Help me build THE ULTIMATE WIIU!!

mikefor20 · Apr 1, 2023

Im planning on 5TB for Wii/GC
128GB for retro roms,wiiware etc.
2TB for WiiU

Will that suffice?

Post automatically merged: Apr 1, 2023

Thank you all for the input!

I'm planning on ordering a screen protector and battery today. Any thoughts? Im thinking official ninty screen protector... hope the 10 year old glue is still ok.

Is there a better screen out there? IPS maybe? I cant find current information on it.

Anyone try a better battery? The iFixIt one is high rated but there are some with huge capacity. Thoughts?

Also, a protective case that doesnt suck?

Sowden · Apr 1, 2023

I put this battery mod on my Gamepad and it's been great. You need to take the screws off of the original door and you'll need a wired port to plug into the Gamepad. I just bought a extra cheap battery, snipped and soldered the wires, very simple. The door snugs in tight. It takes 18650 lithium batteries, which are essentially electric ciggerette pen batteries. Bought one pair since last year and have never replaced them. The battery life goes on way longer than the stock ones do. And you can charge it using USB-C. Best easy upgrade r your Gamepad for sure.

https://www.etsy.com/listing/1076893524/wii-u-gamepad-extended-battery-usb-type

EnterpriseFreak · Apr 1, 2023

mikefor20 said:
What is the best replacement battery?

If you got the money to spare you could get the official high-capacity battery (2500 mA) Nintendo sold back then.
Or you could be daring and do what I did...

Runtime at brightness level 3/5: About 6 hours
Runtime at brightness level 1/5: About 9 hours
Other levels: Didn't test

Hanafuda · Apr 1, 2023

EnterpriseFreak said:
If you got the money to spare you could get the official high-capacity battery (2500 mA) Nintendo sold back then.
Or you could be daring and do what I did...

View attachment 362534

Runtime at brightness level 3/5: About 6 hours
Runtime at brightness level 1/5: About 9 hours
Other levels: Didn't test

I like it.

mikefor20 · Apr 3, 2023

Sowden said:
I put this battery mod on my Gamepad and it's been great. You need to take the screws off of the original door and you'll need a wired port to plug into the Gamepad. I just bought a extra cheap battery, snipped and soldered the wires, very simple. The door snugs in tight. It takes 18650 lithium batteries, which are essentially electric ciggerette pen batteries. Bought one pair since last year and have never replaced them. The battery life goes on way longer than the stock ones do. And you can charge it using USB-C. Best easy upgrade r your Gamepad for sure.

https://www.etsy.com/listing/1076893524/wii-u-gamepad-extended-battery-usb-type

I have some 18650 batteries. Is this safe? How's the build? 18650s can vent

Post automatically merged: Apr 3, 2023

I don't know why I get attacked like that. Anyway.....

@EnterpriseFreak that's awesome. I just may wind up taking that route. There's some crazy 6500mah batteries out there. I'm not sure how well they work. Anyone try those? Thanks for all the great suggestions.

Any other cool mods? I saw articles on better screens and better speakers. I don't think those worked out though. I would really love a better screen. Looking for a transparent housing too.

Anyone find any good dockable armor? I like tpu. Might track down the hori one.

EnterpriseFreak · Apr 3, 2023

mikefor20 said:
@EnterpriseFreak that's awesome. I just may wind up taking that route. There's some crazy 6500mah batteries out there. I'm not sure how well they work. Anyone try those?

Well, I tried a 2500 mA LiPo battery before I settled for the Switch Lite one. Let me tell you right away: Whatever battery you're putting into the GamePad needs to have a third wire (its connected to a thermistor (resistor that changes its resistance with rising / falling temperature)) or the GamePad will refuse to charge the battery as it thinks the battery is overheating. Be careful with "small" batteries that advertise a large capacity, they're most likely total crap.

mikefor20 said:
Any other cool mods? I saw articles on better screens and better speakers. I don't think those worked out though. I would really love a better screen. Looking for a transparent housing too.

Can't say I ever heard of a speaker or screen mod for the Gamepad. Speakers are probably doable without much trouble as long as they fit in the original holes. As for the screen: Maybe, maybe, maybe there's an OLED or IPS screen that works available somewhere. If you want to upgrade the thing in terms of resolution I'd tell you to forget about it. The console sends a 480p h264 video stream to the pad and afaik there's nothing you could do to increase the res. or bitrate of it. Even if you could somehow the decoding hardware in the GamePad probably couldn't handle much more than what's being sent to it already anyway.

