe for anyone else.

Bridging 8 and 10 is a bit tricky, but if you mess with it while the console is on you're eventually hit the sweet spot with a paper clip. If 1 the paperclip seems too thin, fold another one over and try to squeeze it in. You'll eventually find a point to where you get some friction and color just appears magically!

[Guest]

Bridging 8 and 10 is a bit tricky, but if you mess with it while the console is on you're eventually hit the sweet spot with a paper clip. If 1 the paperclip seems too thin, fold another one over and try to squeeze it in. You'll eventually find a point to where you get some friction and color just appears magically!

You're absolutely correct!  It turns out that Pb and Pr are not "activated" until 8 and 10 are bridged.

It should be noted that bridging 8 and 10 correctly is really, really hard.  There are many things that can go wrong (and did go wrong for me):

- Make sure that you understand how the connections are made (sideways) in the plug.  You need to get your paperclip/twistie-tie/whatever down into the slot as far as it will go, and the part that's _farthest in_ needs to stick out a bit to actually make contact.

- The Y (luma) connection is deceptively easy to make, I'm guessing because the signal it carries is strong enough to bridge any minor gaps in the connection.

- This was the big one for me:  Make sure your paperclips are not making contact with each other, or any of the existing wires!!  This will short things out and cause either a shutdown or the dreaded B&W effect.  What I did was put a long piece of electrical tape sideways between the 8,10,12 pins and the 7,9,11 pins.

Once I straightened all these things out (and it took a while) I was able to achieve glorious 480p!

[Wii MAn]

Hi Guys - Just want to thank everyone for all the help. I had the same problem with B+W so here's my experience. Just jiggled the 8 and 10 pin and it worked like a charm. In fact - as I pulled them out the first time to re-adjust them, it changed to color for about half a second - so i knew all my other connections were good.

I used all twisty ties. They worked like a charm. Bend them over each other at the ends and they stay pretty secure.

Component looks awesome!

[AngryGuy]

I found if you're getting a black and white image, make sure you're getting no output from your composite video cable.  If you are you haven't shorted 8 and 10 correctly.

I had an different problem though.  I managed to get the pb channel working (could get green and blue), but no matter what I tried the pr channel didn't seem to work.

Is this information correct? I'll get no video signal from composite when 8 and 10 are shorted correctly?

If so it would be much easier to diagnose my B&W image. I've played with my 8 and 10 paper clip quite a bit with no change.

[blackevilweredragon]

im curious..  are you playing with the 8 and 10 paper clip with it ON?  If so, I wonder if the Wii only checks that at startup..  so, if the link is open at startup, it aint gonna work till the next reboot..

[AngryGuy]

im curious..  are you playing with the 8 and 10 paper clip with it ON?  If so, I wonder if the Wii only checks that at startup..  so, if the link is open at startup, it aint gonna work till the next reboot..

I've done a little of both but I've been mostly playing around with it while on to see if I see any change.

I'm using the same exact paper clips in all of my connections and I don't understand why getting 8 and 10 right is so difficult, they seem to be fitting the same way the others are. But I still get video from composite and pin 7 with Y the video cable is the only one affecting anything. However, if it shorts with any of the other ones I do see blue or red, depending on which it shorts with, making me believe that my red and blue connections are solid, but the jumper is not.

Edit: Been playing around with it some more. I do occasionally get some flickering and lose signal while playing with the jumper pin, but no color. Or maybe only a flash of it. I can't seem to get the paperclip back in all the way either. Should I be trying to fit it in close to the inside or outside of the pin hole? That is, closer to the other side with more pins or on the outside?

Also, I am using #1 sized paper clips but they are not Acco. I don't know if they are actually the right size for this.

Another update:It looks like I've got the pins shorted right now. Only problem is, the only colors I see are red and green. I have no input signal on my composite channel though so it looks like it's just a problem with my blue connection.

