Nintendo Wii U Memory Failures Investigated by Homebrew Community, Hynix Chips in the Spotlight

[T0@st]

The homebrew and modification community has delved deeper into the recent bout of bricked Nintendo Wii U consoles, unlucky owners are seeing their systems throwing up error codes that indicate an internal memory failure. As covered on TPU almost two weeks ago, it was speculated that leaving a Wii U in a long-term state of unuse was a root cause of the problem. It is now theorized that a simple choice of memory chip is the real issue behind the corruptions, and not a case of leaving your unplugged Wii U stashed in a box somewhere.

An online database has been established on hackmd.io, and a member is collecting hard data from Wii U owners across various online communities and sources. Early indications show that consoles fitted with a Hynix eMMC are leading the pack in terms of number of system failures, Samsung-equipped models are placed in a distant second place, and the Toshiba variant is reported as having zero problems.



Early release versions (2012 - 2013) of the Deluxe Black 32 GB edition are most likely to be fitted with the problematic Hynix memory module, according to further research carried out by the community. The basic White 8 GB edition is thought to be entirely unaffected by corruption issues, due to it featuring a different Samsung board. The hombrew community has found two methods to restore normal operation on a corrupted console. One involves circumventing the internal memory entirely by using an external SD card as a primary memory module, and the other fix requires a Raspberry Pi Pico to be connected to the console via USB.



Gamers are in a rush to shore up their Wii U and 3DS game libraries in anticipation of Nintendo's shuttering of online services on March 27, which has likely contributed to the uptick in discoveries of bricked systems. There has been a lot of activity and communication on Twitter regarding the Wii U memory lottery - key figures are keen to provide tips and are also asking for feedback from anyone with a bricked system:



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[natr0n]

This can been fixed.

all the other youtubers are trash trying to get views

 

[ZoneDymo]

This can been fixed.

all the other youtubers are trash trying to get views

Welcome to youtube, I have lost faith in much of humanity by just one glance at youtube when not logged in....

 

[ir_cow]

This can been fixed.

all the other youtubers are trash trying to get views

Yep I was just about to post this too. $8 fixes a bricked system .

 

[Kodehawa]

Also to be honest the eMMC here was way past its expected lifetime if used a decent amount. eMMC is pretty trash in that regard, specially old eMMC.

Glad to see it's not an unfixable issue, just a bit of tinkering.

 

[trsttte]

Nintendo also has a fix, it's as simple as "buy a new switch and pay for a low quality streaming subscription"

A perfect example of planned obsolescence in effect, the emmc wearing out is not hard to predict. Not nearly as much of a problem with PS5 but I still try to put everything I can in the m.2 expansion and avoid using the internal storage.

 

[lexluthermiester]

This can been fixed.

all the other youtubers are trash trying to get views

Yep I was just about to post this too. $8 fixes a bricked system .

I too was about to post this. As was stated in the other thread about this problem, it did turn out to be something simple and the BIOS/firmware reset was the answer!

 

[qwerty_lesh]

Voultar himself states that while his fix is cheap and easy, it only addresses when there is Index corruption. Think of like when your boot up option on windows goes bad and you need to go and do a bcdedit /scannow sort of action to find and rewrite the part of the boot data store that points to the OS path. This fix is what does this on WiiU.

There's still rumor and reports of people who have their whole OS Flash storage going corrupted which indexing doesn't fix. So before you write off many of those click baiting or covering the news, just please bare that in mind.

 

[lexluthermiester]

Voultar himself states that while his fix is cheap and easy, it only addresses when there is Index corruption. Think of like when your boot up option on windows goes bad and you need to go and do a bcdedit /scannow sort of action to find and rewrite the part of the boot data store that points to the OS path. This fix is what does this on WiiU.

There's still rumor and reports of people who have their whole OS Flash storage going corrupted which indexing doesn't fix. So before you write off many of those click baiting or covering the news, just please bare that in mind.

There is no evidence yet made public that there are any other problems other than the ones discussed in the above video and forums elsewhere. Any claims of greater problems without evidence to support such claims is little more than fear mongering and needless brand-shaming.

