Hi, apparently my sister-in-law won a nintendo gamecube and I’ve reached a situation where I’m in need of discovering the firmware version of this system, I’ve been through the forums, I’ve got a headache I’ve done so much looking… I’m tired, I don’t have the unit in front of me so it makes things harder. Can someone please tell me where to go through the menus to find this simple information?
It’s been a while since I’ve turned mine on, but I think if you start it up without a game inside it’ll take you to a settings menu.
I can’t imagine why you’d need to know this information.
Well, I can imagine why, but as my thoughts on pirates are more fit for The Pit, I’ll refrain.
I’m not a pirate and I’m not doing anything illegal, but why post a comment that would not answer my question? As for Joey P, thank you for trying but as I understand it there is no “settings” menu … as clicking on the various options has not led her to that menu option… a more direct flow path would be greatly appreciated.
I tried starting my Gamecube with no disk, and couldn’t find any firmware information. I also found and looked in my Gamecube manual, and there was nothing relevent there either. It looks like that info isn’t designed to be available.
I’m wondering why she’d need it also. You sure she didn’t win a Wii instead? Those have serial numbers and friend codes and what-not that you need to know to play wth your friends online.
Tried mine as well, nothing. I Googled the hell out of it and still came up blank. Every search string I tried gave me results for putting the gamecube firmware on a Wii or running it on a PC. I’d be surprised if there was any access to it at all since I don’t think it’s something that would have to be upgraded. My guess is that if there are different versions of it out there it’s probably coded into the serial number for repair purposes.
Yeesh, that is hard to find. Almost every firmware site is about pirating the Cube.
She won it? Are you sure it wasn’t a Wii? Winning a Gamecube is kind of like a joke gift nowadays.
Like, someone could say, “You win a new Nintendo!” and they give you a Gamecube or N64.
hehehe, yes, guys -it’s a Gamecube, but maybe if I tell you that my sister-in-law is Polish it might place things better in perspective. I’m just glad to hear you guys came up dry like me…
I really am quite good at researching things, but it was not one of the things that I found, in certain forums a guy would say something like “I’m running version 3.2e.”. but it would never say how they knew this information, then I saw something that described two different Gamecubes: version 1 = with a digital output and version2 without a digital output, but that really doesn’t help any… So with these answers I will call off the hunt and thank all those that tried to help, my sincere thanks everyone!
As far as I know, there were only 3 distinct software revisions of the Gamecube. Mine doesn’t work, but following some talk with a friend of mine, the DOL number on the underside of the box should allow you to find the IPL (BIOS) version.
The number should look like “DOL-001” or “DOL-101.” Google that number and “IPL” to find which BIOS it was shipped with.
ETA: Why do you need to know this, anyway? AFAIK, Nintendo has discontinued support for the GC, so if the BIOS is borked, you’re out of luck.
ETA2: Ah, I see. Late as always. 
Not to mention, a Gamecube costs very little now anyway.
Hi,
this is old topic but maybe someone will read it and help me.
I need to check my GameCube for memory card compatibility, I like to buy some bigger third party memory cards.
As I know that older gamecube IPL revisions (IPL is gamecube BIOS also term firmware can be used) not have support for bigger third party memory cards, like is 64MB - 16x with has 1019 Blocks or even 128MB - 32x with has 2043 Blocks.
But newer IPL revisions support this big memory cards, 256MB is propably not supported on any revision(only on Wii), but 64MB and 128MB it is working on some newer BIOSes.
I find this on wiki:
http://www.gc-forever.com/wiki/index.php?title=WikiScene:GameCube
But still this not help me too much.
Is it exist any button combination on Joypad that can be pushed throught startup for show IPL version on screen?
Or any other procedure to check IPL revision directly on screen?
I will be thankfull for all tips.
Third party memory cards are crap anyway. Stick to original Nintendo cards, or you will regret it later when they corrupt and lose your saves. Any Nintendo card will work in any Gamecube, firmware doesn’t matter at all.