Is my internal Bluetooth dying?

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rabbitsong

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I've been experiencing these flickers of disconnects (best I can describe them) on certain games that seem sensitive enough to pick up on them, because it's not all of them. It's been all on the vWii side of things. Mario 64 VC stutters when he runs, as if the run was interrupted. He also gets up randomly when crouched or crawling. Streets of Rage 2 VC when walking they flicker to their standing animation. The most noticeable game was Mario Galaxy (disc not loader), pointing at any selectable menu thing that reacts to the pointer, I notice the flickering there a lot.

I haven't found this issue on other VC games that I have, I tried emulators, Gamecube games, other Wii games... I tried a homebrew app called Visual Controller Test and it didn't detect any connection flickering either. On the Wii U side of things, I don't have it modded so I can't try Mario 64 VC, but I tried everything I have with no issues. I wonder if some games are more sensitive to it than others.

If my Bluetooth module is dying I really have no issues because it seems they're cheap and easy enough to replace. My doubts is if what I'm experiencing is interference or the homebrew causing the issue like Priiloader, or a cIOs I messed up. That's where I need advice on how do I make sure I need to replace the module. I notice that the most common issue is with the module of the gamepad. Haven't found anyone who had to replace the internal one.

I kinda wish the issue was bigger, more widely ocurring, and I could see it on the Wii U side of things, that's what makes me doubt on the homebrew. Anybody has had this same issue? Is there any homebrew app for Wii that would better diagnose it? Should I wait till it gets worse?
 
I've been experiencing these flickers of disconnects (best I can describe them) on certain games that seem sensitive enough to pick up on them, because it's not all of them. It's been all on the vWii side of things. Mario 64 VC stutters when he runs, as if the run was interrupted. He also gets up randomly when crouched or crawling. Streets of Rage 2 VC when walking they flicker to their standing animation. The most noticeable game was Mario Galaxy (disc not loader), pointing at any selectable menu thing that reacts to the pointer, I notice the flickering there a lot.

I haven't found this issue on other VC games that I have, I tried emulators, Gamecube games, other Wii games... I tried a homebrew app called Visual Controller Test and it didn't detect any connection flickering either. On the Wii U side of things, I don't have it modded so I can't try Mario 64 VC, but I tried everything I have with no issues. I wonder if some games are more sensitive to it than others.

If my Bluetooth module is dying I really have no issues because it seems they're cheap and easy enough to replace. My doubts is if what I'm experiencing is interference or the homebrew causing the issue like Priiloader, or a cIOs I messed up. That's where I need advice on how do I make sure I need to replace the module. I notice that the most common issue is with the module of the gamepad. Haven't found anyone who had to replace the internal one.

I kinda wish the issue was bigger, more widely ocurring, and I could see it on the Wii U side of things, that's what makes me doubt on the homebrew. Anybody has had this same issue? Is there any homebrew app for Wii that would better diagnose it? Should I wait till it gets worse?
Have you tried a different wiimote? Could be that simple.
 
did you use the original sensor bar or a 3rd-party one with battery? face your phone camera to it to check if the infrared lights on the bar are working
Yeah, it is the original and the lights are working. Afaik, the sensor bar only projects the lights and it's the Wiimote that reads them and sends the signal to the console through bluetooth. That's where something is going wrong. I can see the sensor bar being a problem with Mario Galaxy, but I play Mario 64 and Streets of Rage on VC with a Classic Controller that is just using the Wiimote as a bluetooth dongle.
 
Last edited by rabbitsong,
Then maybe there is interference, Wii U is famous for its EMI design. Try relocate the console, put it far away from HDDs, wireless routers and other possible sources emitting interference. I encountered similar issues when playing Wii Fit U, the balance board's feed is dubious sometimes, after relocating the console it recovered.
 
Then maybe there is interference, Wii U is famous for its EMI design. Try relocate the console, put it far away from HDDs, wireless routers and other possible sources emitting interference. I encountered similar issues when playing Wii Fit U, the balance board's feed is dubious sometimes, after relocating the console it recovered.
This is particular! During the height of Splatoon 1 I was playing online nearly everyday! Even if I had my router right next to my Wii U, I'd just end up getting disconnected from my current match with the infamous "Connection is not stable" message appearing on screen.

Definitely doesn't help that the Wii U had to both send and receive network packets for online connectivity over 2.4GHz, while sending video data and receive input packets using 5GHz Wi-Fi.
 
Then maybe there is interference, Wii U is famous for its EMI design. Try relocate the console, put it far away from HDDs, wireless routers and other possible sources emitting interference. I encountered similar issues when playing Wii Fit U, the balance board's feed is dubious sometimes, after relocating the console it recovered.
This may very possibly be the case. I have a small apartment so I can't change the location too far away. I went to a different room and it was kinda the same. I also took it to someone else's house to test that and it was significantly less but still there. The other night I was up really late, like 2-3 am, and I was going test turning the wifi router off, but instead I changed the pointer sensibility to 5. I usually have it at 1 because during the day it picks up a lot of other light source interference. I don't know if that did anything but I never had any flickering with Streets of Rage, and with Mario, maybe in the span of an hour, I noticed two small stutters. Everything was very playable. I don't know if that setting increases the infrared sensor's strength or the bluetooth signal, or maybe that it was just because it waw night time when the neighbors and everyone are not using any electronics around. Would this also be a symptom of an old bluetooth module that I should replace? It's making me very untrusting when I play. I don't think I can play Rythm Heaven like this.
 
Last edited by rabbitsong,
Sensor bar is only sending infrared signal, the pointing/processing is on the wiimote side only. if the pointer movement seems stable and continuous in system ui then the bar should be fine.

As for the wiimote connection, the best testing scenario I found is the boxing mini game in wii fit/ fit U which transmitting sound from the wiimote speaker, if your in-game coach's voice is interrupting from time to time then the connection has some interference, but most games should still be OK to play.
If you can barely heard the coach's voice from the wiimote's speaker then the connection is really bad, like I mentioned above try relocating the console.
 

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