Wii U Stuck on Logo

[ChefVortivask]

Hello everyone,

First time poster here. I decided to make this post since I am having issues with my Wii U. Currently, my Wii U will not boot up to the main menu. It stays stuck on the Wii U logo indefinitely.

There are a few things to note about my console. The console is the black 32 gb model. I believe it was bought during the 2012 holiday season (release) as we were expecting to play Pikmin 3 before it got delayed. The system has never been modded in any fashion. It was not the most heavily played console, and I can't even give a good estimate of when it was last used (at least more than 3 years).

I have already tried doing the UDPIH, however it does not seem to be working. When using the second recovery menu, I get a white screen with some blue lines (see attached image). I believe this is similar to what @fadafwet described in his post. I was able to get the logs from the system, which I have attached to this post. Any idea what the issue may be and how to fix it? Any help would be much appreciated.

 

[SDIO]

Also, when I saw the Wii U earlier, it had a blinking blue light and was a tad warm.

Is it possible you have the standby services enabled and the Wii U was defused at that time?

Yeah I don't see the MLC comming up, so probably something wrong with your NAND-AID install. I don't think the metal shield can short the NAND aid, but maybe it interferes with the 3V wire for the NAND AID

 

[ChefVortivask]

I don't recall if the standby services are enabled. If you're referring to spotpass, then yes that is enabled.

As for the NAND-AID itself, before I got the update to work, I had issues getting the Wii U to start, so I went and checked continuity between the resistors and those points we talked about before. Everything looked good and I think the issue had something to do with the disc drive, but I'm not 100% sure. Regardless, everything looked fine before, so I doubt that a connection broke from just sitting there. You and I think alike though because I was thinking it could be something with the 3V3 wire since the connection does stick up slightly from the NAND-AID. I'm going to try insulating it with a bit of kapton tape and see how that goes.

Post automatically merged: Oct 28, 2023

Actually it looks like there's plenty of clearance for the 3V3 wire, so I don't think that's the issue. I'm going to work on it and give an update if something happens.

Post automatically merged: Oct 28, 2023

I think I found the issue. All the connections gave good readings with the multimeter, except for CLK. Before I got about 7 ohms, now I’m getting around 9 Mohms. I’ll fix that, but it does bring up the question of why this happened. The Wii U was just sitting there and the connection went bad. I’ve never had this happen with a solder joint before. To me that would indicate some kind of stress on the joint, but I don’t know where it would be coming from.

 

[SDIO]

maybe it wasn't really soldered and just made contact by touching. Make sure to use flux and apply enough heat to both the pad and castellated via. Heating the pad can be a little bit tricky because of the little clearance.

 

[ChefVortivask]

I think you might be right. I've come to the conclusion that the pad is the issue, or at the very least the connection to the board. It's tricky getting it heated properly, but I think I'll be able to do it.

Post automatically merged: Oct 29, 2023

I believe I have the connection solid now. It was a little difficult, but not as difficult as the GND connection, however there was a bit of a price. It looks like I removed the pad for CLK on the eMMC side as well as the CMD resistor pad. The resistor also came off, but that shouldn't pose too much of a problem, nor should the missing pads, but it's still unfortunate. MLC is now detected, but I'm having media errors. I'm not sure if it's because maybe the CMD connection isn't good now because I did mess a bit with the pad on the NAND-AID, or if there is some corruptions due to the bad connection I had to CLK. I'm wondering if I should rebuild again, but if the issue is CMD, that won't really fix it.

 

[SDIO]

-131090 is CMD_TIMEOUT_ERROR. So you are seeing thse timeout error probably because of a bad connection.
The resistors and the clk pad of the eMMC don't matter, it's just good practice to hold them in a defined state, but I didn't see any side effects by just letting them float.

 

[ChefVortivask]

I’ll go ahead and try to fix the CMD connection then. Is there another pad or via I could use to test for continuity?

 

[SDIO]

I t should be the via next to the CLK via

 

[ChefVortivask]

I reflowed the CMD connection and tested all my connections. They all seem to be fine, and I'm not getting the CMD error anymore, but something isn't right. The first time I turned on the Wii U after the reflow, it got to the Wii U menu just fine, save for the fact that the disc did not show up. After that the CMD error returned (log attached), so I checked all the connections again just to make sure, and they were all still good. Now I'm getting something telling me no valid title list was found (that log is also attached).

 

[SDIO]

I don't think the titlelist thing is a error. It looks more like there is something odd with the Disc Drive.

