Hardware I have a wii with Graphics issues, can I swap the nand chip to a new console?

[b4wii]

my buddies wii now has some weird graphical error to where it will no longer properly display anything except really dark almost garbled display. like all the white is now black. but some color remains.
my question is, is it possible to take the physical nand chip from the wii with the messed up graphics and install the chip onto a working wii?

from doing a little bit of research, there is keys stored in the nand chip, but what i cant get a straight answer to, is does the keys stored on the nand chip interface with some other chip on the wii?

i have a hot air station and a different working wii, but from everything that i am reading, the nand needes to be read out via bootmii and transferred and the keys messed with via software to be able to put a nand backup onto a different wii. if i am understanding that correctly.

would like to be able to get all their data from their old wii.
i am not sure if i can get the old wii with the graphics issues hacked to be able to get a nand dump.

alternatively, i do have a chip programmer that i belive can read/write nand flash chips. would that be an option to get a nand dump?

thanks in advanced for any help.

-B4wii

 

[master801]

Sure you can dump the NAND externally, but then you run into the problem of not being able to read or modify the contents because of no keys.

From my understand, the NAND keys are not stored within the NAND.

• Clusters 0x40 - 0x7EFF: Encrypted filesystem data. Data is encrypted with a per-console AES key, and then signed with a (separate, per-console) HMAC key.

Source: https://wiibrew.org/wiki/Hardware/NAND#Physical_layout

Spoiler

I'd check if replacing capacitors helps restore video instead of trying to mess with the NAND.

 

[KleinesSinchen]

The OTP is not part of the NAND. That is exactly the purpose. CPU and NAND are "married to each other". Copy protection of downloaded software would have been broken on first day if this was different. They could just have the NAND unencrypted then -- It is like placing your house key under the doormat: You could just leave the door unlocked.

If you solder in the NAND chip from console A to console B you get a black screen and nothing more.
You have to dump the keys (OTP) from the bad Wii in order to do anything. Try getting BootMii to work. It will dump keys and NAND content.

Once you have NAND image and keys, you can re-encrypt it for another consoles, where you have to have the appropriate keys as well. Flashing NAND images via BootMii is dangerous on all units with the newer boot1, so be warned.

 

[XFlak]

Once you have NAND image and keys, you can re-encrypt it for another consoles, where you have to have the appropriate keys as well. Flashing NAND images via BootMii is dangerous on all units with the newer boot1, so be warned.

This.

You can accomplish this if u have a nand.bin from both wii's using a tool called punetwiin. However if u open one of the nand.bin's using modmii it will help make the cloning process easier.

 

[b4wii]

interesting. so basically without being able to extract the keys from the broken wii, a nand transplant is basically no go. i could see if I can keep the GPU working long enough to do a bootmii hack, but it seriously is really hard to even see the original wii menu, and that is mostly white.

Post automatically merged: Dec 28, 2023

interesting. so basically without being able to extract the keys from the broken wii, a nand transplant is basically no go. i could see if I can keep the GPU working long enough to do a bootmii hack, but it seriously is really hard to even see the original wii menu, and that is mostly white.

I may try reflowing the GPU first with a hot air station before I attempt anything like bootmii or anything else.
Thanks all.

 

[JuanMena]

interesting. so basically without being able to extract the keys from the broken wii, a nand transplant is basically no go. i could see if I can keep the GPU working long enough to do a bootmii hack, but it seriously is really hard to even see the original wii menu, and that is mostly white.

Post automatically merged: Dec 28, 2023

I may try reflowing the GPU first with a hot air station before I attempt anything like bootmii or anything else.
Thanks all.

Have you tried replacing the CAPS near the Video Output in the motherboard?

 

[b4wii]

Have you tried replacing the CAPS near the Video Output in the motherboard?

interesting, umm is there a cap kit that someone makes with a guide on what ones to replace? i didn't even consider that the caps could have failed causing this mostly black screen issue. besides the really dark screen with slightly messed up colors, the wii will not output over component or the WII2HDMI adaptors.

Post automatically merged: Dec 28, 2023

interesting, umm is there a cap kit that someone makes with a guide on what ones to replace? i didn't even consider that the caps could have failed causing this mostly black screen issue. besides the really dark screen with slightly messed up colors, the wii will not output over component or the WII2HDMI adaptors.

just found this seller online that has replacement surface mount electrolytics. https://console5.com/store/nintendo-wii-smd-electrolytic-cap-kit.html

 

[JuanMena]

interesting, umm is there a cap kit that someone makes with a guide on what ones to replace? i didn't even consider that the caps could have failed causing this mostly black screen issue. besides the really dark screen with slightly messed up colors, the wii will not output over component or the WII2HDMI adaptors.

Post automatically merged: Dec 28, 2023

just found this seller online that has replacement surface mount electrolytics. https://console5.com/store/nintendo-wii-smd-electrolytic-cap-kit.html

Yeah, sounds like a CAP failure. If I'm not mistaken, all of them has the same value. They're printed on the CAPS themselves. So, open up your Wii, and take a look. Get the replacements, solder them and check if the problem gets fixed.

 

[b4wii]

Yeah, sounds like a CAP failure. If I'm not mistaken, all of them has the same value. They're printed on the CAPS themselves. So, open up your Wii, and take a look. Get the replacements, solder them and check if the problem gets fixed.

thanks, will try this first and report back! the cap kit was pretty cheap too.