Can I "unmod" a Wii?

Hi everyone, I have a bit of a problem. A friend of mine is moving out of the country so he gave me his modded Wii. The issue is that it can't play Gamecube games. As in when I put in an original Gamecube game, the Wii doesn't even attempt to read it and just spits it back out immediately. My friend says that it's been like that since he modded it and that if I just burn the Gamecube games to a regular sized DVD they will work fine. I neither want to nor know how to do that, so I was wondering if i was to take apart the Wii and unsolder the chip, would the Wii work like before it was modded? Is there any risk in doing this, as in the Wii braking completely and not playing even Wii games? I have a bunch of old games I haven't played since my brother dropped my Gamecube and can't get them to work on this Wii. Any help is greatly appreciated.

Are you sure its a hardware modification and not a software modification?

(Also, for the record, "burned games" are not supported here)

Depending on the chip, you may not even need to desolder it. many recent chips are solder-free. although i have never heard of this issue with chips. anyway, ask your friend about the specifics of the mod (what chip it is, was there any software modification done, etc.)

Yes, I'm sure it's a hardware mod. Also, I know burning games is not supported here but I'm in fact trying to remove this capability from my Wii so I figured it would be OK if I asked.

EDIT @ SifJar:
Yes the chip was soldered, he modded the Wii more than a year ago. The mod chip was Infectus.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 11/07/2009 11:47PM by kecaewra.

Infectus isn't a backup related modchip, its main use is NAND programming afaik. So it should have no effect on discs at all.

Yes, he said he was using it as a NAND programmer on his xbox 360 beforehand. However, he no longer needed it for that purpose and apparently it can be used as a drive chip to play backups on a Wii. He used the "wasabus" firmware on it if that helps.

I did some of my own research and it seems that the same company that makes Infectus also makes a different chip, Argon, the primary purpose of which is to play backups on the Wii. Perhaps the chips work in a similar fashion so if anyone knows anything about this kind of problem in Argon, maybe it will apply to my situation here. Also my main question is still, would it be safe to unsolder to chip and would this bring back the Wii to its original state? Also I'm wondering whether it would help to install Bootmii and take a NAND backup, just in case, or are these completely unrelated?

I would guess it should be safe, but I have zero experience with modchips. I will try and find any info I can on Infectus with wasabus firmware and any problems with GC games I can.

Alright, thanks a lot, the help is appreciated. On my own i went ahead and installed Bootmii and made a backup of my NAND. I also want to install DVDX but I think I'll wait until I figure out the modchip bit because apparently you need to install something extra if the Wii is modded. Anyway, I'll probably do the unsoldering over next weekend when I'll get an extra break off from school, unless I discover some info that might indicate it would be unwise to do so before then. Right now it seem it should work. Thanks for all the help again.

I think it should be safe to unsolder it. I cannot see any reason it should cause trouble. Do you know what version of the Wasabus firmware your friend installed? It may be wise to update it, and see if it works after doing that, before removing it. Although you may need to remove it to update it, I'm not sure.