- The USB dongle has a tiny red LED on it that glows to show it's working.
- The USB ports on your Wii might be dusty - blow them clean.
- With the Wii on, plug in the dongle and wobble it around in the USB port until its red LED lights up and stays on.
- Boot up Skylanders, enjoy peace and quiet!
And if you're seriously bored, the backstory:
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Phew, almost had a very disappointed birthday kid on my hands there... he got Skylanders for Wii for his birthday which features a plastic castle thing called a Portal Of Power. I didn't realize at first but the Portal contains a usb dongle which you plug into a USB port on the back of the Wii.
Well, I spent about half an hour trying to get the Portal to sync with the dongle, and no dice. The instructions say if the Portal's button is flashing, it hasn't synced with the dongle yet. You're supposed to press the SYNC button in the Portal's battery compartment and then press the button on the dongle to complete the handshake. Well I tried that about a million times but no dice.
Then I figured that the dongle would work on any usb socket so I tried it on my laptop - eureka moment - as soon as I plugged it in, not only did the Portal's button light go solid (indicating successful sync), but a little red light on the end of the dongle lit up. I didn't know the dongle had a light! So I started a-thinking that maybe the porblem was the usb ports on the wii.
I don't know about you, but i've had my Wii for about 5 years and have never used the USB ports before. They're open and collect dust so I blew them out. I plugged the dongle in - no red light. I wiggled the dongle around - RED LIGHT! I wiggled some more - no red light.
Well, seems like the USB ports on my Wii are a bit flakey. After a while I wiggled the dongle into a position where the light stayed on, and then gingerly left it alone. Booted up Skylanders and we got past the Sync screen for the first time.
WOOHOO - kid is happy and I can get on with my "real" job.
You da man!
ReplyDeleteJust saved my day. Thanks a lot!