Hardware Bricked my WII - Black screen of Death

draskopf

Member
OP
Newcomer
Joined
Oct 1, 2009
Messages
9
Trophies
0
XP
56
Country
United States
I screwed the pooch. Forgot and ran a disk trying to update my hard modded (wasabi chip) WII to 4.3u system menu. It screwed up my system and wiiflow would no longer work. I tried a few things to downgrade and now my WII is bricked with the black screen of death. No bootmi is avail, when I turn it on there is no two blue flashes and it just sounds like it tries to load a disk and is dead. My thought is I can by a premodded disk drive and swap out the wasabi chip with the old one and my WII should work again. Just wondering if my logic is correct or would this not work. Any input would be greatly appreciated or any other ideas. Thanks
 

Supercool330

Well-Known Member
Member
Joined
Sep 28, 2008
Messages
752
Trophies
1
XP
1,128
Country
United States
That wouldn't work, the Wii doesn't actually use a hard drive, it simply uses a nand chip, and they are encrypted to a particular Wii. If you have your console keys, it is possible to flash the NAND by soldering on a NAND flasher (such as the infectus) using a good dump, but at the least that will kill all of your game saves. Also, NAND flashing is kind of a pain, you would almost be better off just grabbing a new Wii (I think they are like 150 new and 100 used now). You might not be totally dead, if you could describe the state of your wii before all this happened, how you tried to downgrade, and what exactly caused the brick there might be something that can be done. My guess though is that you installed a system menu that has had its IOS version stubbed, in which case, ya your hosed.
 

Lucif3r

Well-Known Member
Member
Joined
Sep 10, 2011
Messages
1,468
Trophies
0
XP
228
Country
If your chip has a direct game-boot setting, it might be possible to boot SSBB (or any other exploitable game) and launch a hack from there.
If you were able to do that, you should be able to reflash your NAND and fix the Wii.
 

draskopf

Member
OP
Newcomer
Joined
Oct 1, 2009
Messages
9
Trophies
0
XP
56
Country
United States
That wouldn't work, the Wii doesn't actually use a hard drive, it simply uses a nand chip, and they are encrypted to a particular Wii. If you have your console keys, it is possible to flash the NAND by soldering on a NAND flasher (such as the infectus) using a good dump, but at the least that will kill all of your game saves. Also, NAND flashing is kind of a pain, you would almost be better off just grabbing a new Wii (I think they are like 150 new and 100 used now). You might not be totally dead, if you could describe the state of your wii before all this happened, how you tried to downgrade, and what exactly caused the brick there might be something that can be done. My guess though is that you installed a system menu that has had its IOS version stubbed, in which case, ya your hosed.

My WII was updated wot 4.3U and I was trying to downgrade it to 4.1U, I followed the DOPMII guide and kept getting a permission denied error when I tried to downgrade. Then Homebrew was upside down when I launched the channel and then i got the black screen of death.

If your chip has a direct game-boot setting, it might be possible to boot SSBB (or any other exploitable game) and launch a hack from there.
If you were able to do that, you should be able to reflash your NAND and fix the Wii.

I am not sure if I have it has a direct boot setting, currently it sounds like it tries to load from the drive when I turn it on but nothing happens and I get the black screen of death. I will try and get the original disk for Indiana Jones and try that, thanks for the tip.
 

Tom

Gbatemp's Unofficial Modder
Member
Joined
Feb 9, 2009
Messages
987
Trophies
0
Age
27
Location
New jersey
XP
456
Country
United States
run its serial on nintendos website it may still be "under warranty" min e was out of it but they didnt know tht:)
 

SanGor

Witchhunter
Member
Joined
Aug 21, 2008
Messages
993
Trophies
0
Website
Visit site
XP
215
Country
United States
Sorry to break it to you but your wii is toast.

Downgrading is very stupid and who the hell recommended that to you?

If you have an old boot1 or even bootmii as boot2 the Wii is recoverable OR if you have a full NAND backup, otherwise there is _nothing_ you can do to fix it.
 

draskopf

Member
OP
Newcomer
Joined
Oct 1, 2009
Messages
9
Trophies
0
XP
56
Country
United States
It got updated to 4.3u when my kid put in a disk and then wiiflow would not load so I tried to downgrade it to 4.1U but that did not turn out so well. bootmii is on the sd card but it does not do the double blue flash when I turn it on, it only flashes once and thenit sounds like it tries to engage the drive and just sits on the black screen. would trying the indiana jones disk not work in my situation?
 

SanGor

Witchhunter
Member
Joined
Aug 21, 2008
Messages
993
Trophies
0
Website
Visit site
XP
215
Country
United States
I know it sucks but that's how it is, by downgrading your Wii you bricked your Wii for good.

