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.

 

[ChefVortivask]

That’s what I thought.

If the eMMC were interfering somehow, any idea how that would even be possible? I understand it’s probably hard to say without proving it yourself, but I would think with the current state of the CMD pad, it would be even more disabled than before (if that makes any sense).

There is one other thing I’d like to check, but I don’t know how to go about it. I want to check the state of the pins in the card slot itself. None of them should be shorted, but I’ve checked everything but the actual connection from the slot to the card. I’m going to do a test later with an old slot to see if my cleaning could have bent a pin. I didn’t use much force when cleaning, but it could be a possibility.

 

[ChefVortivask]

Update: I tested my theory of possibly bent pins in the slot, and that seems like a very unlikely possibility. I didn’t bend them on the test slot with my cleaning methods, nor did I bend them when I dragged the tip of my tweezers across the pins, almost purposely trying to bend them.

I reflowed every connection to the board (save for CLK) and that didn’t fix the problem. Next step is reflowing the pins for the SD card slot. It always possible that even though resistance measurements look good, maybe a pin is loose and only giving a good reading due to the pressure of the multimeter probe.

 

[ChefVortivask]

Any idea why SEEPROM failed to verify? I don’t suppose that could be causing an issue with the mlc, but could the SEEPROM failing to verify and the mlc not working properly have any connection?

 

[SDIO]

the seeprom isn't needed for the LC, but it could cause other problems. Can you compare a new dump of the seeprom with the oldest one yo can find, and check which bits changed?

Also try to use an older otp.bin and see if that helps

 

[ChefVortivask]

How would I compare the two files against one another?

I'm not sure what exactly the seeprom is, but I do know that otp.bin shouldn't be the problem. I'll double check, but I should be using the otp.bin I got way back when I did my original backup of the mlc and such. I'm thinking that it might be worth restoring seeprom.bin to see if that helps.

I still haven't got around to reflowing all the pins for the SD card slot, but it might be worth focusing more on the software right now since all my solder joints seem to be fine. We already established that some kind of bug seems to have messed up the slc, thus I had to restore it. Maybe the seeprom is having an effect that was overlooked?

 

[ChefVortivask]

I should have been a little more clear. I guess what I’m getting at is I just want to check to see if there would be any issue restoring the SEEPROM before I do so. I’d hate to jump the gun and then put myself in a deeper hole.

 

[SDIO]

I don't see a problem with restoring that

 

[ChefVortivask]

I'll give it a shot. I noticed you've uploaded a new version of boot1.img and fw.img to your Github. Do you recommend I use the latest version or stick to what I have?

 

[SDIO]

It doesn't matter for this

 

[ChefVortivask]

I restored the seeprom and that appears to have fixed that issue, but not the issue with the mlc. I reflowed every pin of the SD card slot (I even removed the capacitor so I could get the pins behind it better), and it still looks like the issue isn't fixed. I've tested multiple times along the way with a multimeter and can say with near certainty that every single connection is solid.

At this point, would the next step be to remove the remaining resistors in case the eMMC is interfering? Again I would think with both the clk and cmd traces being gone, the eMMC should be disabled, but maybe it isn't fully disabled since the clk signal is no longer going the GND.

 

[SDIO]

ignore the error in minute for now and see what IOSU says to it

 

[ChefVortivask]

I’m not sure what you’re referring to. Which option should I choose?

 

[SDIO]

The patch (SD) and boot (SLC)

 

[ChefVortivask]

It's getting stuck on mlc open attempt like it has done in the past.

Post automatically merged: Dec 4, 2023

Before we would think that this could be due to a flaky or otherwise poor solder joint somewhere, but at this point I can say that is probably not the case. I also think all the pins inside the slot are fine, however I can't say that with 100% certainty unless I remove the metal shield. We know the card does at least get initially detected when the Wii U is turned on since it can it can tell me the size of the mlc, but for whatever reason, it can't seem to actually access the card. I also have checked for shorts and have not found any, so right now I'm stumped.

 

[ChefVortivask]

Could it somehow be a problem with de_Fuse or minute? I could try redNAND again to see if anything different happens, but since it seems like the mlc can’t really be accessed, I doubt much will be different.

 

[ChefVortivask]

I realized I still had setup on the SD card, so I removed that and tried again. The result is different, but I'm still getting the panic message.

 

[SDIO]

Yes the mlc isn't coming up.

Remove the power from the console
Put your multimeter into diode mode, put the positive probe on GND and then go with the negative probe through all the signals. Do that once with the SD in and once without the SD.
Then put the negative probe on 3V3 and go with the positive probe through all the signals.

The put the multimeter into resistance mode and then measure all signals against 3V3 and GND in both directions

Write all the voltages/resistance you measure down. Maybe we see one signal standing out. I can then also compare against my console

 

[ChefVortivask]

I’ve started doing as you instructed, but I’m wondering where should I be testing the signals from? Should I be using the pins for the SD card slot, the pads on the NAND-AID, or the vias on the other side of the board (for CLK I can’t use the pad since I believe that’s shorted to GND with the DIS jumper closed).

 

[SDIO]

Measure from the NAND-AIDs pads and for clk on the SD slot

 

[ChefVortivask]

Ok so I may have already encountered an issue. I started measuring using diode mode with the positive probe on GND and no card inserted, and I can get stable readings for all signals except CMD. It’s no fluctuating by super large amounts, but it is notable to me since none of the other signals are doing that (it’s also doing it with negative on 3V3). Is that indicative of a bad connection? Resistance is close to 0 ohms, so I’m not sure what to make of it.