bricked wiiU out of the box

[nineteendo]

hello

i'm a collector, bought two wiiUs ten and nine years ago respectively, decided to open one due to the eshop closing a month ago since i had a couple of game codes to redeem

the one I bought ten years ago is a 32GB deluxe black edition, out of the box was completely bricked(stuck on the wiiU logo) so I had to use the other console which I didn't want to because it was a collectors item(that one worked fine)...

i took the bricked one to the shop but they told me that the NAND/emmc was gone and that they tried installing a NAND but that it didn't work.

I've been following this issue for the past month and i saw the youtube video from voultar using the raspberry pico, and I've seen voultar's twitter regarding the NAND-AID and some reddit posts here and there and other posts from here(gbatemp), and I noticed that you guys are willing to help...

I just called nintendo a couple hours ago and they told me that they stopped servicing the wiiU in Feb'2020

I would like to know what are my options and how can i truly diagnosed what my console has or has not

I soldered about twenty years ago for my final uni project(it had to do with reverse engineering an original xbox and installing linux onto it)

any help will be more than appreciated and welcomed

 

[tiger111]

It seems your wii u was another case of wii u dying because not being used this phenomena is well documented if wii u isn't powered on for long it might cause nand loss ..

Coming back to your case nand aid is just a pcb giving easy way to solder if you want a solid way then a method is being developed based on mod chip it not only allows to recover otp etc from broken wii u but also helps to boot from sd card ..its called de fuse mod chip method by shiny it uses pico as mod chip here is the link ...

https://gbatemp.net/threads/de_fuse-a-wii-u-modchip-in-development-by-shinyquagsire.630931/

this development is in initial stage it has developed a lot I would recommend you to wait for a while for this scene to develop let more firmware and bugs be released also in meantime don't be desperate to showing your system to random repair guys it will do more harm than good and might reduce the future possibility of recovering the system since they might try to remove and add some components based on there analysis..


since you said you don't have soldering experience ill suggest you to pin point the issue let this scene of mod chip develop let its tutorial arrive and after that show the tutorial wiring diagram etc to some guy able to do soldering it might solve your issue and your system might be unbricked

 

[ArgoRV]

It also depends on storage conditions. Humidity, insects, etc. just the fact of being "sealed" doesnt guarantee it wouldn't be affected by external conditions

 

[SDIO]

I hope that shop didn't make it worse. If the Wii U is still able to show the logo, then there is a good chance that it can run UDPIH. That would allow you to replace the broken files after transfering the MLC from the old eMMC to a new media, either a new eMMC or an SD card.
What state is your Wii U currently in? What did the show do? Did they transfer the content from the old eMMC to the new one and is the new eMMC soldered or did they put the old one back?

EDIT: is the original eMMC a Hynix?

 

[godreborn]

apparently, wiius can fail from nonuse. leaving them in the box for that long might be the reason why there's something wrong with that unit.

 

[Ettino]

i took the bricked one to the shop but they told me that the NAND/emmc was gone and that they tried installing a NAND but that it didn't work.

I'm gonna say that they made it much worse now, as they probably didn't know what they were doing in the first place.
And danm, a decade without being use even once eh? Probably a Hynix chip as well, no wonder it's dead on arrival.

 

[nineteendo]

It seems your wii u was another case of wii u dying because not being used this phenomena is well documented if wii u isn't powered on for long it might cause nand loss ..

Coming back to your case nand aid is just a pcb giving easy way to solder if you want a solid way then a method is being developed based on mod chip it not only allows to recover otp etc from broken wii u but also helps to boot from sd card ..its called de fuse mod chip method by shiny it uses pico as mod chip here is the link ...

this development is in initial stage it has developed a lot I would recommend you to wait for a while for this scene to develop let more firmware and bugs be released also in meantime don't be desperate to showing your system to random repair guys it will do more harm than good and might reduce the future possibility of recovering the system since they might try to remove and add some components based on there analysis..


since you said you don't have soldering experience ill suggest you to pin point the issue let this scene of mod chip develop let its tutorial arrive and after that show the tutorial wiring diagram etc to some guy able to do soldering it might solve your issue and your system might be unbricked

thanx for your post, i don't really believe in the not being used phenomena more than i believe in the hynyx faulty chips, both consoles were bought in 2013 the faulty one in mid 2013 and the other one on december 2013, the december one seems to be working just fine

i'll look into the link you sent, seems interesting, although at the moment i'm still pretty confused and frustrated

i'll take your advice to heart of not showing the system around, appreciate your post...

Post automatically merged: Apr 29, 2023

It also depends on storage conditions. Humidity, insects, etc. just the fact of being "sealed" doesnt guarantee it wouldn't be affected by external conditions

you'd be surprised; the faulty one was in a "warehouse" with a dehumidifier working almost every month for the past ten years, the one that is working was in my room under a lego box that would receive a roof leak every now and then when it would rain too heavy during rainy season, i was counting on the working console to fail because i never bothered to move it to safety...

that is why i don't believe in the you didn't use it you bricked it theory, i believe more in the faulty NAND hynyx chips theory more than anything

Post automatically merged: Apr 29, 2023

I hope that shop didn't make it worse. If the Wii U is still able to show the logo, then there is a good chance that it can run UDPIH. That would allow you to replace the broken files after transfering the MLC from the old eMMC to a new media, either a new eMMC or an SD card.
What state is your Wii U currently in? What did the show do? Did they transfer the content from the old eMMC to the new one and is the new eMMC soldered or did they put the old one back?