As for other mods you could do: You could add USB-C charging. I did that a while ago and it works just fine.

mikefor20 · Apr 3, 2023

EnterpriseFreak said:
Well, I tried a 2500 mA LiPo battery before I settled for the Switch Lite one. Let me tell you right away: Whatever battery you're putting into the GamePad needs to have a third wire (its connected to a thermistor (resistor that changes its resistance with rising / falling temperature)) or the GamePad will refuse to charge the battery as it thinks the battery is overheating. Be careful with "small" batteries that advertise a large capacity, they're most likely total crap.

Can't say I ever heard of a speaker or screen mod for the Gamepad. Speakers are probably doable without much trouble as long as they fit in the original holes. As for the screen: Maybe, maybe, maybe there's an OLED or IPS screen that works available somewhere. If you want to upgrade the thing in terms of resolution I'd tell you to forget about it. The console sends a 480p h264 video stream to the pad and afaik there's nothing you could do to increase the res. or bitrate of it. Even if you could somehow the decoding hardware in the GamePad probably couldn't handle much more than what's being sent to it already anyway.

As for other mods you could do: You could add USB-C charging. I did that a while ago and it works just fine.

USB-C? Now that's something. Maybe adding a bluetooth module? Just for kicks. I understand how resolution works. I was thinking IPS. OLED would be nice. I haven't seen anything except a thread or two that went nowhere.

Have any information on the USB C mod?

EnterpriseFreak · Apr 3, 2023

mikefor20 said:
Have any information on the USB C mod?

Yep, here you go: https://gbatemp.net/threads/just-added-usb-c-to-my-gamepad.607238/
It's a really simple mod, just needs a Type-C breakout board that limits the current to 5v 1.5a and some wires.

P_H_I · Apr 3, 2023

Let's talk fan mods. You could probably replace the stock Nidec fan with something like a Noctua A4x10. Not certain on the exact size but I imagine it'd be similar to the PS2's.

Could help with noise, not that the Wii U is incredibly noisy, but for $15 it definitely adds to the "ultimate" factor

mikefor20 · Apr 3, 2023

EnterpriseFreak said:
Yep, here you go: https://gbatemp.net/threads/just-added-usb-c-to-my-gamepad.607238/
It's a really simple mod, just needs a Type-C breakout board that limits the current to 5v 1.5a and some wires.

Thank you. This looks doable. I appreciate it.

P_H_I said:
Let's talk fan mods. You could probably replace the stock Nidec fan with something like a Noctua A4x10. Not certain on the exact size but I imagine it'd be similar to the PS2's.

Could help with noise, not that the Wii U is incredibly noisy, but for $15 it definitely adds to the "ultimate" factor

Uh,thanks I guess. I don't see the point. It's not noisy nor is the system hot. And frankly, your two prior posts leave a bad taste in my mouth.

Maybe if i had clear housing though And the fan could light up.. lol.

P_H_I · Apr 3, 2023

Wii U RGB sounds like a trip alright.

I may do a fan mod for my Wii U. If I ever get around to it I'll post pics/ share results. I did a Noctua swap for the PS2 and GameCube and was pleasantly surprised with the results. Those things are silent.

Also my initial post wasn't trying to start anything, I really appreciate what you're doing here (and apologize if it was interpreted otherwise). I went crazy with my GameCube (picoboot, xenogc, custom fan, custom light) so from one enthusiast to another I genuinely love this project

Sowden · Apr 4, 2023

mikefor20 said:
I have some 18650 batteries. Is this safe? How's the build? 18650s can vent

Not completely sure about that. I would just use the batteries specified on the site. Plus its a non-mod, no cut mod to charge your Gamepad using USB-C. Its pretty great.

Ryab · Apr 4, 2023

mikefor20 said:
Hello!

I am trying to build

the
ULTIMATE
WiiU!

I am looking for ideas. I am interested in narrowing down

The BEST hardware. What HDD is best? SD? Power solutions?

The BEST software. What's the most complete setup? I want to utilze all possible emulators, Homebrew..

