Hacking Random crashing in Wii games - tried everything!

[britain4]

Nope, tried the guide, same results again. Also tried a different SD card just to rule it out but hasn't made a difference.

Seems to play my backup discs fine!

If it's not my cIOSs, or my game dumps, or the hard drive or SD card, or a third party controller, or anything else I have ever seen anyone suggest, anyone else got any ideas?

My next step will be to remove the modchip and see where we go from there but I'm clutching at straws

I will just add I forgot to try reinstalling ios80 and 4.3E which I have now done. I did apply one or two hacks in Priiloader but I can't remember which ones so who knows, maybe they were messing something up, I'll test it again.

 

[Litle_Bird]

Removing the modchip might be intresting yes, actually incase you'll ever want to black brunt wii backups, the old wii's can do that natievly, as I saw in you syscheck you've an even older dvd-drive than me so most likley you can play burnt backups using neogamma.

Looking forward to an update from you

 

[britain4]

Removing the modchip might be intresting yes, actually incase you'll ever want to black brunt wii backups, the old wii's can do that natievly, as I saw in you syscheck you've an even older dvd-drive than me so most likley you can play burnt backups using neogamma.

Looking forward to an update from you

I doubt I would be wanting to play disc backups again TBH but I guess in case I come across an old one I want to play I'd like the option to.

Good news on the crashing front anyway - I grabbed ios80 and System Menu 4.3E off NUSdownloader and resintalled and touch wood the crashing issues are gone!

So it was either a messed up ios80 or Sys menu like you said or I messed up somehow with Priiloader, either way thanks so much for your help! (I'd forgotten I'd installed Priiloader tbh!)

 

[britain4]

OK I have about had it with this thing now - I have had it running for 2+ hours twice since I did the ios80 thing without a crash. Come to play on it now and within 5 minutes I get the damn crash again! Anyone got any other suggestions before it goes in the bin??

I'll try removing the modchip but as that's connected to the disc drive I'm 99% sure its not going to make the slightest difference

 

[Flashed]

I have had the same problem with Animal Crossing. Haven't happend before the past days while I was playing, but it could be related to the Wiimmfi patch, because it's the only game I have had problems. Also I have a Mod Chip, yes, installed in 2009 (LOL), and... yeah, I think it was on 2011 when I discovered the Homebrew Channel and all his posibilities, so the Modchip is a stupid thing now... I recommend you to take it off... only takes up space

 

[britain4]

lol it's really annoying, the only thing I haven't changed now is the console. I'm starting to think a fault might have developed with the console and I haven't encountered the crashing in disc games through luck. Don't use Wiimmfi and none of the games are online capable

Haha I think I fitted mine around 2008 and I've only just hacked it this week!

 

[britain4]

Thought I had solved the mystery today, I tried playing off the SD card and it didn't crash again so I thought that the ios80 and the hard drive were both causing crashes. Was playing it for a couple of hours earlier, great I thought, its fixed.

Came to it this afternoon and it's crashed twice both within two minutes without changing a thing from earlier on. I'm starting to think this Wii just hates me as I have changed absolutely everything apart from the console. I picked up a replacement working one for £10 off eBay and we'll start from scratch with that one.

 

[britain4]

Removed the modchip and still same result. Just tried out a USB stick and another SD card, same results. Any other suggestions? Would a proper USB hard drive be better?

 

[tswntk]

Is your Wii feel a bit too warm when it crashes? The exhaust air is warm?
Check if the exhaust fan is working or the ventilation port is clogged. Add a fan to help ventilation might help too.

All games having the same problem? What games have you tried? Did you turned on Emunand save (full or partial)?
Did you verified the games' SHA-1 with Wiibackupmanger? Fragmentation level?(but if you did format an SD/flash drive and then copy games to it, fragmentation shouldn't be a problem)

 

[godreborn]

I had a similar problem except for me it was random freezing (it might've been crashing as well - can't recall), but the culprit as it turned out was the forwarder channel itself. I updated the channel, and I've encountered no freezing/crashing since. like u, I tried everything including changing hard drives and even changing enclosures - still nothing. I'm not sure what made me think it was the forwarder channel. iirc, it was the fact that it didn't freeze when loading cfg usb loader from the homebrew channel. the only other possibility was the wii or the usb port on the back of the system.

 

[stomp_442]

Okay I've tried following the above guide we'll see how it goes. Thanks!

Have you tried to use a usb memory stick?

So you said that you are using a SSD? Do those drives go to sleep after a while of not being used? I know that there is a problem like that with a regular HDD that has a spinning disc in it, and the fix is getting the software for the HDD and finding the setting that puts the HDD to sleep after certain amount of time of inactivity. Set the HDD to never go to sleep.But like I said, I don't know if those drives go to sleep. Or maybe your Wii don't like SSD, do you know if it is on the compatibility list?

