Topic: MY WII IS DEAD (Also, Nintendo customer service sucks.)

[GoldenPhoenix]

I think Call of Duty Black Ops killed my Wii. I am getting a disc error every time I put in any disc. How much does Nintendo Charge?

Yeah it is around $90 plus shipping unless you can somehow get to Redmond like I did, and drop it off at NOA.

[BeautifulShy]

Has your warranty passed Shyguy?

[BranDonk Kong]

You can fix it yourself for less than that. You most likely just need a laser. Also, a game can't kill your system.

[ShyGuy]

The constant streaming of textures from the disc during multiplayer in Black Ops wore it out I think. You could always hear the disc reading

It was a launch day Wii so no warranty.

It was silent until Smash Bros Brawl. Something about that dual layer disc made my drive loud.

[TJ Spyke]

I think Call of Duty Black Ops killed my Wii. I am getting a disc error every time I put in any disc. How much does Nintendo Charge?

Yeah it is around $90 plus shipping unless you can somehow get to Redmond like I did, and drop it off at NOA.

$90? They charged me $50 (free shipping of coarse).

[ThePerm]

did you ever buy a new video cord?

[ShyGuy]

Me? I have a GF GTS 250.

[Mop it up]

The constant streaming of textures from the disc during multiplayer in Black Ops wore it out I think. You could always hear the disc reading

Yeah, Modern Warfare is like that too and it's pretty annoying. The Wii drive isn't really meant to be constantly loading from a disc so companies shouldn't design games that way. The good news is that since it's a problem with your drive, they can replace it without causing you to lose your data.

$90? They charged me $50 (free shipping of coarse).

They gave you a discount then, the official price is $75 + $10 shipping. Since ShyGuy has a launch system I'd say he has as good chance as any to get a discount.

[MegaByte]

The Wii drive isn't really meant to be constantly loading from a disc so companies shouldn't design games that way.

But, it kind of is.  Otherwise, the system would have more memory.

[Mop it up]

More memory costs more money. Nintendo clearly didn't design the Wii with durability in mind.

Either way, constant loading is noisy, and can cause slowdown when the system is trying to load something. Fortunately, the Call of Duty games are the only ones I know of that do it, so most developers are talented enough to avoid it.

[BranDonk Kong]

The constant streaming of textures from the disc during multiplayer in Black Ops wore it out I think. You could always hear the disc reading

Yeah, Modern Warfare is like that too and it's pretty annoying. The Wii drive isn't really meant to be constantly loading from a disc so companies shouldn't design games that way. The good news is that since it's a problem with your drive, they can replace it without causing you to lose your data.

Of course it is meant to be that way, the system only has 88MB of RAM. How the Hell else are they supposed to design their games? MegaByte beat me to it, but the memory cost argument is pretty invalid. I'm not sure what size chips the Wii uses for it's RAM, whether it's 4 16MB chips, 2 32MB chips, or 1 64MB chip, etc, but the difference it would have cost Nintendo do simply double the capacity is marginal at best. The Wii's lack of RAM is due to it's general lack of power. When you've got a 729Mhz CPU (even if it is a PPC), then having 256MB RAM would be total overkill, especially since the system can't output any higher than 480p.

[ShyGuy]

I've been searching the OTHER Nintendo message boards online and they say blowing it out can sometimes solve the problem. I will take my Wii into work tomorrow and hit it with the air. If that doesn't work, I'm going to miss the TCON farewell round.

[Mop it up]

I just know that when I was looking up homebrew stuff, I heard several people claim that it isn't a good idea to have the Wii read DVD movies because the drive isn't meant to constantly stream from discs. Either way, constant streaming will wear out the drive faster than other games.

[ShyGuy]

I know other games do in game streaming, I think Godfather: Black Hand edition was the first one. But Black Ops seems to do it more aggressively than any other game I've played.

[BranDonk Kong]

That's how lasers work, the more they are used, the quicker they die.

[TJ Spyke]

The constant streaming of textures from the disc during multiplayer in Black Ops wore it out I think. You could always hear the disc reading

Yeah, Modern Warfare is like that too and it's pretty annoying. The Wii drive isn't really meant to be constantly loading from a disc so companies shouldn't design games that way. The good news is that since it's a problem with your drive, they can replace it without causing you to lose your data.

$90? They charged me $50 (free shipping of coarse).

They gave you a discount then, the official price is $75 + $10 shipping. Since ShyGuy has a launch system I'd say he has as good chance as any to get a discount.

I guess it helps to be really nice to them and try to sound depressed.

[BlackNMild2k1]

Actually, I got them to give me a free warranty fix on an out of warranty Wii by pointing to my My Nintendo account, how many games I've registered and how many systems I've owned. I sounded super loyal adn very interested in staying that way so they hooked my Wii up for free. It probably didn't hurt that I had already sent that Wii in for DRE a little over a year before that and was trying to get an data swap to another Wii, but the point is that if you can be persistent enough and convincing enough, they can and probably will hook you up.

I would bring up all the streaming that the game does and how others on the internet have made complaints about it too. I'm sure that might help you out.

[ShyGuy]

The dust out with air was a no go. I'm gonna backup my stuff to the sd card and give them a call.

[Mop it up]

Well, looks like I've got yet another problem with my system, and I've got a question about it. There is some kind of static or other graphical defect that happens in most games, usually when special effects like wind and fog happen but it shows in other places as well. It's kind of difficult for me to explain, but it looks something like the problem in this video I found:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sJNMO9PALZ8

It started small and so I just let it go, but it's been getting worse and becoming distracting. I have a feeling that eventually it is going to stop working. To make sure that it is the system and not the TV, I tried it on another TV and also using a different cable, and got the same result.

From what I can gather, this is a problem with the GPU. So my question is to people who have experienced this issue themselves and sent it in for repair: did you keep all of your data? If there's a risk the data will be deleted (or if doing so is a part of the repair process), then I'll probably just ride it out and see how much longer it lasts.

[BlackNMild2k1]

When you send it in for repair, just send in your Wii U pre-order money and have them pre-transfer all your saves for you.

two birds. ones stone.

[MegaByte]

It started small and so I just let it go, but it's been getting worse and becoming distracting. I have a feeling that eventually it is going to stop working.

This happened to my system. Eventually, the graphics stopped outputting completely.

[Mop it up]

It started small and so I just let it go, but it's been getting worse and becoming distracting. I have a feeling that eventually it is going to stop working.

This happened to my system. Eventually, the graphics stopped outputting completely.

Did you send it in to Nintendo for repair?

[MegaByte]

Not yet because I still need to figure out a way to clear homebrew off of it. I got another Wii, so that priority went way down.

[leahsdad]

Not yet because I still need to figure out a way to clear homebrew off of it.

You know, on the last RFN, I'm pretty sure  Jonny said that if you had the homebrew channel on your Wii, it still wouldn't violate your warranty.  Not that I take his word for gospel or anything, but I was thinking about doing it so that I can import Xenoblades.  But if it voids my warranty, then screw that.

[MegaByte]

If he said that, he's wrong. They changed their policy a couple years ago and have been refusing hacked Wiis.