The BEST Physical Mods. What is the best replacement battery? What is the best replacement housing? Can I improve the screen? Can i improve the gamepad range?

The BEST Accessories. What is the must have addons? Thinking of a tpu shell and some screen protectors. Charging stands

I am newish to WiiU but I'm reasonably well read on the subject and I'm looking to see what the great minds have to say.

I want all the bells and whistles. Atomic purple flashing blinking loud with all the games.

All of them.

I currently have a WD 2TB USB 3.0 elements with a y cable. For wiiu stuff and a 5 TB WD p10 gamedrive formated FAT32 in a single partition for the wii/gc stuff.

What do I need?

I appreciate anyone and everyones opinions and help!

Since the nand chip issues are starting I suppose SD nand replacement and access would be a good thing. If you want to go all in maybe even have easy access to this.

Post automatically merged: Apr 4, 2023

Replacing the charge port on the gamepad with USB-C and using a larger battery would also be a big one.

EnterpriseFreak · Apr 4, 2023

P_H_I said:
Let's talk fan mods. You could probably replace the stock Nidec fan with something like a Noctua A4x10. Not certain on the exact size but I imagine it'd be similar to the PS2's.

P_H_I said:
I may do a fan mod for my Wii U. If I ever get around to it I'll post pics/ share results.

I never even considered doing a fan mod for the Wii U, because as @mikefor20 said, the Wii U actually runs more or less quiet (well as long as you're not playing using a disc) and does not really get all that warm but now that you've brought up the idea I had to try. Long story short: It works (mostly). I'd say the fan is about as loud as the stock fan but that could just be me. In standby mode (yellow LED on) it definitively causes more noise than the stock fan because the Wii U is unable to regulate the RPM of the Noctua fan (or so it seems) and just has it run at full speed.

mikefor20 · Apr 4, 2023

Lol. Anyone try the aliexpress replacement housing? I am thinking Zelda... is it identical? Reviews go both ways.

rcpd · Apr 4, 2023

mikefor20 said:
Lol. Anyone try the aliexpress replacement housing? I am thinking Zelda... is it identical? Reviews go both ways.

I’ve done Ali for a replacement gamepad shell. The one I got was an original white shell from a broken console. Cost like $8 plus some change for shipping and took weeks to get to me. Looks good, feels original, picks up scuffs and fingerprints exactly like the original. Was missing every single sticker available though, so no model number or serial number.

9/10, would try again.

EnterpriseFreak · Apr 6, 2023

EnterpriseFreak said:
I never even considered doing a fan mod for the Wii U, because as @mikefor20 said, the Wii U actually runs more or less quiet (well as long as you're not playing using a disc) and does not really get all that warm but now that you've brought up the idea I had to try. Long story short: It works (mostly). I'd say the fan is about as loud as the stock fan but that could just be me. In standby mode (yellow LED on) it definitively causes more noise than the stock fan because the Wii U is unable to regulate the RPM of the Noctua fan (or so it seems) and just has it run at full speed.

Responsible disclosure, I guess:

That Noctua fan caused some sort of big issue that killed my Wii U. (Warning, the following is pure speculation!): I think the fan did somehow feed power back into the system during spin down which fried parts of the motherboard (most likely power delivery)

When I tried to use my Wii U yesterday, it powered up but the fan didn't spin up, so I opened the console up to see if maybe the soldering between the connector and the fan had somehow gone bad. It did not, so I mesured the voltage on the +5v pin only to see that instead of the 5v needed only about 0.5v were provided. So at this point I just thought to myself "Old tech is gonna have some issues at some point" and did a dumb thing (totally 100% my fault!) and soldered a jumper wire from USB 5v to the fan header. Would you look at that, it's working again. Hurray. And then I powered it off to put it back together and look at that, it's dead. So dead that not even the red power LED lights up anymore. I'm going to (half-heartedly) assume that maybe it's just a case of incredibly bad luck and that there were some issues with the console that built up over time that just so happend to reach the breaking point during my fan adventures. Regardless of that I'm going to advise everyone that considers doing this mod to be very careful! As for me, I'm probably going look for a defective Wii U (with a broken Disc Drive or something) on eBay and try that fan with an additional diode added to it's +5v line again.

