Finally, a bit of a return to my older style of blog entries!
Last year, at the flea market, I saw a Wii U Gamepad for sale next to other game controllers and games. Of course, it immediately caught my attention, a Wii U Gamepad by itself is not something I ever see in a place like this.
I asked the seller about it, and he told me that the condition is unknown. It did not power on on the spot, but that's completely normal and expected, since Wii U Gamepads are known for quickly draining their own battery when left unused, since it's always listening for wireless communication from the Wii U console.
At the price of around 25 Euro, I couldn't resist it, knowing the low availability of spare Wii U Gamepads and thinking that I'd probably never see another one if I won't buy it.
So, I eventually brought it home.
That means I now have two Wii U Gamepads (and just one console)! What a crazy thing to experience. But what's the point? More on that later.
Although, it still doesn't fulfill my dream of having the white colour version of the Gamepad. I think that white version just looks so much nicer in some way, like a caffè latte...
But in Europe, the white Wii U was only in the 8GB storage version, and I definitely wouldn't want to trade my 32GB Wii U for one that can't even fit the software updates and DLC for all of my disc-based games in its internal storage.
Eventually, I placed the "new" Gamepad on my own Gamepad charger, to see if it works. Well, it does work, but the issue is pretty obvious:
It's a cracked LCD display. But it seems that the rest of it works just fine. When powering it on, it plays the sound effect of the Quick Start menu, and then recognizes both button and touch inputs (responds with other menu sound effects).
I was even able to blindly pair it with my own Wii U console, and it works just fine, plays audio, and I was able to play a game (one that doesn't require looking at the Gamepad display).
I bought this Gamepad last year, but then just left it for months. I looked up the prices of replacement LCD displays, just to find out, unsurprisingly, that it costs more than what I paid for the gamepad. So, I just left it behind.
But this month, I finally ordered a new display from China. It's better to repair it, since Wii U Gamepads are in such limited supply.
Let's bring it back to life!
First, of course, removing the battery:
Still has a genuine battery, and still holds a charge just fine! Nice to see that. It might even be holding a charge longer than my primary Gamepad.
Also, there is some liquid residue on the battery cover and near the shoulder buttons... Not a very good sign. Sticky, disgusting stuff. Someone probably spilled a sweet drink, or something.
Battery removed, screw covers and screws removed. Two of the screws (in the grip handles) are a bit deep and were harder to reach with my screwdriver, but I managed to get them out.
Back cover removed. It is a bit nasty on the inside, but it could have been much worse, and at least there's not any more liquid residue visible.
But some cleaning will obviously be required, especially near the L/R and ZL/ZR buttons. Lots of absolutely disgusting, sticky stuff.
Now, just have to slowly and carefully unplug everything from the motherboard. Then, the motherboard is held down by four screws, and can be entirely removed afterwards. Amazing stuff, this Wii U Gamepad! And the display's ribbon cable is much wider than anything in Nintendo's portable game systems.
4 more screws to remove the plastic frame that's holding the display down.
Then, the display can be easily removed.
I will have to remove the original plastic frame from the touch screen digitizer to transfer to the new one. Yes, this original digitizer is still working and registering touch input, but it has some severe scratches and looks pretty awful. It didn't really cost much more to buy a new digitizer together with the new LCD, so I decided to replace it too.
Plastic frame removed.
Here's the new LCD and digitizer from China:
The new LCD (left) doesn't have the soft foam on the back like the original LCD (right). I might have to transplant this, too.
But first, before installing anything, a quick test to confirm that the new LCD does actually work and didn't arrive damaged in any way. A quick power-on test with only the bare minimum of components connected to the motherboard.
Thankfully, the new LCD works just fine. Apologies for not showing a photo of it, but I had to use both hands during the test.
And now, everyone's favorite part: installing the touchscreen digitizer on top of the LCD, without ending up with any visible dust and particles between the two layers. It seems also that neither the new LCD or digitizer came with a new adhesive frame that holds the digitizer to the LCD, so, I have to transplant this from the old display, too...