 

[qwerty_lesh]

go back and watch the video. those are his disclaimers that his fix may not cover all reported issues.

 

[lexluthermiester]

go back and watch the video. those are his disclaimers that his fix may not cover all reported issues.

I've watched it twice. Context is important. You're missing some..

 

[mathohardo]

who is soooooooooo poor that the worst EVER nintendo per gaming % (of gamers) system that was crappy and weak on every front is still using it a decade later phones at 399 pass it in power many years ago... it has 2 GBs of memory cheap phones are 4-6.... and computer with 8 and say 2 on a video card is on hard times go get the ps5.... with 16 thats not even that high anymore....

 

[djismgaming]

who is soooooooooo poor that the worst EVER nintendo per gaming % (of gamers) system that was crappy and weak on every front is still using it a decade later phones at 399 pass it in power many years ago... it has 2 GBs of memory cheap phones are 4-6.... and computer with 8 and say 2 on a video card is on hard times go get the ps5.... with 16 thats not even that high anymore....

A good reason is because emulation will almost never run the games 100% accurate.
There may be graphical effects that only the intended console can replicate the way it was meant to be.

If you take Metroid Prime from GameCube to Wii, for example, there are differences in the render. Some effects are not in the Wii but exist in the original hardware and have not been emulated to this day by an emulator like Dolphin.
Emulators can give better performance and resolution, but the accuracy can be lesser to some extent in some situations.

You can play the game, but it will not look exactly the same.

 

[Logoffon]

Voultar himself states that while his fix is cheap and easy, it only addresses when there is Index corruption. Think of like when your boot up option on windows goes bad and you need to go and do a bcdedit /scannow sort of action to find and rewrite the part of the boot data store that points to the OS path. This fix is what does this on WiiU.

There's still rumor and reports of people who have their whole OS Flash storage going corrupted which indexing doesn't fix. So before you write off many of those click baiting or covering the news, just please bare that in mind.

I think you got mixed up with SFC...
The actual command is bcdedit /scanos

 

[qwerty_lesh]

I think you got mixed up with SFC...
The actual command is bcdedit /scanos

yeah you're most likely correct in that im being a slacker and mixing up old command line parameters. seems its not even BCDedit that does this anymore, but Bootrec.exe
as long as the premise of what i meant got through with the messaging im not going to split hairs over specifics

 

[V10lator]

There is no evidence yet made public that there are any other problems other than the ones discussed in the above video and forums elsewhere. Any claims of greater problems without evidence to support such claims is little more than fear mongering and needless brand-shaming.

So the hackmd.io linked in the article isn't public? All the user reports on GBATemp and Discord aren't public?

Also if the recovery menu by Gary is the ultimate fix, what's this?

https://twitter.com/i/web/status/1679932442264649745

 

[lexluthermiester]

So the hackmd.io linked in the article isn't public? All the user reports on GBATemp and Discord aren't public?

Also if the recovery menu by Gary is the ultimate fix, what's this?

https://twitter.com/i/web/status/1679932442264649745

Did you seriously just create an account for this? Learn how to context.

 

[V10lator]

Anyway, in case you want even more information. This is from SDIO at GBATemp (who researched a lot and created the NAND-AID technology Voultar is making money with as well as a lot of tools needed to fix this exact bug. Also he's actively giving users support who are experiencing this issue), was written on a german forum and I just used DeepL to translated it to english for here:

To understand there are 3 main reasons why a 160-0103 can occur.

1. MEDIA ERROR: The eMMC itself reports an error because it can no longer read data. (The internal ECC detects that there are too many bit errors, so there is not enough redundancy to correct the errors). You will see "MEDIA ERROR" on mlc01 in the logs and mmcblk error:

00:01:25:424: mmc_core card err: idx=3, lba=54673664, blks=256, xfer=0x1, ret=0x00200b40
00:01:25:461: mmc_core card err: idx=3, lba=54673664, blks=256, xfer=0x1, ret=0x00200b40
00:01:25:464: mdblk: err=-131099, mid=0x90, prv=0x5c, pnm=[HYNIX ]
00:01:25:466: FSA: ### MEDIA ERROR ###, dev:mlc01, err:-2228230, cmd:12, path:(null)

This is a sure sign of a hardware error.