Edit: After some testing and measuring with a multimeter it appears the fan really does generate voltage when it spins down, the worst I was able to measure is about 0.2v.

Blythe93 · Apr 6, 2023

Subscribed to the thread, I'll be watching this one closely! I love the "similar" Switch thread (one with SXOS and Atmosphere dual boot), so I'm sure there will be lots of good ideas.

Personally, I've been planning to get two 500GB SSDs for my two HDD Wii U setup (one fore Wii/GC games, the other one for Wii U games), so maybe you could do something similar? You don't need Y cable for those, USB ports can power the SSDs just fine. Or you can opt to find a two drive enclosure and try this out? I'd like to do that one myself but I couldn't find an enclosure at acceptable price for me yet. Advantages of having the two drive enclosure is that you're left with 3 more USB ports to work with. I'd use one for GC adapter and one of the front ports for the Wii U Microphones and whatnots.

Worth mentioning is that for the Ultimate Wii U you should probably opt for all official accessories as well. ^^ If available, of course. Here's the list of all things Wii U.
I also recently purchased a second Wii U gamepad since apparently there's a game that you can play with two gamepads.

As far as other accessories go, I also have a official Nintendo Wii Remote Rapid Charging set which turned my otherwise regular black Wiimote Plus into a one that has internal rechargeable battery.

If you'd like to add some custom 3D printed stands and whatnots, @MikaDubbz made a really awesome Wii U / n3DSXL stand.

As for the software, it's... all over the place. I love NUSspli and Retroarch the most as I use them the most. If needed, I'll post what I use but it's pretty much the stuff suggested on Wii U hacks website, plus all those useful apps posted by reputable developers here on GBATemp.

re_nfpii, the Wii U amiibo emulator, is what I'd like to take a look into one of these days as well, so there's that as well. Oh, and I love the ntrview, a Wii U client for 3DS' NTR CFW's RemotePlay.

Good luck in any case!

mikefor20 · Apr 6, 2023

rcpd said:
I’ve done Ali for a replacement gamepad shell. The one I got was an original white shell from a broken console. Cost like $8 plus some change for shipping and took weeks to get to me. Looks good, feels original, picks up scuffs and fingerprints exactly like the original. Was missing every single sticker available though, so no model number or serial number.

9/10, would try again.

Thanks. I'm getting the zelda one. In the cart!

EnterpriseFreak said:
Responsible disclosure, I guess:

That Noctua fan caused some sort of big issue that killed my Wii U. (Warning, the following is pure speculation!): I think the fan did somehow feed power back into the system during spin down which fried parts of the motherboard (most likely power delivery)

When I tried to use my Wii U yesterday, it powered up but the fan didn't spin up, so I opened the console up to see if maybe the soldering between the connector and the fan had somehow gone bad. It did not, so I mesured the voltage on the +5v pin only to see that instead of the 5v needed only about 0.5v were provided. So at this point I just thought to myself "Old tech is gonna have some issues at some point" and did a dumb thing (totally 100% my fault!) and soldered a jumper wire from USB 5v to the fan header. Would you look at that, it's working again. Hurray. And then I powered it off to put it back together and look at that, it's dead. So dead that not even the red power LED lights up anymore. I'm going to (half-heartedly) assume that maybe it's just a case of incredibly bad luck and that there were some issues with the console that built up over time that just so happend to reach the breaking point during my fan adventures. Regardless of that I'm going to advise everyone that considers doing this mod to be very careful! As for me, I'm probably going look for a defective Wii U (with a broken Disc Drive or something) on eBay and try that fan with an additional diode added to it's +5v line again.

YIKES! Thanks for the PSA and takin one for the team! Hope it all works out!

Blythe93 said:
Subscribed to the thread, I'll be watching this one closely! I love the "similar" Switch thread (one with SXOS and Atmosphere dual boot), so I'm sure there will be lots of good ideas.

Personally, I've been planning to get two 500GB SSDs for my two HDD Wii U setup (one fore Wii/GC games, the other one for Wii U games), so maybe you could do something similar? You don't need Y cable for those, USB ports can power the SSDs just fine. Or you can opt to find a two drive enclosure and try this out? I'd like to do that one myself but I couldn't find an enclosure at acceptable price for me yet. Advantages of having the two drive enclosure is that you're left with 3 more USB ports to work with. I'd use one for GC adapter and one of the front ports for the Wii U Microphones and whatnots.