Moments later... It turns out that the new digitizer does actually have new adhesive already installed on it, below the factory plastic foil. But this adhesive is transparent unlike the black one in the original, so it confused me. So, nevermind, I removed that old, transplanted one from the new display.
Now, quickly peeling off the foil from the LCD and the underside of the digitizer, and attaching the digitizer to the LCD before any dust or other junk gets in. Then peeling off the foil on the top layer for inspection.
OK.... it's not too bad. Under direct lightning, I can see a few tiny particles near the edges/corners, but it will probably never be visible during normal usage. Honestly, I don't want to bother with lifting the digitizer off the display again to try getting those tiny particles out. I'd probably only end up making it worse.
I feel like even lots of experience with installing tempered glass screen protectors onto iPhones at the apple repair shop isn't helping me here. This is always just an awful task. And I might be too much of a perfectionist with it.
Installing overpriced screen protectors at the repair shop for the impatient customer... Sometimes it went well and I finished it perfectly within 2 minutes. But other times, it's lots of stress, I keep noticing more and more dust particles that have to be removed, sometimes it's so bad from the beginning that I end up having to throw away the screen protector and try from the beginning with another one. Sometimes the screen protectors are bad from the factory.
But then, I lead a battle with all the remaining dust particles under the glass for 15 minutes, and eventually my boss comes to take a look at it, and he says "it's the cleanest install I've ever seen. You and your perfect vision". And the customer agrees. Even though I was seeing at least a few more little particles or bubbles that I was trying to remove.
This went so far, that sometimes my boss would schedule screen protector customers specifically for a time when I'll be available to install them, telling customers that his aging eyes and hands are not so good anymore. Oh, how much I hated that, so much additional stress for me... Installing screen protectors is one of the worst tasks. I hate it so much.
OK, sorry, back on topic. Putting the LCD+Digitzer back into the Gamepad. And I ended up transferring that foam pad, too. Unfortunately, the foam pad teared up a little bit, and also, its adhesive remained on the back of the old display, rather than on the foam pad itself, so it's not really sticking to the new display. Oh well, the plastic frame will hold it down.
Motherboard re-installed. Just one more quick test before putting the back cover back on...
Looks good!
Before final reassembly, I gave all of the dirty elements a good clean. There was particularly a lot of disgusting sticky stuff near the R button and the ZL button.
Reassembled:
And I was able to pair it with my Wii U console again just fine. I immediately went into System Settings to calibrate the new touchscreen digitizer, to test some of the Gamepad's features, and also, to set the language, since it wasn't English...
The console said that the process of setting the language on the Gamepad can take up to four minutes, and that the Gamepad's screen will go black at some moments during the process. This is kind of weird. It almost seems like the Wii U console has to flash a completely different firmware to the Gamepad, just for the Gamepad's menus to be in a different language.
Now, the Gamepad works very well!
And the touchscreen is now in better condition than my own, primary Wii U Gamepad. I do have to admit, the aftermarket LCD and digitizer don't look as good as the genuine parts in my primary Wii U Gamepad, and I feel like the digitizer needs a bit more pressure to register touch. Generally, this entire Gamepad's condition is a bit worse than my primary Gamepad. But it's good enough. Better than a Gamepad that's not usable.
So, now I have two fully functional Wii U Gamepads.
And what's the point? Well... I have no idea!
Years ago, Nintendo supposedly talked about a possibility of connecting multiple Gamepads to a single Wii U console at the same time. But they never implemented this, just like they never made use of the extension port on the bottom of the Gamepad.
So I don't have any use for the second Gamepad. I see a few possibilities:
That's all. Maybe in some time I will also finally, after all these years, publish a new blog entry about DS/3DS repairs... But no promises on that.
Thanks for reading.
Last year, at the flea market, I saw a Wii U Gamepad for sale next to other game controllers and games. Of course, it immediately caught my attention, a Wii U Gamepad by itself is not something I ever see in a place like this.