I was right. Playing with the blue connection yields me full colors, but I can't get it to stay. My paperclip in pin 9 is not making a good connection on the inside. Gonna have to play with it. Carefully. I probably should have started working on this somewhere other than the floor because after it gets working I am most certainly not moving it.  

[AngryGuy]

Still no luck. I think I might need bigger paper clips. The ones I am using are really fickle. At the slightest movement they lose contact. Somewhere along the way I seem to have lost the barrier separating pin 8 and 10. Oops!  

[ChristmasGT]

exact same thing happend to me too, they are EXTREMELY Fragile!

[norax]

im curious..  are you playing with the 8 and 10 paper clip with it ON?  If so, I wonder if the Wii only checks that at startup..  so, if the link is open at startup, it aint gonna work till the next reboot..

Mess with 8 & 10 with the Wii turned on while using composite to the TV. When 8 & 10 are shorted the composite output gets shut off. I just got my 8 & 10 working and thats how I was able to tell when it worked.

[SiberX]

Yeah - just adding my personal experience here - getting the 8/10 pair shorted together is very important - I actually had it halfway there and could switch to progressive mode, but I was still not getting proper colour output until I got that jumper *really* solid. Now it's running in full colour 480p - looks awesome. One note though - most of the information indicates to ground the Y pin ground but not the Pb or Pr pins - is there any actual reason for this, or are people just being silly? ideally, you want all three pins grounded properly, as the ground serves as a shield on those pins and reduces interference and noise on the video signal (I am noticing some red and blue striping on mine as I haven't grounded those pins yet)

[Jon]

Well, no matter what I do I cannot get the color red to work.

[Guest]

Sorry to post as a guest, but I have solved my B&W issue by making 8 and 10 jumpered well, and I can also switch to 480p mode, but when I switch back and forth between 480p and 480i, I dont see any noticable visual improvement. All the colors are there once I hook up Y Pb and Pr. And yes I am using an HDTV.

Is it possible that even though I am setting the system to 480p, it is actually just staying with the composite signal?

[candyman]

Okay guys I need some help with this thing....My friend and I got it to work on his console just fine...but Im home now and im trying to do it on mine... the problem is when I try to bridge 8 and 10 I loose both sound and video, but when I pull the clip out I get both back...from what I understand and from the way it worked with his I should only loose video correct? Whats wrong?

[Guest]

@candyman

When you bridge 8 and 10, unless you have some sort of signal on the composite lines, you won't get sound.  This perplexed me for a while, but if you just attach Y, you'll get sound and a black and white picture.

[Devnull]

Hey guys, I am having a lot of problems trying to make the cable.

I tried inserting all of the paperclips and then jumpering the ends of an old RCA cable I cut up to use as component. The best I could get is garbled video. I thought that the problem could possibly be the little jumper cables I made with 18 guage speaker wire and aligator clips...

So I used aligator clips to attach the wires directly to the paperclips. I still only got garbled video/bad colors etc. I have messed around with the 8 & 10 quite a bit and that doesn't seem to change anything. Is it the low quality RCA cable I cut up to use for component? Any other ideas before I give up and wait for official cables?

[Guest]

ok, the problem was that I didn't have it properly grounded... It worked after I grounded the y to the very back of the 12# wire where there is a small spot exposed. I haven't grounded the other ones yet.  It looks MUCH better than it did with composite. I'm hoping to come up with someone a little more permanent than paper clips.

[Guest]

Well, I made the cable using the paper clip method, and the coloring is fine. I haven't grounded the YPbPr cables yet, but everything seems to be okay.

The only problem is that the image appears sharper and clearer in 480i (non hi-def) mode. Has anyone else noticed this? Did I mess up somewhere, or is that the way it is supposed to look?

[Guest]

Tried making the cable last night and I was unsuccessful getting pins 8 & 10 reliably bridged using paper clips.  I started with small paper clips and the connection wouldn't stay there, so I moved up to bigger paper clips and then I couldn't get it to bridge at all.

