Hardware Wii U Nand-Aid installed, but no visual output whatsoever!

L-Legomaster

Member
OP
Newcomer
Joined
Oct 11, 2024
Messages
8
Trophies
0
Website
l-legomaster.neocities.org
XP
36
Country
Netherlands
After installing the Nand-Aid v4.1 i bought from v10lator1 i'm having a little bit of trouble that hopefully someone who knows more about the HDMI/AV output of this thing would be able to help me with.

Namely, the power and disc LEDs do turn on, and when the power button is pressed it does go from red to blue, with the disc drive whirring up and down, but after that pretty much nothing happens!
The HDMI nor composite outputs don't display anything (No matter the tv or cable i've tried), it doesn't respond to the raspberry pi i'm using with UDPIH, nor UDPIH with the minute loader referred to in the MLC rebuilding guide, which should make the LED change from blue to purple.

I've tried all combinations of booting it up with the front, disc drive, heatshield and everything attatched, just the front, the front and heatshield, plugging in the raspberry pi before even the first disc drive sound.
I've checked all of my soldered connections and everything's connected right, nothing is shorted or the likes (Except the Ground and Clock lines, since those are supposed to be shorted using the DSB jumper (Section: Soldering NAND-AID))

For clarity: the microSD in the nand-aid has nothing on it and is formatted to FAT32, since the MLC rebuild guide doesn't mention it having anything on there. The large SD in the front slot was also formatted to FAT32, but had the files from the ISFShax guide, along with the mlc files from the mlc guide on there. Later i tried just the original UDPIH sd-card files, but that didn't do anything either.
The Wii U did display visuals until i installed the Nand-Aid (Showing the white screen with the logo, and the recovery menu and minute menu when interrupted with UDPIH)

Below i've attatched the images of the Output part of the board, Two angles of the nand-aid, the wiring at the Original NAND end, and of the wiring at the 3.3V contact point near there.
Maybe i'm just missing some small detail that'll suddenly make this entire thing work? In any case, i'd love to hear what's wrong here, and what could fix it!
AV_Out_Untouched.jpg

(Various outputs)

Overview_Nandaid.jpg

(Overview of nand-aid)

GoodLookAt_Nandaid.jpg

(Better look at the Nand-Aid itself)

Original_Hynix_Nand.jpg

(The state of things at the hynix nand end of things)

Contactpoint 3.3V.jpg

(3.3V contact point)
 

V10lator

Well-Known Member
Member
Joined
Apr 21, 2019
Messages
2,755
Trophies
1
Age
36
XP
5,960
Country
Germany
As I had contact on eBay already I should maybe add that this is the second NAND-AID which had been tried. I'm telling this cause the first one was located differently and I guess that a nearby SMD component or something might have gotten some simple damage like a small short.

Have some pictures of the first one if helpful cause sadly I can't be much of a help with that kind of stuff:
1728675916483.png

1728675967512.png

1728676003126.png

//EDIT: Wait a second... is the blue cable at the hynix chip bridging the cut on the Wii U PCB ? That might explain this behavior... @SDIO or someone other more experienced than me, could you confirm that this could be the root before we try to fix this, please?
Also does somebody know another pad or VIA to solder that blue cable / CLK line to in case it has to be desoldered again?

//EDIT²: Or... Could we not just do a new cut there to maybe fix this without any more soldering? Right below the hynix chip? CC @SDIO again. ;)
 
Last edited by V10lator,

SDIO

Well-Known Member
Member
Joined
Feb 13, 2023
Messages
2,985
Trophies
2
Age
29
XP
2,300
Country
Germany
If you didnt install ISFShax before (which you didn't, else the LED would be purple, not blue) and the SD in the NAND-AID is empty, than this is the expected behavior. The Wii U tries to boot normally but doesn't have it's file system on the mlc, so it crashes...

So either reconnect the eMMC (and remove the SD from the NAND-AID), so it boots at least far enough again that UDPIH can be used to install ISFShax or use defuse.

Also with such long wires, you might run into signal integrity problems, but that isn't your current problem...
Also it's very thick wires...

