What is it about Resident Evil that damages Wiis?

sremick

Got lifeboat?
Jun 11, 2007
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Vermont, USA
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So after months of using my Wii with no problems, I popped in one of the several games I got for xmas: Resident Evil 4. And what happens? Suddenly I'm plagued with the "green dots" issue, and now it's present in other games too (I'm seeing it in Cars too, and I wasn't before). So I do a search on the internet to learn more about this problem (which I had heard about), and lo and behold: the majority of people seem to get it after playing RE4. So what the heck is going on? What is it about this game that damages the Wii, and why hasn't there been a recall yet to solve this problem if it's so-clearly related to RE4?

Not pleased about having to send my Wii in for repair, and very concerned about losing my save games.
 
i haven't heard anything like this. maybe it's just a coincidence. but i have no idea.

so you don't lose your save games and what not i'd go buy an sd card til all this is resolved. sorry.
 
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cassieboo said:
i haven't heard anything like this. maybe it's just a coincidence. but i have no idea.

Apparently it's very common.

so you don't lose your save games and what not i'd go buy an sd card til all this is resolved. sorry.

Except that apparently some games won't let you transfer their saved games to an SD card, although I haven't been able to get a definitive list of what games.
 
sremick said:
So after months of using my Wii with no problems, I popped in one of the several games I got for xmas: Resident Evil 4. And what happens? Suddenly I'm plagued with the "green dots" issue, and now it's present in other games too (I'm seeing it in Cars too, and I wasn't before).

That is the oddest thing I've ever heard of - specifically a game causing some permanent condition (that's then present in OTHER games)!

I guess it could be from two potential sources:

1) Code based - that is, some kind of low level addressing that somehow pokes values into some non-volatile memory register. That seems incredibly unlikely, but I suppose possible.

2) Some kind of media based issue - i.e., the RE discs are warped/thicker/distorted and are causing some kind of physical damage to the laser sub-system (either shifting the focal length enough or +possibly+ striking the lens itself).

Yeah, the inconsistency with Nintendo restoring your saved games would bother me too. It was my understanding you could transfer everything to an SD card (and then back when it returns from repair), but I haven't really researched that in detail.
 
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In case it wasn't obvious, follow the linked text "very common" in my previous post for a Google search which shows what I'm talking about. It occurred to me that Wiichat doesn't make linked text very obvious at all, just underlining it... and some people underline text for other reasons.
 
Ive never heard of that, but i dont have RE4 for teh wii. Email nintendo and ask about it is what i would do.
 
look at the youtube link on the google search. nintendo replaced his for free, the but the dots look like the Harry Potter logo on his... weird
 
Maybe its some interference problem... what kinda TV do you play your wii on?
 
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I've heard lots of theories about it being an over-heated GPU, but none of that explains the high-rate of people who don't have any problems until running Resident Evil 4. I'm seeing it now in Tomb Raider, Cars, and Harry Potter, when I wasn't seeing it in any of those prior to running RE4. I never saw it at all until running RE4, which is identical to many other peoples' experiences.

I don't claim to understand what is going on or how it can possibly happen (as a technical geek I'm as confused as the rest of you) but all I can say is that the pattern is disturbing and suggests that something is out of whack here.
 
I don't know a great deal about hardware, but could it be that RE4 works the Wii's GPU harder than other games for some reason, and this can cause it to overheat and suffer permanent damage...?
 
sremick said:
I've heard lots of theories about it being an over-heated GPU, but none of that explains the high-rate of people who don't have any problems until running Resident Evil 4. I'm seeing it now in Tomb Raider, Cars, and Harry Potter, when I wasn't seeing it in any of those prior to running RE4. I never saw it at all until running RE4, which is identical to many other peoples' experiences.

I don't claim to understand what is going on or how it can possibly happen (as a technical geek I'm as confused as the rest of you) but all I can say is that the pattern is disturbing and suggests that something is out of whack here.
RE4 runs to powerfully for the Wii, therefore overheating it, and causing permanent damage.
 
Wow, hadn't actually heard of this.

Think I will cross Resident Evil off my to buy list (I have never been much in to the "such and such game broke my console" claims, but there looks to be something behind this one).

Thanks for the heads up and sorry you had to go through it.
 
I'm hoping the PAL version is okay because I got it for Christmas too! Havn't played it much yet though because I also got Scarface which I want to complete quickly.
 
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