Be careful with bigger paper clips, when I shoved the bigger one in I couldn't get a connection because I had damaged my Wii. :-/  The paper clip caught the edge of the terminal inside the port and shoved the metal back.  I hope when the real component cables come out they'll still work.

I may try again tonight, but I need to find something that works better than paper clips.

[Guest_guest]

ok, so here is where i am, and i can't seem to find anyone to comiserate with on this problem.

i get the B+W screen just fine, that's no big deal.

and i have shorted out 8 and 10, now the problem lies here.

i cut the paper clip in two, because when 8 and 10 are shorted i get no picture at all.  when i re-attach the pieces together using gator clips, picture goes away immediately.

i have my Y grounded, none of my wires look like they're touching, and all my connections appear to be solid.  does anyone have any suggestions?

[ChristmasGT]

I accidently damaged 2 pins in the back of my wii console itself (both grounds)  

Is it possible when I recieve my component cable to just ground the 2 that wouldn't make contact due to the damaged input on the Wii on the one good ground?

That should give me a much better picture right?

[G-Unit]

* STOP: READ THIS BEFORE YOU ATTEMPT TO MAKE THE VIDEO CABLE WITH PAPER CLIPS. *

It is possible to permanently disable component video on your Wii using the paper clip method.

The bad news:

When pushing the paper clips in to the connector, you can inadvertantly push the pins inside the Wii's connector back so that it only sporadically makes contact with the paper clip. This make the connection VERY touchy. (And I wouldn't be surprised if it was causing a lot of the cases of black and white video or colors that don't seem to work.)

The really bad news is:

Once the pin inside the Wii has been pushed back, the normal Nintendo component video connector will no longer be able to make contact with the pin. This means, you will forever be sentenced to using your paper clip cable to get component video.

You can tell if this has happened to you by looking at the Wii's video connector, and checking that all the pins are the appropriate length. I've attached a picture of what a broken connector looks like.



I hope this prevents someone else from making the same mistake I did... Now I'm trying to figure out how to fix this once it's happened.

[NFG]

It seems to me that this could be an easy situation to avoid, and hopefully not too hard to fix.

As seen in several of the guides, the tip of the paperclip should be bent upwards, so that a rounded surface pushes against the Wii connector.  If you shove the pointy end directly at the teeth as you appear to have done, then yeah, you rish shoving the pins in.

Fixing it might not be hard.  I don't have a Wii to check, so I'm guessing, but those connectors are typically OPEN on the inside.  The metal you've pushed around has to go SOMEWHERE, right?  Get on the other side of it and push it back!

Maybe.  I can't find any pics of the inside showing the back of the AV connector.  =/

[G-Unit]

The screws on the case are triwing screws, so I'm one tool short of being able to open the case without damaging it. (At least until I could get one of these screwdrivers, which seem to be going for $25 on ebay.)

Even once the case is open, the connector on the inside appears to have a RF shield soldered over it. This would prevent pushing the pin back from the inside. (Without significant work.)

Here are some pics:

http://www.popsci.com/popsci/whatsnew/2526...bccdrcrd/6.html
http://www.popsci.com/popsci/whatsnew/2526...bccdrcrd/9.html

At this point I'm thinking it might be easier to modify a legitmate component video cable (once I get one) rather than fixing the Wii itself.

[ChristmasGT]

Thats exactly what happened to me, Thank the lord though that I only damaged what are going to be Grounds on the Official Nintendo Wii component cables, when I was doing mine I didn't read about bending the paper clips. it is VERY important that you do so!

worse case scenario for me is that I have to take apart the component cables from nintendo and tie in the 2 ground pins to the one good one remaining, but if I'm satisfied with my picture I may not do that.  how bad is the picture with just the 1 ground?

but yes again VERY VERY important that you bend the paper clips.

[Aron]

Well after much trial and error I got it working.  The difference is very noticable, everything would be great except...now there is a matrix style green tint to everything on screen.  Could this be because I haven't grounded anything yet?  The only reason I haven't is because I'm not exactly sure how to...