 

[britain4]

I had a similar problem except for me it was random freezing (it might've been crashing as well - can't recall), but the culprit as it turned out was the forwarder channel itself. I updated the channel, and I've encountered no freezing/crashing since. like u, I tried everything including changing hard drives and even changing enclosures - still nothing. I'm not sure what made me think it was the forwarder channel. iirc, it was the fact that it didn't freeze when loading cfg usb loader from the homebrew channel. the only other possibility was the wii or the usb port on the back of the system.

I have tried with and without a forwarder, also tried 3 different USB loaders which all behave identically.

Have you tried to use a usb memory stick?

So you said that you are using a SSD? Do those drives go to sleep after a while of not being used? I know that there is a problem like that with a regular HDD that has a spinning disc in it, and the fix is getting the software for the HDD and finding the setting that puts the HDD to sleep after certain amount of time of inactivity. Set the HDD to never go to sleep.But like I said, I don't know if those drives go to sleep. Or maybe your Wii don't like SSD, do you know if it is on the compatibility list?

This is a a possibility but I have tried 2 different SD cards to run the games from, the SSD and a USB stick all of which have the exact same crashing issue. I haven't tried a conventional external hard drive, maybe the Wii doesn't like any of the storage I have tried to use up to now but I thought this would be extremely unlikely?

I tried restoring my NAND backup which was the first thing I did once I had installed Bootmii, same crashing issue when I came to it just now. Also removed the modchip which has made no difference


Something has happened that I never noticed before - I had it sat on the system menu while I was googling something and it's locked up there!

 

[GreyWolf]

It's very possible it just doesn't like the storage device. The Wii was only intended to use SD cards as storage so cIOSes and homerbrew have to implement USB storage using existing open source projects.

 

[britain4]

It's very possible it just doesn't like the storage device. The Wii was only intended to use SD cards as storage so cIOSes and homerbrew have to implement USB storage using existing open source projects.

Noted. Although I have tried a USB stick as well as the SSD ill try a something from the compatibility list. Any ideas about the hard locking at the system menu though?

 

[MichiS97]

Something has happened that I never noticed before - I had it sat on the system menu while I was googling something and it's locked up there!

Well that basically confirms that it's a hardware problem. Have you checked if the fan is working, like someone has suggested above?

 

[GreyWolf]

Noted. Will try a USB stick from the compatibility list. Any ideas about the hard locking at the system menu though?

If you're using an official controller and don't have a HDD or SD connected and the system menu is still crashing it could either be corrupted files or a hardware problems.

As for flash drives... if you can get it to work that's great but they tend to be flakier than finding a HDD/enclosure that's compatible. :/

 

[britain4]

Is your Wii feel a bit too warm when it crashes? The exhaust air is warm?
Check if the exhaust fan is working or the ventilation port is clogged. Add a fan to help ventilation might help too.

All games having the same problem? What games have you tried? Did you turned on Emunand save (full or partial)?
Did you verified the games' SHA-1 with Wiibackupmanger? Fragmentation level?(but if you did format an SD/flash drive and then copy games to it, fragmentation shouldn't be a problem)

The Wii doesn't feel excessively warm, the fan is working and a flow of slightly warm air is coming out of the vent. Only slightly warm though and from experience with the PS3 this might be the thermal paste at fault so I might give that a look? I can't imagine it just hard locking if it overheated but it is a possibility, does the Wii have multiple fan speeds or is it just constant?

All games having the same problem, as well as the system menu (after less than a minute just now). All sources are freshly formatted and games verified using Wiibackupmanager.

If you're using an official controller and don't have a HDD or SD connected and the system menu is still crashing it could either be corrupted files or a hardware problems.

As for flash drives... if you can get it to work that's great but they tend to be flakier than finding a HDD/enclosure that's compatible. :/

Yup all of those things, check. I am doubtful of corrupted files as I have tried a full NAND backup from when I very first installed Bootmii.

Is there any possible way I could put the entire thing back to factory and start again with the modding to be 100% certain?

At the present moment it has started freezing pretty consistently within 1 minute of being turned on

On opening it up, it uses thermal pads, not paste, not ideal but as theres about a 2mm gap between the chips and heatsink I've got no choice but to put some new pads on it and see how it goes. I think it's something else

 

[britain4]

OK firstly screw you Nintendo for making the damn thing so fiddly to take apart lol, roughly on a par with the last Mac I repaired. Anyways I put some new thermal pads on which was a waste of time as the old ones were perfectly fine. Left it on the system menu and sure enough within 2 minutes just the same it crashed. I think it's had it, I'll try again with the replacement one when it arrives.

This was only meant to be a cheap/free project with my old Wii I had lying around and I've ended up throwing money at it which could be going towards a Switch lol

As an absolute last resort I used NAND formatter on it, went OK, tried to get back to 4.3 on system update and it's frozen up again with the same stupid buzzing noise. The menus have also started glitching out just before it freezes. Oh well, the hardware's toast I think, we'll try the replacement one when it comes...

 

[britain4]

As confirmation of what I thought I tried out my replacement Wii and I have had zero crashes thus far running games from the USB SSD touch wood!

Thanks to everyone who helped me diagnose this as I could have spent much longer trying to diagnose a software problem that didn't exist! (Hopefully)