WiiConnect24 causing damage to Wii’s innards?
WiiConnnect24, the system built into the Nintendo Wii to keep the console forever connected to the Internet when on standby, is reportedly causing certain gamers’ consoles to become faulty. Uh oh.
A number of unhappy players have been sharing their Wii-based woes on Internet message boards after encountering faults from leaving their machine’s on standby and connected to WiiConnect24 for long periods.
The supposed cause of the defects is the fact that, although WiiConnect24 uses only a tiny amount of energy (equated to that of a small light bulb), the Wii still gets very hot due to the dormant state of the internal fans. It is suggested that the subsequent rise in temperature is frying the main CPU, causing it to break.
Nintendo has told CVG: “We’ve had no reports in the UK of anything like this happening,” and advises users to contact the Nintendo Service Centre for further advice on 0870 60 60247 should a fault occur.
There’s no word yet from any of Nintendos in North America or Japan.
Given that so many millions of Wiis are connected to WiiConnect24 (and have been for many months), it’s perhaps a little unusual that any problems are only now arising. Alternatively, could we be on the verge of a problem similar to the ‘Red Rings of Death,’ one which has ruined so many Microsoft Xbox 360s? Let’s hope not.
I’ve had a Wii online constantly since day 1 and I haven’t had a single problem with it. It gets warm yes but certainly not hot. Nintendo have always had minimal problems with their consoles and excellent customer service. You can’t fault them for their commitment to quality. In regards to reliability they are currently joint top with PS3 with a 1% failure rate followed by a 30% jump to 360. Those faulty Wii’s are a vast minority. It’s a shame that people would rather moan on chat forums than make a simple phone call/email to Nintendo.
i did call …. and sent it in twice. and about to be a third.. wiis record is not flawless…
i’ve had wiiconnect24 on since jan of this year.
and just recently…
this weekend i had the wii on for 24 hours straight starting saturday morning. i left for the whole day and forgot about my game ’till i saw the green light on the next morning. i thought it would be messed up, but there was my game, still on pause. the machine was ok. my brother said “hey, at least we know we can play all night without it getting messed up.” i finished my game, turned it off, and then played it again later that night. nothing wrong.
this proves that at least one wii has yet to break down because of overheating.
u can leave it on forever with the green light cause the fan is going but try putting it in standby(orange light) for a few days and see what happens. and dont give me that “why do u wanna leave it in standby mode” crapp cause thats what it is made for so it can recieve messages and downloads when your not playing…
Mine’s been fine too. It’s not on standby at the moment, but it has been for weeks at a time since launch. It does get pretty hot, but I’ve had no trouble with it so far.
better leave it off till nintendo has a fix for this problem .. like a patch that turns the fan on when it reaches a certain temp.
same. mine has been on for more than 24 hours and the console and the power supply are fine. nothing like how hot my xbox used to get. ppl like bashing wiis cos they’re amazing and sony are run by the corporations, maaaaan…
I have two Wii’s, one for me and one for the kids. The first one was a Christmas present and has seen heavy use since then. About three weeks ago, I heard what I thought was a cricket chirping in the house. A couple of days later, I heard a very loud cricket chirping. End up, it was the Wii. A game, TMNT was left at the menu screen. I popped the disk out and everthing seemed OK. A couple of days after that and much playing, the Wii became unusable. It would not read any disk we put in it. I tried shutting it down and waiting for a while, but no luck. I contacted Nintendo and they sent me a return label. It has only been a couple of days, but I am curious to see what they determine. My other unit is only a couple three months old, but I have had no problems with it so far.
I have a launch wii using the WiiConnect24 since then. Ive been having problems connecting to the Wii Shop (It would just…hang… at the Connecting screen.)
Also most channels I try to boot up, never boot up right the first time, they either goto a black screen and hang, or load very very SLOWLY. Tho Gaming wise, its perfectly fine.
I sent my wii in to get repaired cause i would get green and red dots when playing wii games.it cot worse and worse. when they repaired it i had a new wii code but the serial number on the case was still the same. apperently they told me that they had to replace the motherboard and that all the wii-codes i had on my machine were now worthless. to top it all off they wouldnt tell me why it broke but i suspect that the standby mode overheated the memory of the gpu and caused the graphics glitches(seen it on computer GPU”s when they overheat.)Even worse they didnt put it back together right and now the gamecube memory card flap doesnt close right so i got to send it back….. this is the third time, first time was for loud drive noises… i had standby mode on sense launch 11/19/06. they fan doesnt come on in standby mode(orange light)and sometimes i wouldnt turn it on for a few days.
I’ve had my Wii on WiiConnect24 since launch day and I’ve never had a problem with it. It has only not been on WiiConnect24 for a total of two or three days time. I agree that there’s bound to be some problems, but they seem to be rather minimal. I also believe that many of these problems can be associated with user error. For instance: keeping ANY electronic device in a confined and close quarters space will inevitably cause a rise in ambient temperature, especially when other heat radiating devices are nearby. This may or may not be an issue depending on the device. The solution: give these devices that even have a remote chance of overheating a little more “breathing” room. If you want to protect your investment, then be overly cautious with it.