The Wii is Here.

Problem Description:

1) The console will occasionally lag and sputter while switching between menu screens, and the disc drive will make loud clicking noises whenever this happens.

2) The console will frequently lock up or lag for extended periods of time immediately following a System Update. Occasionally, I will be forced to hard-reset the console.

3) A somewhat minor issue, but I’ve had one or two instances of Wii Sports freezing during gameplay. This did not occur after a long gaming session. It is quite random and very hard to replicate.

4) While starting the game WarioWare Smooth Moves, it may take the console anywhere from a few seconds to a few minutes to finally load the splash screen with the controller strap warning. This is beginning to happen less often, but the first few plays were incredibly severe. This problem did not occur on a friend’s console. However, it was only tested twice on that system.

5) In a much more severe problem, the Konami game Elebits freezes after a “saving data” splash screen every time. After that splash screen, the disc continues to spin at the same rate until the console is hard-powered down. The controller is unresponsive but remains powered. It worked normally for roughly 50 hours of gameplay prior to this incident. This is the only one of my eight Wii discs that has this problem and it has no surface flaws. The game does not freeze in a friend’s console after similar play times.

6) The Wii Remotes I’ve included in the repair order have their own issues as well.

a) One Wii Remote (I believe it is the one I purchased separately from the console) has had the “B” button come loose. I initially thought the rattling was coming from the battery cover, but upon holding that down, it’s clear that the source of the rattling is the loose “B” button. It does not affect gameplay from what I can tell, but I figured I might as well send it in while I’m doing a repair order for the console.

b) The other Wii Remote has a very obscure problem. Occasionally, some games will cause the remote to “over-rumble”. It’s a very hard problem to describe unless you can tell the difference between what the rumble used to be, and what it is now. The rumble is very intense and seems as if it’s shaking some of the internal componentry too much. The game I’ve noted that causes this to happen the most often is Atlus’s game Trauma Center: Second Opinion, but this is not the only game that causes this problem. I can tell there’s a large difference based on the rumble output between both of the controllers as I’ve played that game in particular for quite a long time.

Sorry that I’ve turned a one-line description into a page-long essay, but I thought it was necessary to avoid a future repair order.