2. DATA CORRUPTION: This occurs when the file system detects that the data is corrupted / manipulated. WFS stores a hash for each file, if the hash does not match anymore, because data was corrupted. In the syslog it looks like this:

00:01:23:383: FSA: ### DATA CORRUPTION ERROR ###, dev:mlc01, err:-1245211, cmd:10, path:/sys/title/0005001b/1006c000/code/title.tmd

This can be caused by several reasons, maybe there was a power failure or crash while writing the file or a software error (in IOSU) has overwritten a wrong block. It can also happen if the underlying hardware returns wrong data "silent data corruption". This can happen due to an incorrectly implemented ECC or that simply so many bits have fallen over that the ECC can no longer recognize that the error is no longer recoverable or also general errors in the firmware or FTL.

3. CBHC (Cold Boot Haxchi) Brick. Before Maschell found FailST there was an exploit for DS VC games. To make the exploit run automatically on startup, the "default_title_id" in the system.xml on the SLC was changed to point to the DS game (instead of the Wii U menu). If now this game was deleted (e.g. by a factory reset for reselling) this default_title_idins shows empty and the OS throws either 160-0101 or 160-0103. 160-0101 only occurs with this CHBC brick and not with NAND corruption. 160-0103 can occur with both. If it is a CBHC problem, it will logically only occur at boot time and not in games, settings etc.

Gary's recovery does nothing else with the Set Coldboot Tile option than changing the entry in the system.xml back. There is nothing more behind it, it just changes the value in an xml file. (And with this Gary helped a lot of people).
For the SLC where the system.xml is located there is no persistent cache. The system menu is not touched for this. And the system.xml can't be corrupted by itself either, because then the Wii U would get stuck with a blue blinking LED in boot1, because the system.xml is protected with a hmac and boot1 has to read the default_os_id to know from where it has to load IOSU.

With this information we can say that Voultar has only fixed CBHC bricks, which is not surprising, given the way he acquired his sample (via his modding affine followers). And since he knows it better anyway, he has also refrained from researching.

But he didn't fix any NAND corruption, he didn't fix any system menu and he didn't rebuild any database or cache.

 

[V10lator]

You weren't doing ANYTHING noble and haven't stated anything new.

People here (including you) are telling the video from Voultar can fix all and every 160-0103 error. I just say that's not true. Also I gave a lenghty, detailed description with informations that wasn't here before to prove my words to you. If this is trolling what are you doing then? Either reply to my points / prove me wrong or this was my last reply to you.

 

[lexluthermiester]

If this is trolling what are you doing then?

Try and keep up. YOU replied to me. You created an account to do so. YOU are trolling me, directly.

Also I gave a lenghty, detailed description with informations that wasn't here before

That doesn't mean it's new information. You necroposted in this thread to be a troll, not to post anything new.

Either reply to my points / prove me wrong

No. Don't care.

or this was my last reply to you.

Good! Bye, bye.

 

[95Viper]

Stay on topic.
Stop the insults.
Stop arguing... discuss civilly.
Anymore guideline violations will be dealt with.
This is a forum where all members discuss topics/posts in the threads.

 

[padripper]

I too was about to post this. As was stated in the other thread about this problem, it did turn out to be something simple and the BIOS/firmware reset was the answer!

You seem knowledgeable about that problem maybe you can help me understand what is going on. The post from V10later only confused me more. After I heard the news that MK8 online is back I got my never modded Wii U out of storage to play a few rounds online before it is gone for good. I was greeted with that 160-0103 error first during playing Mario Kart 8 and now it doesn't even start anymore and just shows that error. After searching the internet I found this thread. I opened up my Wii U and sure enough it has hynix chips, I found 6 of them, one looking like the one on the picture in the atricle.
Sure enough I followed the Video from @natr0n and bought a pico. I got to the recovery menu and set the Coldboot Title to the EU one (because I am from Europe). It didn't change anything. I tried it a few more times, but now the Recovery Menu isn't shown anymore. The LED still turns purple if I connect the Pico, in case that is important.

Can you help me understand what is going on @lexluthermiester ?
Am I doing something wrong?
Do I need to use this bcdedit command, but where would I enter that?