00:00:07:584: ODM: Read disc serial ID done
00:00:07:586: ODM odm_fsm.c(1203): Read disc serial ID done
00:00:07:668: ODM: Read LBA 0 done
00:00:07:669: ODM odm_fsm.c(1218): Read LBA 0 done
00:00:07:677: FSA: [uptime 7.677 s]: Attached volume to odd01 (atfs)
00:00:07:679: FSA: [uptime 7.679 s]: Attached volume to odd02 (atfs)
00:00:07:681: FSA: [uptime 7.681 s]: Attached volume to odd03 (atfs)

Did you select the right type when yu enabled it again in minute? It should be ROM drive (Retail)
If that doesn't help, try disabeling the Drive again and try booting without it

 

[ChefVortivask]

I did as you suggested. Setting it to Retail didn't fix the issue, so I disconnected the disc drive and tried again. That didn't work, and I've attached the log from that. I then set the device to "none" and tried again. That also didn't work, and I've attached that log, and interestingly some errors do show up. There's an mlc error which stood out to me.

Also I forgot to mention that I did try starting the Wii U a couple of times before without de_Fuse and it didn't work. The gamepad is also not coming on if that means anything.

 

[SDIO]

That stil looks like a bad connection or the sd card failing. Maybe reinsert it in the slot, maybe it's just making a bad connection there

 

[ChefVortivask]

I took the card out, wiped off the pins, and reinserted the card. Still getting the same results. It might be possible that some alcohol containing flux got into the slot while I was cleaning up, but I don't know a good way of cleaning the slot out.

 

[SDIO]

alcohol would not be a problem, but flux would be. Try rinsing with more ipa and insert and remove the card a few times, to work the contacts

Post automatically merged: Nov 5, 2023

In the last log I don't see mlc errors, but the SATA controller still is complaining. Try setting the SATA Drive to None to make sure that isn't interfering

 

[ChefVortivask]

I tried my best to clean the slot itself, but still no luck. Also as a side note, I understand alcohol wouldn't be an issue, but if flux was dissolved in that alcohol, it could be an issue if the alcohol dries up in the slot. I think at this point it might be an issue with the card, or at the very least what's on the card.

 

[SDIO]

yeah but the last log you showed didn't hint at a mlc problem, so it's probably fine now.
Try setting the SATA type to None to make sure the SATA controller isn't the problem

 

[ChefVortivask]

Set it to none, but the results are the same as before when I had it set to none.

 

[SDIO]

strange no crash, just hanging.

Maybe try to reinstall the MLC (you don't need to format for now)

 

[ChefVortivask]

I just tried the setup (which I assumed was the same thing as reinstalling the MLC), and it looks weird. It looks like the setup initially was working, but then I got the same end result as I did previously. Also, the light was blinking orange.

 

[SDIO]

really strange, I have no clue what's going on.
Maybe check the SD card on the PC using h2wtest (that will destroy the MLC on it). And if the card is fine, discard/trim it again.
Then use this new fw.img: https://github.com/jan-hofmeier/minute_minute/releases to delete the scfm.img (it's in backup & restore).
Then try the setup again (you don't need to run the destroy)

 

[ChefVortivask]

I have h2wtest running right now. I downloaded it from some site focused on 3DS homebrew. I had to format the card so that I could run the test, but I'll need to format it to fat32 once it's done (assuming everything goes smoothly). Does deleting the scfm.img do the job I was having wafel_destroy do before? It looks like you said scfm.img always survived my reformatting attempts, thus I had to run destroy, but if this new fw.img does that it looks like that is why I don't need to run destroy. I guess destroy would be useful if I didn't want to remove the card and reformat it.

Post automatically merged: Nov 5, 2023

Actually I might not need to format it to fat32.

Post automatically merged: Nov 5, 2023

Update: h2wtest gave no errors, so I went ahead and reformatted the SD card to fat32. I then used that new fw.img to delete the scfm.img, and then I tried patch & boot a couple of times, but it always got stuck on "MLC open attempt". I went back to the previous fw.img in case there was an issue with the new one, but it still gets stuck on "MLC open attempt". It has done this probably more than 15 times now. Obviously I can always check my solder joints, but I would hate to believe they are an issue.

Post automatically merged: Nov 5, 2023

Of course it works my first try after I post that update, and now it gets even weirder because I get the same error I was getting before.

Post automatically merged: Nov 5, 2023

Even more weird stuff. I tried again after that last attempt and got this loop of errors. I've provided all that I could from the log, but now I can't even do patch & boot. It says an slc title is missing.