I asked the seller about it, and he told me that the condition is unknown. It did not power on on the spot, but that's completely normal and expected, since Wii U Gamepads are known for quickly draining their own battery when left unused, since it's always listening for wireless communication from the Wii U console.
At the price of around 25 Euro, I couldn't resist it, knowing the low availability of spare Wii U Gamepads and thinking that I'd probably never see another one if I won't buy it.
So, I eventually brought it home.
That means I now have two Wii U Gamepads (and just one console)! What a crazy thing to experience. But what's the point? More on that later.
Although, it still doesn't fulfill my dream of having the white colour version of the Gamepad. I think that white version just looks so much nicer in some way, like a caffè latte...
But in Europe, the white Wii U was only in the 8GB storage version, and I definitely wouldn't want to trade my 32GB Wii U for one that can't even fit the software updates and DLC for all of my disc-based games in its internal storage.
Eventually, I placed the "new" Gamepad on my own Gamepad charger, to see if it works. Well, it does work, but the issue is pretty obvious:
It's a cracked LCD display. But it seems that the rest of it works just fine. When powering it on, it plays the sound effect of the Quick Start menu, and then recognizes both button and touch inputs (responds with other menu sound effects).
I was even able to blindly pair it with my own Wii U console, and it works just fine, plays audio, and I was able to play a game (one that doesn't require looking at the Gamepad display).
I bought this Gamepad last year, but then just left it for months. I looked up the prices of replacement LCD displays, just to find out, unsurprisingly, that it costs more than what I paid for the gamepad. So, I just left it behind.
But this month, I finally ordered a new display from China. It's better to repair it, since Wii U Gamepads are in such limited supply.
Let's bring it back to life!
First, of course, removing the battery:
Still has a genuine battery, and still holds a charge just fine! Nice to see that. It might even be holding a charge longer than my primary Gamepad.
Also, there is some liquid residue on the battery cover and near the shoulder buttons... Not a very good sign. Sticky, disgusting stuff. Someone probably spilled a sweet drink, or something.
Battery removed, screw covers and screws removed. Two of the screws (in the grip handles) are a bit deep and were harder to reach with my screwdriver, but I managed to get them out.
Back cover removed. It is a bit nasty on the inside, but it could have been much worse, and at least there's not any more liquid residue visible.
But some cleaning will obviously be required, especially near the L/R and ZL/ZR buttons. Lots of absolutely disgusting, sticky stuff.
Now, just have to slowly and carefully unplug everything from the motherboard. Then, the motherboard is held down by four screws, and can be entirely removed afterwards. Amazing stuff, this Wii U Gamepad! And the display's ribbon cable is much wider than anything in Nintendo's portable game systems.
4 more screws to remove the plastic frame that's holding the display down.
Then, the display can be easily removed.
I will have to remove the original plastic frame from the touch screen digitizer to transfer to the new one. Yes, this original digitizer is still working and registering touch input, but it has some severe scratches and looks pretty awful. It didn't really cost much more to buy a new digitizer together with the new LCD, so I decided to replace it too.
Plastic frame removed.
Here's the new LCD and digitizer from China:
The new LCD (left) doesn't have the soft foam on the back like the original LCD (right). I might have to transplant this, too.
But first, before installing anything, a quick test to confirm that the new LCD does actually work and didn't arrive damaged in any way. A quick power-on test with only the bare minimum of components connected to the motherboard.
Thankfully, the new LCD works just fine. Apologies for not showing a photo of it, but I had to use both hands during the test.
And now, everyone's favorite part: installing the touchscreen digitizer on top of the LCD, without ending up with any visible dust and particles between the two layers. It seems also that neither the new LCD or digitizer came with a new adhesive frame that holds the digitizer to the LCD, so, I have to transplant this from the old display, too...
Moments later... It turns out that the new digitizer does actually have new adhesive already installed on it, below the factory plastic foil. But this adhesive is transparent unlike the black one in the original, so it confused me. So, nevermind, I removed that old, transplanted one from the new display.
