Wii U overclocking

[DInkus3000]

I've seen the nintendo switch have an overclocking feature for modded consoles. but I always wanted to know if the wii u could do something like that as well? i have a wii u with haxchi cfw installed

 

[Vague Rant]

I don't know enough to say this absolutely isn't possible on Wii U, but I'm prepared to go as far as saying it's unlikely. The thing with the Switch is that it's very much designed around running at different clock speeds: there's the handheld speed, the docked speed, and even the boost speed to reduce load times. "Overclocking" the Switch is really just taking advantage of a feature the Switch already has, adjusting clock speeds for different uses. The Wii U doesn't really do this so much. While it does downclock to run in Wii mode, as far as I know Wii U mode just sits at max clock speed all the time, so there's nowhere else for it to go.

 

[Psionic Roshambo]

OCing really is of limited benefit, in the old days of computers OCing could net you like a 50% or more performance boost. These days unless your using some nice aftermarket cooling solution your going to be doing well to gain 5%. Game consoles are even more thermal constrained.

TLDR: Game consoles already hot, OC cook them.

 

[pedro702]

you can overclock the wiiu i did an experiment with fix94 back in the day but the thing is wiiu has a tiny fan so OC will overheat the console really fast since the wiiu was never meant to be even hot and the components just wont handle it for much time.

the switch works because nintendo reduced the power of the chipset not becuase of heat but because of battery saving in portable mode and the chipset handles much higher clock rates since it was designed for them in teh first place.

The wiiu/ps3/xbox360 were designed with max clocks/temperature support since they dont have to handle portable saving battery stuff so OC any older gen console will kill it really fast.

 

[bloodbond3]

you can overclock the wiiu i did an experiment with fix94 back in the day but the thing is wiiu has a tiny fan so OC will overheat the console really fast since the wiiu was never meant to be even hot and the components just wont handle it for much time.

the switch works because nintendo reduced the power of the chipset not becuase of heat but because of battery saving in portable mode and the chipset handles much higher clock rates since it was designed for them in teh first place.

The wiiu/ps3/xbox360 were designed with max clocks/temperature support since they dont have to handle portable saving battery stuff so OC any older gen console will kill it really fast.

What if you add a custom water cooling loop to drive temps down?

 

[pedro702]

What if you add a custom water cooling loop to drive temps down?

just have fun burning your console lol, if overcloking and keeping temperature down was easy people would overclock their ps3/xbox360s long ago since so many games on that gen would need it.

 

[QuarkTheAwesome]

https://fail0verflow.com/blog/2014/console-hacking-2013-omake/#clock-frequencies

The Espresso doesn’t support dynamic clock scaling (it only has one PLL and it is configured via external pins and only reconfigures itself on hardware reset), and I haven’t seen any evidence of them using power saving / clock scaling on the GPU.

Maybe one could fiddle with the PLLs, but that's some very low-level tomfoolery that afaik nobody has worked out; and given how far Nintendo pushed this ancient microarch (it's effectively a G3, remember) already I doubt it has much to give. The Wii U's SoC already puts out a *lot* of heat; and I would be worrying about the IHS before I worry about some custom watercooling solution.

 

[XDeltaOne]

Hey guys, is it possible to overclock the Wii U?

 

[Lostbhoy]

Did you read any of the above lol?

Apparently its possible, not recommended and no one has released anything to achieve it. So technically.... Yes, physically and actually.... No.

 

[Alexander1970]

Good Morning.

Hey guys, is it possible to overclock the Wii U?

Maybe we can ask our Friend @godreborn
He has actually some "unwanted" Tests with the Wii U Fan....
And from what I have heard/read,the Wii U is getting really hot,if the FAN is not working correctly or the Processor is getting too hot.

Aside these,the Wii U is not really a "technical Masterpiece" (USB Ports Power Supply / Game Pad Battery Life for Example...)
So,overclocking this Console will end in an Disaster for sure....so that is the main Reason why maybe no successful Overclocking is happened until today...

Have a very,very nice Day.

 

[UltraDolphinRevolution]

If the Wii U is underclocking for Wii mode, does this mean it could potentially run Wii games at a higher framerate? or would that mess up the games?

 

[V10lator]

If the Wii U is underclocking for Wii mode, does this mean it could potentially run Wii games at a higher framerate?

Probably not with WIi games / commerical software but there's the c2w patcher which does exactly that: Run Wii homebrews at Wii Us clock speed: https://github.com/FIX94/c2w_patcher

This patcher will allow you to patch a OSv1 cafe2wii image to unlock the wii PPC clock multiplier to its wiiu speed, giving you 1.215ghz in wii mode.

 

[Atillart]

there are many PS3 overclocks, as long as you put better fans and replace the thermal paste, everything is fine, I hope that in the future the Wii U will allow this, because many games have poor performance , in particular because of its weak processor. And who knows, maybe one day it will be able to display GC / Wii games in HD?

 

[Ysecond]

Haha, for now, get to know about de_ Fuse, It can achieve GPU OC

 

[Beneb]

Maybe one could fiddle with the PLLs, but that's some very low-level tomfoolery that afaik nobody has worked out; and given how far Nintendo pushed this ancient microarch (it's effectively a G3, remember) already I doubt it has much to give. The Wii U's SoC already puts out a *lot* of heat; and I would be worrying about the IHS before I worry about some custom watercooling solution.

I have de-lidded multiple Wii-Us and can confirm the IHS is a piece of shit. They used this crappy phase change thermal pad between the chips and the heat spreader which dries out and becomes terrible at transferring heat. With a de-lid and new thermal paste from the die to the heatsink I'm not worried about a thermal limit.

 

[Ysecond]

phase change thermal pad

I think that's just a cheap thermal silicone pad，there is no phase change effect.

 

[Beneb]

I think that's just a cheap thermal silicone pad，there is no phase change effect.

well whatever it is, it turns to chalk after some time and becomes terrible at transferring heat.

 

[HelpfulHooty]

Any protips for replacement? Just regular old pc heat paste or some particular thickness thermal pad? Mind as well change them, as who knows what the future might bring for this system as people are still putting out all sorts of stuff every now and then for it. There's also the hole singles day sale at that one pretty big online store so...

 

[SDIO]

I never had problems with the pads. I only replaced one, because I destroyed it when removing the heatsink for now reason. But it was still fine before.
For replacement thermal paste will do, there is no minimum thickness required. The springs will press it down enough

 

[Beneb]

I never had problems with the pads. I only replaced one, because I destroyed it when removing the heatsink for now reason. But it was still fine before.
For replacement thermal paste will do, there is no minimum thickness required. The springs will press it down enough

The IHS has a thermal pad between the chip and IHS and then another one from the IHS to the heatsink. The one under the IHS was not good and I think it's best for the longevity of the chips to just removed the IHS. De-lidding the chip is surprisingly easy with a thin razor blade or utility knife. This allows a direct die connection to the heatsink with some normal thermal paste.