EDIT: is the original eMMC a Hynix?

just checked the console since I picked it up three weeks ago from the shop, it is in the same state it was before taking it to the shop: sometimes a black screen(no video signal), sometimes the wii u logo screen and it gets stuck there, nothing happens, the drive seems to work the blue light works and that is basically it...

i'm just deciding and thinking how should i procede with it, i'm confused and frustrated

Post automatically merged: Apr 29, 2023

apparently, wiius can fail from nonuse. leaving them in the box for that long might be the reason why there's something wrong with that unit.

like i said to another member: i'm still a bit skeptic about this theory, i'm more inclined towards the hynyx faulty chips theory

this is the first nintendo console i have to ever fail on me

Post automatically merged: Apr 29, 2023

I'm gonna say that they made it much worse now, as they probably didn't know what they were doing in the first place.
And danm, a decade without being use even once eh? Probably a Hynix chip as well, no wonder it's dead on arrival.

i hope not, just checked on the console for the first time since they gave it back, it still acts the same

sometimes no image, and sometimes just the wiiU logo screen and then nothing happens, drive starts, red light goes from red to blue when pressed, it just doesn't turn off or do anything else, gamepad wont recognize console, etc...

 

[SDIO]

Can you check with udiph if still the original eMMC is installed or if it is a new one?

If the shop is able to do eMMC replacements you could tell them to swap the eMMC but clone the old one to the new one. After that we can replace the broken files.

Humidity isn't relevant for the NAND retention, but temperature is. And if course the quality of the charge traps in the NAND. The latter seem to be the problem with the Hynix batch, but it should get worse with higher temperature and in theory could be prevented if the MLC is read from time to time, so ECC can kick in.

 

[nineteendo]

Can you check with udiph if still the original eMMC is installed or if it is a new one?

If the shop is able to do eMMC replacements you could tell them to swap the eMMC but clone the old one to the new one. After that we can replace the broken files.

Humidity isn't relevant for the NAND retention, but temperature is. And if course the quality of the charge traps in the NAND. The latter seem to be the problem with the Hynix batch, but it should get worse with higher temperature and in theory could be prevented if the MLC is read from time to time, so ECC can kick in.

just checked their diagnostics: this is what they literally said, they didn't open the console, and from the Convo I had with them after returning the console; I got the sense that they don't work with soldering or opening consoles because they said it was too risky and Nintendo could ban the console from online play, etc, I got the feeling that they wanted me to buy a new console or motherboard... anyway, this is what they said

/quote/ status of the console verified: it stays on the wiiU logo or sometimes it won't show up image. we proceed with pertinent diagnostics along with gamepad tests, the console has damage in the nand, we tried copying the console key but due to being damaged it lost its data and it remains in an on loop, the console as not having a previous nand backup cannot be repaired due to the nand being unique for each console since it comes encrypted for each hardware /unquote/

I'll buy the pico within the next few days and get to work on it this week, I do have my doubts about whether what criteria does this bricked console uses in order to get to the wiiU logo screen, say, out of fifteen times that I turn it on/off, only one time the wiiU logo screen appears, the other fourteen times no image appears

 

[SDIO]

Then your best bet is probably replacing the emmc with a SD using the NAND-AID thing

 

[nexxusty]

hello

i'm a collector, bought two wiiUs ten and nine years ago respectively, decided to open one due to the eshop closing a month ago since i had a couple of game codes to redeem

the one I bought ten years ago is a 32GB deluxe black edition, out of the box was completely bricked(stuck on the wiiU logo) so I had to use the other console which I didn't want to because it was a collectors item(that one worked fine)...

i took the bricked one to the shop but they told me that the NAND/emmc was gone and that they tried installing a NAND but that it didn't work.

I've been following this issue for the past month and i saw the youtube video from voultar using the raspberry pico, and I've seen voultar's twitter regarding the NAND-AID and some reddit posts here and there and other posts from here(gbatemp), and I noticed that you guys are willing to help...

I just called nintendo a couple hours ago and they told me that they stopped servicing the wiiU in Feb'2020

I would like to know what are my options and how can i truly diagnosed what my console has or has not

I soldered about twenty years ago for my final uni project(it had to do with reverse engineering an original xbox and installing linux onto it)

any help will be more than appreciated and welcomed

You used someone else's work to bridge the TSOP flash enable points, then used yet another persons work to flash it after that.

You didn't "Reverse Engineer" shit pal. Everything was already figured out for you. Literally every last step.

 

[nineteendo]

You used someone else's work to bridge the TSOP flash enable points, then used yet another persons work to flash it after that.

You didn't "Reverse Engineer" shit pal. Everything was already figured out for you. Literally every last step.

true, but you got the idea(that I'm no solder or electronic expert)...

...besides, reading Andrew "Bunnie" Huang's "hacking the Xbox - an introduction to reverse engineering" back then in 2004 felt like almost reverse engineering the thing from scratch, thought I would never finish( both things: the book and the uni project)

and out of curiosity, why bring a negative comment to the table that won't add or help???

I'm clearly not claiming to be a homebrew or electro expert, I'm just asking for help in bringing back to life a bricked out of the box wiiU

 

[rcpd]

and out of curiosity, why bring a negative comment to the table that won't add or help???

Some people just like to watch the world burn…