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Thread: Not even Nintendo can make solid hardware anymore (aka my Wii is having issues)

  1. #1
    New Romantic
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    Not even Nintendo can make solid hardware anymore (aka my Wii is having issues)

    So looks like the GPU on my Wii is on its way out. I'm seeing this pixel flicker issue with it
    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X8ZtQ...elated&search=

    Bah, I hardly freaking use the thing! Seriously my piece of crap 360s must have had like 5 times the play hours before they went :P
    Last edited by forgeforsaken; 07-20-2009 at 07:15 PM.

  2. #2
    Social Worker
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    My NES, N64, Gamecube, and DS Lite all kick the bucket at some point. (free replacements all-around following a one-week turn around) I think these were all just weird fluke cases or isolated bad apples. I never once subscribed to Nintendo hardware being rubbish.

    360 Red Ring on the other hand is a well documented hardware epidemic across the board both statistically and anecdotally.

  3. #3
    Account closed World's End Supernova
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    Truly, the internet needs to know about the inevitable failure of consumer electronics.

  4. #4
    Mad Chester
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    My n64 which I bought on the day it came out(1996: so that makes it 13 years old) is still running even with the original graphics chip- is just now beginning to see the damage of time.(as is my Mario Party tortured grey controller)

    Play mario Kart and SSB at least once a week religously- I still think it is the best console of all time (excluding PC) o7

    |||ok now that my tribute to the n64 is over|||

    All the Wiis ive seen are generally well made, but they've only seen action as a party system... so maybe if you play the wii every day like you would a 360 it has hardware issues.

  5. #5
    New Romantic
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    fuck Brawl

    Heresy! SSB:M is much better than SSB!

  6. #6
    How To Go
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    Quote Originally Posted by Charles View Post
    Truly, the internet needs to know about the inevitable failure of consumer electronics.
    Exactly what I was thinking. Computers (which a Wii is) sometimes go tits up before their time. It happens. Hey forge: there's no Easter Bunny or Santa Claus either.

  7. #7
    World's End Supernova
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    Quote Originally Posted by forgeforsaken View Post
    Bah, I hardly freaking use the thing! Seriously my piece of crap 360s must have had like 5 times the play hours before they went :P
    Do you leave it on standby mode most of the time? That's when it has the orange light (as opposed to the red light when it's completely off). When it's on standby, and has been for a couple of hours, if you touch the Wii on the side, you can tell that even on standby it stays pretty hot. So if you never use your Wii, and it stays on standby, it still stays hot all the time. I had a friend who had the GPU go bad early on, which is why I started turning the Wii completely off, so that it has the chance to cool down.

  8. #8
    New Romantic
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    Am I not allowed to vent a bit?

  9. #9
    New Romantic
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    I believe you're supposed to say "Fuck Console Gaming!" and swear that you'll only buy games on Steam now.

  10. #10
    New Romantic
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    Quote Originally Posted by Rock8man View Post
    Do you leave it on standby mode most of the time?
    Yeah that's my working theory. I had it set to turn off for a long time and sometime maybe a month or two ago I switched for some reason.

  11. #11
    How To Go
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    All my original Nintendo hardware still works. Though my NES was stripped and I plugged my carts directly into the main board.

  12. #12
    Social Worker
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    I noticed this sort of flickering on my launch Wii just a few months after getting it (and yeah, I think it might have something to do with leaving it on standby). But it still works to this day.

  13. #13
    Qt3 Frozen Synapse Champion Neo Acoustic
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    A friend of mine experienced this issue (or something very similar to it) due to leaving his Wii on standby connected to the Internet. When the Wii is on standby it turns off all fans, but continues to download and process content from the 'net (Miis, channel updates, whatever) which of course causes the thing to heat up. Cue heat-damaged components and the pixel problems you see above.

    Nintendo fixed it with a firmware update I think, but they definitely fixed my friend's Wii.

  14. #14
    Account closed World's End Supernova
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    Quote Originally Posted by forgeforsaken View Post
    Am I not allowed to vent a bit?
    Start a blog?

  15. #15
    New Romantic
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    Quote Originally Posted by Charles View Post
    Start a blog?
    You're one to talk you are.

  16. #16
    How To Go
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    Quote Originally Posted by Charles View Post
    Start a blog?
    blogs come and go but forums are forever.

  17. #17
    Neo Acoustic
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    Quote Originally Posted by forgeforsaken View Post
    You're one to talk you are.
    Waitasecond. Are you inferring his 12,000+ posts aren't pure insightful bliss?

  18. #18
    Account closed World's End Supernova
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  19. #19
    New Romantic
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    Are you really implying the threads you started are markedly better?

  20. #20
    Account closed World's End Supernova
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    Quote Originally Posted by forgeforsaken View Post
    Are you really implying the threads you started are markedly better?
    Not my intent, though I'm sure it's true. I was looking more at the amount of threads started. For extra fun you can turn it in to a ratio of total post count.

  21. #21
    Broad Band
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    Well, this certainly explains the strange heat coming from what I thought was a turned-off Wii.

    If post count matters here, I guess I better go back to lurking.
    Last edited by ahoythematey; 07-21-2009 at 12:49 PM.

  22. #22
    New Romantic
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    I've seen the occasional complaint of a Wii being really hot in the Connect24 mode, but mine's only ever been slightly-warm at best, so there might indeed be a manufacturing issue in some batches. It wouldn't be the first time a big company has botched a fairly simple heat issue, though at least it's far less common here than with something like the overheating Macbook Pros, where it was thanks to their standard build process.

  23. #23
    New Romantic
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    I turned connect24 off on my Wii after seeing a report on what it's power consumption was. It was something ridiculous, like connect24 taking 60% or so of the Wii's active idle power, so I figured I wasn't using it for that much and I could cut the earth a break and use less electricity.

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