Hacking Brick Precautions

[TR88]

Hi, you can say I just had the other day, a near brick experience. I was playing my SNES emulator on my Wii as it turned white screened and began to flash as if it became a seizure channel. So fortunately, long story to be shortened, it was my TV that actually caused this problem. It was the only thing that broke and I was able to get my money back for the TV. The Wii works fine. Now, as I came so close to this, I wanna know what can cause bricks, from the whole list. I would appreciate all info on it, I wanna keep my Wii safe. I've played this SNES emu several of times, it works great and caused no problems, do that mean it is fine? Could I one day again be playing it and see my Wii to be bricked now?

 

[bugaveli]

search and read is the best way to keep from bricking your wii,

 

[Jytach]

Modding your Wii in any way that Nintendo do not officially support can cause bricks.

So basically:
* Don't use the TH hack
* Don't try to run custom code
* Don't install modchips
* Don't mess with the IOS


If your custom setup is running fine, then you woudn't have much to worry about.


If you want to do one of the above then:

* Only follow a tutorial if it has already been done by several people with few errors
* Always read about them, so you may see what other people did wrong
* Always read everything 2 or 3 times and make sure everything is ok
* Avoid installing experimental apps, or anything that is hard to remove
* Be patient and stay calm if anything goes wrong
* Don't try to mod your Wii while drunk

 

[dmonkey21]

There are really only 3 things that commonly cause bricks, and if you protect yourself from them and have an IQ over 20, you should be in the clear.

Bad wads - This is when you install a bad WAD and get a brick from it, usually due to something being off with the banner (Usually custom made channels and stuff). Although this is not really an issue anymore because of WADder, which resizes the image automatically, but you can never be too safe. The obvious precaution against this kind of brick would be to not use custom made channels. That isn't really too fun though, and if you are going to install WAD's, be sure you are protected; either have a modchip or install starfall. This will allow you to auto-boot Twilight Princess and use the Twilight hack to run Wad Manager and remove the bad wad. There are many guides on recovering from banner bricks on this site, so I won't go into this any further.

Brick from an update - These are bricks you can get from installing an update from a game that is a different region from your Wii. To protect against this, either only use games from your region, or run the game through brickblocker or a similar program that can remove updates from games.

Brick from using up disk space - This is probably the silliest way you can get a bricked Wii, but it can happen if you get careless. You can get a brick if you install too many WAD's or other homebrew on your wii and use up all of the disk space. Just be careful and make sure you have enough space before you install all those VC games

These are the most common ways to brick your Wii, and if you are protected against these then you should be fine

Keep in mind, there are other ways to brick your Wii, but they are usually caused by mistakes made under specific circumstances and if you are in one of those circumstances you will probably already know about the risks of whatever you are doing.

 

[djtaz]

deleting ios's that your wii is using with the any title deleter is another
ios30 is the system menu iso - delete that and ur bricked.

 

[dmonkey21]

deleting ios's that your wii is using with the any title deleter is another
ios30 is the system menu iso - delete that and ur bricked.

Ya, definitely that. But if you don't know much about modding your wii and you go deleting ios's, I think that falls under the IQ under 20 category lol

 

[TR88]

Thanks for all the info, much appreciated. About the Region brick, will Gecko cover removing the update? I planned on using Gecko for future potential imported games.

 

[Prawnmatic]

Brick from using up disk space - This is probably the silliest way you can get a bricked Wii, but it can happen if you get careless. You can get a brick if you install too many WAD's or other homebrew on your wii and use up all of the disk space. Just be careful and make sure you have enough space before you install all those VC games

I was installing some channel wads yesterday and after installing one and returning to the System Menu it popped up a message saying something like "Your Wii is out of memory, please delete some applications." It then launched the memory manager for me.

I always test a channel after installing before installing any more but your point has made me wonder if I narrowly avoided a brick? The channel I installed works fine - is it possible that this channel used up exactly the amount of memory that was left?
If I had installed another channel without testing it first (and therefore receiving the "out of memory" alert) would I have bricked? Will wad manager let you install channels larger than the remaining amount of memory on your Wii?

If anyone could answer these questions it'd be most appreciated!

 

[f00had]

I remember installing lots of games at once - Mario Kart 64, Smash Bros and Zelda Ocarina of Time. I had to delete all 3 to get 50 blocks back

 

[Opium]

Hi, you can say I just had the other day, a near brick experience. I was playing my SNES emulator on my Wii as it turned white screened and began to flash as if it became a seizure channel. So fortunately, long story to be shortened, it was my TV that actually caused this problem. It was the only thing that broke and I was able to get my money back for the TV. The Wii works fine. Now, as I came so close to this, I wanna know what can cause bricks, from the whole list. I would appreciate all info on it, I wanna keep my Wii safe. I've played this SNES emu several of times, it works great and caused no problems, do that mean it is fine? Could I one day again be playing it and see my Wii to be bricked now?

That makes absolutely no sense what so ever. But anywho:

If you have a modchip install the twilight hack and backup an image of Zelda Twilight Princess. If you do manage to brick yourself you can use the image and another tool to autoboot into the game and the homebrew hack, allowing you to install things again. It's a good safety measure.

 

[dmonkey21]

Hi, you can say I just had the other day, a near brick experience. I was playing my SNES emulator on my Wii as it turned white screened and began to flash as if it became a seizure channel. So fortunately, long story to be shortened, it was my TV that actually caused this problem. It was the only thing that broke and I was able to get my money back for the TV. The Wii works fine. Now, as I came so close to this, I wanna know what can cause bricks, from the whole list. I would appreciate all info on it, I wanna keep my Wii safe. I've played this SNES emu several of times, it works great and caused no problems, do that mean it is fine? Could I one day again be playing it and see my Wii to be bricked now?

That makes absolutely no sense what so ever. But anywho:

If you have a modchip install the twilight hack and backup an image of Zelda Twilight Princess. If you do manage to brick yourself you can use the image and another tool to autoboot into the game and the homebrew hack, allowing you to install things again. It's a good safety measure.

Ya, you definitely want to be able to recover like this. If you have TP but no chip, then you should probably just use starfall, unless you want to get a modchip. If you have neither, probably get a modchip. It's easier and it probably costs about the same as a legal version of TP lol.

 

[ether2802]

Stay away from construction places, it can be contagious..!!