Wii on 3.1e Firmware

[BigJon]

Hi, i have been given a wii on 3.1e firmware, no soft mod or mod chip installed and i want to softmod it.

I see 4.3e firmware is best to do this using one of many tutorials i have found.

If i do an online update will this take me to 4.3e firmware or will it go higher and disable the ability to softmod it?

I have found refrences to a 4.4 firmware but its not listed on nintendo;s website as being released, does anyone actually know if it does exisr?

Thanks in advance

Jon

 

[XFlak]

4.4 doesn't exist

If the wii was ever originally Korean and poorly region changed an official update could 003 brick you. I know you said the wii hasn't been modified but often Korean consoles are modded and sold second hand, and the new owner has no idea it was ever Korean.

If you use ModMii, you can softmod your wii and safely update to 4.3 simultaneously, and this way is safe even if the wii was previously poorly region changed.

ModMii works no matter what system menu version you are on, so there's no need to do an official update beforehand.

 

[BigJon]

Ok, thank you for the advice

 

[TheStonedModder]

4.4 doesn't exist

If the wii was ever originally Korean and poorly region changed an official update could 003 brick you. I know you said the wii hasn't been modified but often Korean consoles are modded and sold second hand, and the new owner has no idea it was ever Korean.

If you use ModMii, you can softmod your wii and safely update to 4.3 simultaneously, and this way is safe even if the wii was previously poorly region changed.

ModMii works no matter what system menu version you are on, so there's no need to do an official update beforehand.

Out of curiosity, what do you mean by “poorly region changed”?

How would one method be better than another?

 

[BigJon]

I ended up doing an official system update online and now im on 4.3e so im happy,

Homedrew channel all done and working.

Looks like 4.4 doesnt exist, god knows why people are saying 4.4 exists

Thank you again...

 

[SylverReZ]

The only benefit out of firmware 3.1 would be to use a modchip, later System Menu versions patched the trucha bug. So, I would advise upgrading to the latest System Menu to softmod your Wii.

Post automatically merged: Jun 30, 2023

I ended up doing an official system update online and now im on 4.3e so im happy,

Homedrew channel all done and working.

Looks like 4.4 doesnt exist, god knows why people are saying 4.4 exists

Thank you again...

Good job. Then follow the rest of https://wii.guide.

 

[XFlak]

Out of curiosity, what do you mean by “poorly region changed”?

How would one method be better than another?

A Wii that was originally Korean and poorly region changed often results in 003 bricks. There are 2 ways to prevent 003 bricks when region changing and Modmii implements both methods, but some guides will implement 0, especially older ones

If u originally had a Korean system menu then region change but stay on 4.1 or lower u are safe, but an official update to 4.2 or 4.3 will cause brick. To prevent this you need to preemptively install a custom ios80 (ios60 installed to slot 80) with higher version number than the official version, and same goes for slot 70 if updating to 4.2. Ios60 is the system menu IOS for 4.1, and pretty much works perfectly for all system menu versions.

In other words, if u were originally running a Korean system menu, then region changed, and have a stock ios70 or IOS80 as your system menu IOS u will 003 brick UNLESS you preemptively took the 2nd preventative measure - which is to remove the Korean key from the seeprom using Korean Kii

So to sum up, when region changing away from Korean, ideally u will install a custom ios with high version # based on ios60 to slots 70 and 80 AND remove the Korean key from the seeprom using Korean kii

In order to 003 brick u would have to be running 4.2U/E/J or 4.3U/E/J without a custom system menu IOS based on ios60 and also still have the Korean key in the seeprom (edit: other cIOSs may be able to avoid bricks too but definitely not stock ios70 or IOS80)

003 bricks are easily recoverable (by implementing one or both of the precautions mentioned above) so long as u have priiloader or bootmii boot2 installed, and sometimes other methods work like savemiifrii or bluebomb but are more challenging. Unfortunately official updates typically remove priiloader - yet another reason why offline updates can be safer, as priiloader can be retained when updating via WADs if using YAWM ModMii Edition as your wad manager.

Sorry for the verbose and repetitive post, but I hope it answered your question