When on the Wii something want to access certain HW it goes through IOS, there are many different versions of IOS too.

System menu 4.3 uses IOS 80 for example.

When you update to a new system menu version the IOS version of the old ones are replaced by unusable IOSs (to save space).

Your system is now loading an unusable IOS and there is nothing you can do about it.
 

Lucif3r

Well-Known Member
Member
Joined
Sep 10, 2011
Messages
1,468
Trophies
0
XP
228
Country
would trying the indiana jones disk not work in my situation?

If your chip can boot games without relying on the SM, then yes it should work.


I know it sucks but that's how it is, by downgrading your Wii you bricked your Wii for good.

Your system is now loading an unusable IOS and there is nothing you can do about it.

Theres obviously no guarantee the above will work, but to say there is no way to fix his Wii is just a blatant lie.
The question is rather how far hes willing to go in order to fix it (and, in worst case, how much $ he wants to spend on it^^)
 

tueidj

I R Expert
Member
Joined
Jan 8, 2009
Messages
2,569
Trophies
0
Website
Visit site
XP
999
Country
If your chip can boot games without relying on the SM, then yes it should work.
No chip can do this. Modchips autoboot games by patching the disc ID on the fly, which makes the system menu immediately start the game instead of showing the menu.

Theres obviously no guarantee the above will work, but to say there is no way to fix his Wii is just a blatant lie.
The question is rather how far hes willing to go in order to fix it (and, in worst case, how much $ he wants to spend on it^^)
It's not a lie. Without a NAND backup or keys it is fully bricked and there is nothing that can be done.
 

Porobu

Gbatemps Shiny Latias
Member
Joined
Sep 12, 2009
Messages
1,042
Trophies
1
Age
28
XP
453
Country
if your wii is old enough (Pre mid 2008) it could be fixed by writing bootmii/boot2 with an infectus, dump the keys, create a new nand with ohneswanzenegger ang copying it back
 

Site & Scene News

Popular threads in this forum

General chit-chat
Help Users
  • No one is chatting at the moment.
  • Xdqwerty @ Xdqwerty:
    and idk if something will happen to my ps3 if i connect it to wifi with hen activated
  • Psionic Roshambo @ Psionic Roshambo:
    I remember when the Atari 2600 was new and exciting lol
  • Psionic Roshambo @ Psionic Roshambo:
    It could get banned from PSN but you can change your ID I think?
  • Xdqwerty @ Xdqwerty:
    also gonna install twilight menu in my r4 flashcard
  • Psionic Roshambo @ Psionic Roshambo:
    One thing that just occurred to me.... The sound on the 2600 sucked less back then the harsh sound we hear now is from infinitely better speakers we have now, back when the 2600 was new speakers produced a almost muffled sound, like CRTs made old graphics look slightly better.
  • Psionic Roshambo @ Psionic Roshambo:
    I wonder if I could recommend that to some emulation devs that perhaps the sound could use some smoothing out to simulate those old TVs
  • Psionic Roshambo @ Psionic Roshambo:
    I think a few of the early systems could benefit from that, at least up to the 8 bit generation, by the 16 bit generation I think TVs had gotten a lot better in almost every way
  • Xdqwerty @ Xdqwerty:
    i dont have an sd card adapter but I have an usb sd card adapter
  • K3Nv2 @ K3Nv2:
    Old people games
  • Xdqwerty @ Xdqwerty:
    its not the one that comes with the r4
  • Xdqwerty @ Xdqwerty:
    doesnt work (my flashcard is from r4isdhc.com)
  • Xdqwerty @ Xdqwerty:
    might install ysmenu first
  • Psionic Roshambo @ Psionic Roshambo:
    Try Wood firmware
  • Psionic Roshambo @ Psionic Roshambo:
    For your R4
  • Psionic Roshambo @ Psionic Roshambo:
    It's old but it's the best firmware out for DS stuff
  • Xdqwerty @ Xdqwerty:
    it says it only works for the original R4, R4i Gold (r4ids.cn), R4iDSN (r4idsn.com) and Acekard R.P.G.
  • Xdqwerty @ Xdqwerty:
    nvm it does support mine
  • Xdqwerty @ Xdqwerty:
    but why choose it over ysmenu @Psionic Roshambo?
  • Xdqwerty @ Xdqwerty:
    bc im stupid?
  • Xdqwerty @ Xdqwerty:
    yea ik im stupid
  • Xdqwerty @ Xdqwerty:
    good night
  • Psionic Roshambo @ Psionic Roshambo:
    Just give it a try, but honestly if you have a 3DS you can play DS games without a card just off the internal SD card
  • Psionic Roshambo @ Psionic Roshambo:
    Slightly slower loading but a bit more convenient
    Psionic Roshambo @ Psionic Roshambo: Slightly slower loading but a bit more convenient