Hi,

My Wii is acting up again... had a graphical issue (flickering pixels) for a while that eventually went away, but since playing MKW I've seen the pixels come back a little bit worse. Most noticeable on static screens like the grass in Golf or the track during the 3-2-1 countdown in MKW. Contacted Nintendo and have a repair all setup, except I ran into a problem with which they have not given me a very encouraging answer:

Both the SSBB and MKW data cannot be copied to an SD card. When I asked them specifically about it, this is what I got:


The sad thing is I care less about the VC games than all the SSBB and MKW hours of unlocking I've put in. I'm almost thinking keeping a faulty Wii is the better option.

Anyone repaired a Wii with data that could not be copied to the SD card? Did you get your game data back?

I had my Wii sent in for repairs and all the data was there that couldn't be written. Mine was for a faulty laser however, who knows what might need to be fixed with yours.

It doesn't matter what was fixed if yours was replaced - do you know if you have the exact same Wii or a new one? Can you edit your Miis?

Dang, I'm starting to get a little artifacting going on with mine, too. So make sure you tell me when you get it back if the save data is still on it. I don't think that there should be a problem witht the save data, though, because I sent my wii in a while ago to get it fixed, and all the save data was still there, but the problem with it then was a faulty disk drive (which is still a problem, I need to get that fixed again. good thing it's still under warranty.) even though this is a different problem, replacing the graphics card has nothing to do with the wii memory, so I wouldn't worry about it.

The chip is soldered to the board, so I expect they would just swap the motherboard out which would include the onboard memory I would expect.

This artifacting issue seems a lot larger than we've been lead to believe. I'm still not sure if I'm sending mine, Pyro, so if you beat me to it make sure you post what happens to yours What a way to kill my interest in SSBB by making me replay and re-unlock everything.

I sent mine in for flickering pixels, and got it back with full memory still there! No worries mate!

Well they could just take out the chip and solder in a new one though, right?

Anybody know why you can't save some games to an SD card? Like Kiryllos said, I don't want to unlock everything in Mario Kart again either, and especially not in Guitar Hero 3, because that took me a way long time to do.

Duke, did you have a game like GH3 or SSBB on the Wii when you had it repaired?

My concern is that the games are somehow attached to the MAC address or something, so if they change the board the MAC might change too and invalidate the savegames.


This is true Can't say that's what they'd do, though, but seems like the right option especially since the other parts of my system are working fine.

Update:

Got the following out of Nintendo. It sounds like it's only specific types of damage that might result in the inability to copy data across, not that data that can't go to the SD Card cannot be copied to a new system:


Although I'm no expert, I would wager that graphics card issues aren't a problem with the 'main circuit' (I assume they mean motherboard) that would result in the inability to copy save data. If my assumption is correct, the main board is probably fine just the graphics card is wonky so the save data area should be accessible.

Nvm.

I had brawl data on the wii, along with SMG if that means anything, and some other games. I sent it in about 2 weeks after Brawl came out. Dunno if this helps or not.

Well I dropped it off at the shippers this morning - I'm already developing the shakes from Wii Withdrawel... it'll be a tough two weeks being without it and also not knowing whether I'll have all my save data when it comes back.

One question for those who have had repairs: What happens with your Wii Friend and Game codes? I would imagine my Wii Friend code may change and I'll have to add my friends again, but the game codes should stay the same right? Will I have to re-add my game friends?

They stay the same! You will get the same wii back. With the problem you had, they only have to replace a certain laser (At least thats what the net says). It has nothing to do with your memory, and when I got my wii back, my codes were the same and my friends were all still there.

Yep, codes will stay the same as long as you get the same system back.