EDIT: also the CK pad on the NAND-AID doesn't connect to the SD slot but only to the eMMC side castalated via.
 
  • Like
Reactions: V10lator

V10lator

Well-Known Member
Member
Joined
Apr 21, 2019
Messages
2,755
Trophies
1
Age
36
XP
5,960
Country
Germany
the microSD in the nand-aid has nothing on it and is formatted to FAT32
Damn, was so on the soldering side that i completely overlooked that part. Great spot as always @SDIO , thanks a lot.

I still wonder if the original eMMC is still connected / bridged by the blue cable through, so maybe the Wii U will just boot far enough to install ISFSHax without an SD card in the NAND-AID?

//EDIT²: And yea, now I see what SDIO means with CLK not beeing on the NAND-AID SD. In fact it's shorted to GND on Wii U side thanks to the DSB pad!

I think I'm able to continue from here. Thanks again for the great assistance SDIO!

So @L-Legomaster could you either remove the cable here (but keep the other side connected, you'll need it later) :
1728680443389.jpeg

Or remove the short/bridge over these two DSB pads here:
1728680526125.jpeg


Then remove the micro SD card from the NAND-AID and try to boot UDPIH again. If that works use that to install ISFSHax. Tell us if that worked, then I'll tell you the next step. ;)
 
Last edited by V10lator,

SDIO

Well-Known Member
Member
Joined
Feb 13, 2023
Messages
2,985
Trophies
2
Age
29
XP
2,300
Country
Germany
All the resistors seem to be gone, not sure if they are all bridges over. Hard to tell with all the debris on the picture
 
  • Like
Reactions: V10lator

V10lator

Well-Known Member
Member
Joined
Apr 21, 2019
Messages
2,755
Trophies
1
Age
36
XP
5,960
Country
Germany
@SDIO I think I see ripped pads and bridges made over them on purpose but also highly unsure so let's just wait for the test result I guess.
 

L-Legomaster

Member
OP
Newcomer
Joined
Oct 11, 2024
Messages
8
Trophies
0
Website
l-legomaster.neocities.org
XP
36
Country
Netherlands
If you didnt install ISFShax before (which you didn't, else the LED would be purple, not blue) and the SD in the NAND-AID is empty, than this is the expected behavior. The Wii U tries to boot normally but doesn't have it's file system on the mlc, so it crashes...
Yep! I think i just backed up everything like said in the tutorial, but completely forgot to install ISFShax itself! :P


Test results after de-soldering the short on the DSB PAD: Nothing changed, Probably because those connections to the NAND are just shredded. Honnestly expected this because most of those resistors leading to the NAND were just gone after the first NAND-AID attempt.

So, i assume now i'll have to use defuse and figure out how to do that?


Small question in the meantime: I do have the SLC, SLCCMPT, Seeprom and Otp backed up as files from when minute and UDPIH did work. Couldn't i somehow use those on the sd card and have it boot from there, like it's the old eMMC?
Recovered files.png
 

Anxiety_timmy

Average Asura
Member
Joined
Oct 20, 2019
Messages
839
Trophies
1
Location
The Local Dumpster
XP
2,836
Country
United States
I don't even know where to begin with this.
Soldering looks awful and that's probably the main issue, especially in one of the pictures all of the resistors are either gone or the pads are just gone. The board might as well be for scraps only at that point.
 

SDIO

Well-Known Member
Member
Joined
Feb 13, 2023
Messages
2,985
Trophies
2
Age
29
XP
2,300
Country
Germany
If you install defuse, it can do everything that ISFShax can. It you want to keep it defused that's fine. If you choose to use redNAND instead of the NAND-AID you need either defuse or ISFShax. In that case you can switch to ISFShax if you want to remove the Pico again, but it would also work with defuse.

And for the soldering: it would recommend to use more flux in the future. It looks like you didn't use any. Flux makes it so much easier
 

Site & Scene News

Popular threads in this forum

General chit-chat
Help Users
    Vetusomaru @ Vetusomaru: i still have to make a cleanup to my MAME folder but that will be a pain the ass because of the...