Worth mentioning is that for the Ultimate Wii U you should probably opt for all official accessories as well. ^^ If available, of course. Here's the list of all things Wii U.
I also recently purchased a second Wii U gamepad since apparently there's a game that you can play with two gamepads.

As far as other accessories go, I also have a official Nintendo Wii Remote Rapid Charging set which turned my otherwise regular black Wiimote Plus into a one that has internal rechargeable battery.

If you'd like to add some custom 3D printed stands and whatnots, @MikaDubbz made a really awesome Wii U / n3DSXL stand.

As for the software, it's... all over the place. I love NUSspli and Retroarch the most as I use them the most. If needed, I'll post what I use but it's pretty much the stuff suggested on Wii U hacks website, plus all those useful apps posted by reputable developers here on GBATemp.

re_nfpii, the Wii U amiibo emulator, is what I'd like to take a look into one of these days as well, so there's that as well. Oh, and I love the ntrview, a Wii U client for 3DS' NTR CFW's RemotePlay.

Good luck in any case!

What thread were you on? My dual hidden partition thread? Welcome! Love the brainstorming. So far I'm thinking...

Zelda housing.
Official Screen Protector
Hori TPU clear Case.
Official extended battery
Second gamepad
custom stand to hold all of it.

extending the range of the gamepad. The thread i saw showed little improvement. Maybe a repeater?. Anyone know anything about that?

I'm looking in to adding bluetooth audio.

Probably do the USB C charging mod too

For storage i want to fit everything. I am not sure the best config is. I understand the Wii U is a piece of shit so i need to either modify the USB port or worry about power issues. What's the best setup? I have a WD 5TB HDD i use on my wii with a powered hub. I think that should hold all english Wii/GC plus a handful of Japanese titles. Then i was thinking a 2TB drive for WiiU romset. I also a couple ideas on SD cards. I have a 500GB SSD here.. I might use that. So I have questions.

Can the WiiU handle Flash drives or SD readers for the long run? I read a blurb about issues but idk much about it.

SSDs without external power?

Do certain things need to be on SD? I assume the old Wii requirements still apply. Riivolution, triforce and wiiware on SD. I have RAWK SD stuff.. anything I'm forgetting?

What exactly do i need to fit everything?

I'm also have one of these on the way.

https://www.icstation.com/mobile/du...switch-converter-raspberry-b2b3b-p-10868.html

I'm adding a ribbon cable and custom cases. For switch. Maybe for WiiU too.

Looking forward to your ideas!

Blythe93 · Apr 6, 2023

mikefor20 said:
Official Screen Protector

I assume that official one is pretty good, as well as accessories that come with it, like the DSi XL blue stylus. I recently purchased cheap third party protector and it was just a bit off the size of the screen (a bit bigger) so I removed it and, unfortunately, damaged the digitizer in process. It still works but there's a liner crack on it since protector was a bit too gluey for one reason or another. But, to be honest, do you even need a protector? With official styluses, I think you don't. Just don't stab the screen.

mikefor20 said:
Can the WiiU handle Flash drives or SD readers for the long run? I read a blurb about issues but idk much about it.

From what I've seen so far, flash drives and SD readers are not good as Wii U game storage, mainly due to the way Wii U handles writes to it. I'm not really technically familiar with the issue, but I know enough to stay away from those as they are prone to quick and random failure. HDDs and SSD are the way to go.

mikefor20 said:
SSDs without external power?

Works for me. The average HDD needs 6-15W whereas an SSD needs only 2-5W. I'm not sure if The Breath of the Wild is a good test case, but I've been running it off my SSD without any issue so far. SSD in question is Samsung EVO 850, connected to my Wii U with a SATA to USB3.0 cable.

mikefor20 said:
Do certain things need to be on SD? I assume the old Wii requirements still apply. Riivolution, triforce and wiiware on SD. I have RAWK SD stuff.. anything I'm forgetting?

In case you'd like to run Retroarch on it, its roms go to SD card (not sure if you can put them elsewhere). I personally use 128 GB SD card, 256 GB should be more than enough for most of the good stuff.

Help me build THE ULTIMATE WIIU!!

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