 

[Drash]

As someone who used to teach operatives how to mend commercial telecomms equipment (which make a PC look decidedly simple). Rule #1: it's the flash/RAM, rule #2 it's the flash/RAM, rule #3 they dropped it - look for broken stuff. We used to charge £400 a pop for a quick fix, if you had reballing PCB/FPGA rework stations *AND* a technician who could use it - more important than the kit actually.

 

[lexluthermiester]

I was greeted with that 160-0103 error first during playing Mario Kart 8

This isn't so much the problem...

now the Recovery Menu isn't shown anymore.

This is. I would walk you through a few steps to get your WiiU up and running again, but that requires the Recovery to work. Sadly you seemingly don't have that option. There is hope though, if you're willing to get into the nitty-gritty of your WiiU and do a little soldering. There is a way to replace the NAND on your WiiU without removing or re-flowing. It's fairly easy, it does work and will get the WiiU in question back up and in running order.

Wii-U NAND RECOVERY

Recover Wii-U NAND with this KIT

voultar.com

Using NAND-AID to repair a broken eMMC (fix 160-0103 system memory error)

Warning This tutorial is only for advanced users and has a serious risk of bricking the console. Make sure you read it completely before executing any step and that you understand every step and its implications. While not strictly required, it is still recommended to install ISFShax, before...

gbatemp.net

My Wii U - It Met with a Terrible Fate...

As many will have heard in mainstream news over the past while, certain models of the Wii U are starting to exhibit errors and problems related to failing nand chips.

www.boards.ie

Here's something to consider: MOST WiiU's will not have the NAND problem as Nintendo only used the Hynix NAND in limited numbers. So as much money and time as you will spend on fixing your WiiU, it might be easier to simply buy a new one. However, there is something to be said about the fixing the one you have. And if it's booting up, getting to the point of showing you an error(any error, not just the 160-0103), then the system is still alive, just can't read it's NAND.

So it's up to you(and anyone else who reads this) how much of a deep dive you want to make.

BTW, welcome to TPU!

As someone who used to teach operatives how to mend commercial telecomms equipment (which make a PC look decidedly simple). Rule #1: it's the flash/RAM, rule #2 it's the flash/RAM, rule #3 they dropped it - look for broken stuff. We used to charge £400 a pop for a quick fix, if you had reballing PCB/FPGA rework stations *AND* a technician who could use it - more important than the kit actually.

I would normally agree with you, but with the WiiU problems, it's a bit more involved and fine-grained than simple device abuse. In the case of WiiU's, the Hynix NAND supplied to Nintendo had a problem no one knew about until it was too late. It is unlikely that even Nintendo themselves knew about it until this problem came to light.

 

[V10lator]

@lexluthermiester Wow, didn't think we would agree but you even linked my GBATemp tutorial. Thanks for this.

@padripper Basically all had been said already except: The purple LED indicates that the recovery menu is still working, NAND corruption is now just at a point where the fonts or something like that corrupted. So now you'll have to navigate it blindly. Have a look at the tutorial on GBATemp (the one lexluthermiester linked) for a fork of the recovery menu + a screenshot of its menu which will hopefully help you to navigate it blindly (we're currently working on giving hints on the power LED of the Wii U to make it more simple to navigate blindly but that needs time to get implemented). Also make sure to completely understand that tutorial before trying anything more to fix this.
Also note that on GBATemp NAND-AIDs are getting sold currently. In case you can't access GBATemps trading area ask around if someone has one available or search on eBay (just make sure to not pay more than around 10 € for the full set).
In case you're not good at soldering and don't know someone who could help you with this it might be a good idea to ask at a local phone repair shop or something like that. You'll still need the NAND-AID and at best give them a link to the howto lexluthermiester linked. Would be sad to turn that Wii U into E-waste, so in case this really gets too complicated for you look on eBay: Thanks to developers purchasing such Wii Us they get sold for almost the same costs as working ones...

//EDIT:

the Hynix NAND supplied to Nintendo had a problem

Also it's not all Hynix ones but only ones produced in roughly 2012 / beginning of 2013 (chip producing date, not Wii U producing date).