[GZeus]

For future making of cables, buy two composite cables and use the pins from the extra one to connect to the neccasary pins. Then one can simply solder things together where needed.

[G-Unit]

I received my Nintendo component video cable today, so I was finally able to sit down and test out a fix for a broken connector -- one where the pins have been pushed in.

Broken connector fix:

1) I used a knife on the pin that had been pushed in to bend it away from the connector, so that it stuck up. This was necessary so that I could...

2) Use a pair of needle-nose pliars to pull the pin back out to its normal length.

3) The pin was now sticking up, which prevented the Nintendo cable connector from being plugged in, so I put a drop of super-glue on the back of the pin and squeezed it back onto the connector with the needle-nose pliars.

The result, a normal working connector again!

General tip:

If you are getting the black and white screen, check the Wii system settings menu under "Screen Resolution". It 480p is not available, your problem is with the mode pins not being bridged properly.

I hope this helps save some expensive repairs for people. =)

[Dan]

G-Unit, your information helped me tremendously! I had thought my Pr pin inside the back of my wii was broken somehow, not realizing it had been pushed in. Lifted it up and pulled it out a bit with some tweezers, and now I can actually use my component cables that ended up coming only a few days after I "broke" it.   !

I actually had a repair order set up, they were (somehow) going to cover it under warranty, but I'm so happy that wasn't necessary!

[Mattroid]

I've been reading up on the component cable on here all night. Lot's of good info, even if a lot of the modding stuff is over my head

I keep seeing the whole issue with b/w display, but that's not quite my problem. My issue is that my display seems to be all green/magenta. After a lot of troubleshooting, it has to be the wii or the cable, I believe. If I need to explain my situation further, I can.

Can anyone suggest something for this problem? Anyone else experienced it?

[4mybabys]

There was a much easier solution for my husband. We purchased a new tv that is 3d, HD etc. My husband bought a new cable, HD Component Audio and Video Cable (Also called Universal Component Cable Next Generation sku 7  2865800972  4, from Game Stop for $17.99. When he initially set it up the screen was black, white and maybe some blue. On the cable itself there was a little switch that said TV / HDTV. He switched it from the side that said TV to the side that said, HDTV and we have full color. Hope this helps!

[kendrick]

Welcome to GamesX. As easy as a purchased solution is, in general the group here has a vested interest in learning the information that comes only from construction of our own cables and other parts. With that said, do you happen to know if there's an encoder chip used in this particular cable? The presence of a switch suggests that there's additional processing involved.

[imparanoic]

just wondering, is there any difference if you play gamecube games on wii via progressive scan than natively on a gamecube?

it seems considering the cos of this is holy grail of cables ( seems to be significant more expenisive than schp-1050 and shvc010 at US$70 plus) and the cheap price of a used game cube would be similar to price of used wii and a cheaply avaliable wii component cable.

i can only see the difference is that you can play gba in progressive scan (doubt, if it's noticable), is there any other differences? , you can play gba on wii emulator as well

[RGB32E]

just wondering, is there any difference if you play gamecube games on wii via progressive scan than natively on a gamecube?

it seems considering the cos of this is holy grail of cables ( seems to be significant more expenisive than schp-1050 and shvc010 at US$70 plus) and the cheap price of a used game cube would be similar to price of used wii and a cheaply avaliable wii component cable.

i can only see the difference is that you can play gba in progressive scan (doubt, if it's noticable), is there any other differences? , you can play gba on wii emulator as well

http://www.ebay.com/sch/i.html?_nkw=gamecube+component+cable&_sacat=See-All-Categories

Yikes!!!    Good thing I have quite a few of these (most new)!

While I haven't really looked for it, I guess there are some scenarios where gamecube games played on a Wii have a "pre-scaled" or "ringing" like artifacts.  User Konsolkongen on the shmups forum posted about this on the XRGB-3 thread:

http://shmups.system11.org/viewtopic.php?p=589326#p589326