Hardware Wii Repairs - Artifacts

[nilum]

I've been dealing with artifacts on my Wii's display for a long time. It appears that the GPU is permanently damaged, and the artifacts are getting worse.

I've decided to get it repaired, but I have a hacked Wii.

I guess my best bet would be to install an official update and have my wii wiped clean (I assume that's what an official update will do), or use MMM or something to delete all the cIOS I have on my Wii and delete the Homebrew Channel etc.

I guess my only fear is that I will end up with a Wii with 4.3U and an unusable boot2 when I get it back.

So I have a few questions for anyone who has had this problem, or has needed to send their hacked Wii out for repair:
Do they update your consoles firmware or change the boot2?
Did you make sure to get rid of any trace of cIOS and homebrew before you sent it off to be repaired?
What steps did you take to clean your Wii if you did?
How much did it cost you (especially want to know if you had the same artifacting issue I do)?

Thanks in advance.

 

[trumpet-205]

Even if you install official update, there are still traces of softmodding that you cannot remove.

Your best option is to tell Nintendo that the back of your fan is not spinning. Hence, it cause overheating. They may repair it for free.

They usually upgrade your Wii to the latest, including boot2.

 

[Rydian]

http://hackmii.com/2010/04/check-disk-for-...cess/#more-1006

Yeah, seems there's lots of ways for them to check.

 

[VashTS]

you should update it then pull the power halfway through tell them the update screwed up and now it won't turn on.

 

[Delta517]

I got the same problem as you.

Damn Artifacts!

Never sent it in though, since I almost never play on it anymore.

 

[WiiPower]

I'm curious, did you 2 use WiiConnect24? (wii has orange not red led in "standby")

 

[Mantis41]

Everyone who has had GPU problems. Have you had your Wiis in the verticle position or not?

 

[JHardin1112]

I have some slight artifacts when playing Metroid Prime 3: Corruption during the ship flight movies, as in when you call your ship to a location, like the cloud level. It wasn't terrible, but a bit noticeable. Also, I believe I had some while playing Twilight Princess and then some within the Homebrew channel. I have always had my Wii in the vertical position. And I always have WiiConnect24 on, but whenever I turn my Wii off I always make sure I hold down the power button until the red light appears.

 

[nilum]

I keep my Wii vertical and also for a long period of time my Wii was in standby mode, but that was before I knew there were problems with standby.

So you guys think if I send my Wii in they are going to get me for breaking their protection or something? I mean do they really go out of their way to check for that sort of thing. I guess I could always tell them I bought it from a garage sale or something - and it was like that when I bought it.

 

[trumpet-205]

I keep my Wii vertical and also for a long period of time my Wii was in standby mode, but that was before I knew there were problems with standby.

So you guys think if I send my Wii in they are going to get me for breaking their protection or something? I mean do they really go out of their way to check for that sort of thing. I guess I could always tell them I bought it from a garage sale or something - and it was like that when I bought it.

At most they just going to refuse repairing it and send it back. They aren't going to call the police or file a lawsuit.

 

[justmike]

Yes, I had the same problem.

If they find traces of homebrew on the Wii, they will call you up and say it was the homebrew that was causing it and they can't fix it. Pay $$$ to have it sent back to you or we can give you a new Wii for cheap.

They can't fix your Wii. Half the time they won't even see the problem. If they do, they give you a new Wii (assuming you are under guarantee). You won't have your Wii back so they will copy your data over (as per your request).

So they won't take you to court if they find anything illegal. They will just say they found it, you say I bought it like that and they offer to send your Wii back.

 

[nilum]

So I went ahead and got a shipping label, and went through the best that I could to clear off my Wii.

No pirated games. No homebrew. No priiloader. No patched IOS. No cIOS. No bootmii. No homebrew channel.

Here is the guide I made while doing it.

Nilum's Revirginize Guide
Google Docs Version

It's going to be $85 for repair. Asked if I could send my own thermal paste and they refused to let me even talk to one of the service techs about it.

Asked if I would be allowed to install it myself afterwards and they told me that they woul refuse to work on the system in the future if they find it was tampered with. So I dunno. I will still probably put some ICD7 on the heatsink when I get it back, or at least after the year I am covered under their repair warranty.

 

[trumpet-205]

So I went ahead and got a shipping label, and went through the best that I could to clear off my Wii.

No pirated games. No homebrew. No priiloader. No patched IOS. No cIOS. No bootmii. No homebrew channel.

Here is the guide I made while doing it.

Nilum's Revirginize Guide
Google Docs Version

It's going to be $85 for repair. Asked if I could send my own thermal paste and they refused to let me even talk to one of the service techs about it.

Asked if I would be allowed to install it myself afterwards and they told me that they woul refuse to work on the system in the future if they find it was tampered with. So I dunno. I will still probably put some ICD7 on the heatsink when I get it back, or at least after the year I am covered under their repair warranty.

I would recommend getting a external cooling (usb or dock) fan rather than applying thermal paste and heatsink. Too much of the efforts and potentially damage your Wii.

 

[BORTZ]

Im waiting for this to happen to mine. i got mine pretty early but i dont have artifacting yet... Crosses fingers

 

[justmike]

I'm curious, did they fix this with the new Wiis? The burning up that causes the artifacts?

 

[trumpet-205]

I'm curious, did they fix this with the new Wiis? The burning up that causes the artifacts?

You mean that fan does not spin? I'm not sure. I still hear people suffers from this problem from time to time though. Nintendo never acknowledge about this I'm afraid.

 

[Raiser]

Please excuse my noobiness, but what are "artifacts" / is "artifacting"?

 

[Valfore]

i've taken my chances and just given my wii a reflow with a heatgun, suffers from the artifacts problem also, its just a spare wii thats got the problem quite severely, so buggering it up entirely is no loss to me, anyone else tried reflowing their wii with successful results?, atm mine is cooling down

EDIT: Didn't seem to make a difference but who knows, might've not done it long enough

 

[koji2009]

Raiser: Artifacting is when there are little graphical glitches in the display. In recorded videos, these are obvious when you have a bad encode because it causes odd pixelation. When 3d hardware starts to break down, it does something similar only it's generally more obvious (instead of pixelation it's random colored pixels that are generally pretty bright and contrast a lot with everything else)

 

[afnuke]

artifacts were on mine.........continued for 2 months and got really bad even though it never gets above 74 in my room. I have 3 computer systems and clean everything on a regular basis. wiiconnect was on and that has to be the problem I had.....it was NOT dirty and the fans ran fine. Nintendo replaced mine after I complained it was only a month past its warranty and they sent a new one.....so I will have to say their customer service was A+ for me. BTW, using a probe shows that if you play movies through it the temps are higher than any other time....I dont recommend it.