Now, quickly peeling off the foil from the LCD and the underside of the digitizer, and attaching the digitizer to the LCD before any dust or other junk gets in. Then peeling off the foil on the top layer for inspection.
OK.... it's not too bad. Under direct lightning, I can see a few tiny particles near the edges/corners, but it will probably never be visible during normal usage. Honestly, I don't want to bother with lifting the digitizer off the display again to try getting those tiny particles out. I'd probably only end up making it worse.
I feel like even lots of experience with installing tempered glass screen protectors onto iPhones at the apple repair shop isn't helping me here. This is always just an awful task. And I might be too much of a perfectionist with it.
Installing overpriced screen protectors at the repair shop for the impatient customer... Sometimes it went well and I finished it perfectly within 2 minutes. But other times, it's lots of stress, I keep noticing more and more dust particles that have to be removed, sometimes it's so bad from the beginning that I end up having to throw away the screen protector and try from the beginning with another one. Sometimes the screen protectors are bad from the factory.
But then, I lead a battle with all the remaining dust particles under the glass for 15 minutes, and eventually my boss comes to take a look at it, and he says "it's the cleanest install I've ever seen. You and your perfect vision". And the customer agrees. Even though I was seeing at least a few more little particles or bubbles that I was trying to remove.
This went so far, that sometimes my boss would schedule screen protector customers specifically for a time when I'll be available to install them, telling customers that his aging eyes and hands are not so good anymore. Oh, how much I hated that, so much additional stress for me... Installing screen protectors is one of the worst tasks. I hate it so much.
OK, sorry, back on topic. Putting the LCD+Digitzer back into the Gamepad. And I ended up transferring that foam pad, too. Unfortunately, the foam pad teared up a little bit, and also, its adhesive remained on the back of the old display, rather than on the foam pad itself, so it's not really sticking to the new display. Oh well, the plastic frame will hold it down.
Motherboard re-installed. Just one more quick test before putting the back cover back on...
Looks good!
Before final reassembly, I gave all of the dirty elements a good clean. There was particularly a lot of disgusting sticky stuff near the R button and the ZL button.
Reassembled:
And I was able to pair it with my Wii U console again just fine. I immediately went into System Settings to calibrate the new touchscreen digitizer, to test some of the Gamepad's features, and also, to set the language, since it wasn't English...
The console said that the process of setting the language on the Gamepad can take up to four minutes, and that the Gamepad's screen will go black at some moments during the process. This is kind of weird. It almost seems like the Wii U console has to flash a completely different firmware to the Gamepad, just for the Gamepad's menus to be in a different language.
Now, the Gamepad works very well!
And the touchscreen is now in better condition than my own, primary Wii U Gamepad. I do have to admit, the aftermarket LCD and digitizer don't look as good as the genuine parts in my primary Wii U Gamepad, and I feel like the digitizer needs a bit more pressure to register touch. Generally, this entire Gamepad's condition is a bit worse than my primary Gamepad. But it's good enough. Better than a Gamepad that's not usable.
So, now I have two fully functional Wii U Gamepads.
And what's the point? Well... I have no idea!
Years ago, Nintendo supposedly talked about a possibility of connecting multiple Gamepads to a single Wii U console at the same time. But they never implemented this, just like they never made use of the extension port on the bottom of the Gamepad.
So I don't have any use for the second Gamepad. I see a few possibilities:
- Try to sell the Gamepad to someone who has a Wii U console without a working Gamepad.
- Look for a cheap, second Wii U, console only, so I'll have two consoles, both with their own working Gamepads. But what use do I have for a second Wii U console? I can't even remember any Wii U games with a LAN-play feature.
- Mess around with the Linux software like libdrc, and whatever else that's currently in development, that would let me connect the Wii U Gamepad to a computer. It could be very interesting, but I'm still not sure what use I would have for this.
That's all. Maybe in some time I will also finally, after all these years, publish a new blog entry about DS/3DS repairs... But no promises on that.
Thanks for reading.
