I have a 2nd Wii U I purchased. It was sold as not working. After getting it home and plugging it in, I have found that the only part that isn't working is the HDMI port is bad, where if the hdmi cable is moved in the correct orientation the display goes out. I am a bit disappointed. The individual who sold it to me told me that it wouldn't load past the Wii U logo. I was hoping for something more challenging than a bad HDMI Port. I will still need to fully test the console before I can say for sure there are no other issues.

I have noticed that due to the shiny black plastic Nintendo used on this console that many of them are scratched/scuffed up. The console looks like its been through hell, although I know from experience that it doesn't take much to scratch or scuff a Wii U.

I plan on opening this up and inspecting the HDMI Port/System Board. I will post back with pictures. If I had to guess I bet the solder around the HDMI port has hairline cracks in it and that is the cause of this problem.

I did some further testing of the console. I loaded a game up that is on the console and got the dreaded error code: 160-0103.

I will have to try a game from a disc. I don't currently have any Wii U disc games with me. I do have some Wii disc games I can test.

I am going to dump the logs files and system information on this console. I am 100% certain its an early production model using a Hynix eMMC. You can tell because these models have the yellow ac input for power. Which is an easy way to identify models that will use a Hynix eMMC.

The system information confirms it. See picture below: 

It is an early model with the Hynix Chip. I will dump the logs and post back. 

Edit: There are a ton of log files on this console, 99 log files to be exact. Not what I saw on the first console I posted about here. The first console had only 4 log files. I have attached the full set of logs as they may be helpful to others and because it helps me stay organized since I now have multiple consoles I am working on

Well I was able to play Wii Bowling for over an hour. I lost track of time and forgot how much fun that game can be.    No error messages, freezing or crashing. I will see if I can locate a Wii U game to test this console further.

I was testing the installed apps on the Wii U and found that if I try to open the Daily Log or Health & Safety app, I get a different error message. Error 160-2215, see picture below: 

This error code is reproducible. I can get it over and over opening either of these apps. I did a quick google search about this error and I find people making ridiculous claims like this error is a failed system motherboard, the CPU is dead, the gamepad is broken. It seems there is alot of wrong information out there about Wii U error codes, especially on websites like Reddit and a few unnamed popular game forums that have been around for decades.

My theory is that this is another corrupt data error code, but its related to specific apps that are on all Wii U consoles by default. I am going to do a full dump of the consoles SLC/MLC to see if the eMMC is failing or if its just corrupt data. I am guessing its the latter

Update: I was able to find a Wii U game. The console either throws an error message when trying to load it or freezes on an update. I started a full dump of the NAND, it looks like the eMMC is bad. There are a ton of bad sectors showing up. I am going to put this console on hold until I get the NAND-AID. I believe it has the same issue as the other console. I will fix the HDMI port when do the eMMC repair, since both require the console to be disassembled. 

I have resumed working on this console now that the first console has been repaired. I have to redo a full dump of the NAND and then check the MLC for corruption. I seem to have misplaced the files. No big deal. I want to know what is corrupted on this console. I suspect it will end up needing a NAND-AID and I do have one to use on it. However I like to research this stuff and test theories before jumping the gun. 

I will say that this unit was produced 5 days after the first unit I repaired here It uses the same version Hynix eMMC chip/revision. So if this is the batch that has the problem, then there is no way to escape that the eMMC is likely defective. That being said, It would be interesting if a database existed online to track these consoles that require this type of repair.

Took over 5 hours to dump the NAND. This poor guy has a ton of errors on the MLC. The SLC errors can be ignored, they are expected when dumping the NAND this way.

After dumping the MLC, you end up with 15 parts. These parts need to be put back together into a single mlc.bin file. The following command run from command prompt in the directory where you have the 15 parts will do just that.

copy /b mlc.bin.part01 + mlc.bin.part02 + mlc.bin.part03 + mlc.bin.part04 + mlc.bin.part05 + mlc.bin.part06 + mlc.bin.part07 + mlc.bin.part08 + mlc.bin.part09 + mlc.bin.part10 + mlc.bin.part11 + mlc.bin.part12 + mlc.bin.part13 + mlc.bin.part14 + mlc.bin.part15 mlc.bin

When its done you will have a single large file roughly 30GB in size named mlc.bin. This is what we need to look at for corruption. The tool of choice for this is wfs tools

This Wii U has too many errors to post, see attached text file, which is not entirely surprising considering the amount of errors that showed up during the MLC dump.

I have the Wii U apart and as we already knew, another Hynix chip.... 

Lets get you all better little guy!!

There ya go, a NAND-AID for your wound!!

I am writing the mlc.bin to a 32GB SD Card then I will get this Wii U powered on and start working on the file/system corruption. Since this Wii U originally booted into the Wii U menu and would play Wii games, I want to see if its possible to do a firmware update now and have it succeed. Additionally I looked at and tested the HDMI Port with a multi-meter and there doesn't appear to be anything wrong with it. I believe this HDMI port issue may be software related. I will have to do further testing once I fix the corruption. 

Installed and everything is working. As we can see the device detects the replacement NAND and as expected is unable to identify it.


I tried to update the firmware using a Wii U game. The current firmware on the console is 5.5.3U. It installed the firmware into memory and then moved to preparing update as seen in pictures below:



At this point it tried to connect to the internet to download some additional files and it was unable to connect and errors out. Afterall this console isn't on WiFi and I am unable to connect to WiFi the traditional way because the Wii U settings menu is corrupt. I am going to load the network configuration using the recovery menu. I am curious if the update will install now that the NAND isn't deteriorating.

That is a no go. I didn't bother to look at the corruption logs more thoroughly but I suspect the network connection portion of the Wii U settings is corrupt. I cannot load a network configuration from the recovery menu and get the connection to work inside the Wii U. So based on this updating firmware on a corrupt Wii U that still boots into the menu is a negative, at least for this Wii U. 

I will move forward to repairing this using the traditional method with ISFShax.

Alright, looks like we are good to go. Firmware has been reloaded along with the required titles. This is a good screen to see:


Its the initial setup for a Wii U and this time I am able to connect to the WiFi.

Console starts up and all previous apps like Wii U Settings, Health & Safety and Daily Activity work without a hitch. Additionally the console is now up to date running firmware 5.5.6U


I will do some additional testing like playing a Wii U title. Additionally I am going to run the MLC checker like I did on the other console to make sure it comes back clean. That being said it looks like this console is repaired. 

   

Well everything appeared to be working. I was able to play a Wii/Wii U game and there were no issues. It wasn't until I tried to do a factory reset that things went sideways. The console started the factory reset and after about 20 minutes it turned off. I wasn't paying attention to it, so maybe an error message came up. I turned the console back on and the console is stuck in the "delete All content and settings" loop.

Here is the system information page from the recovery menu. It proves the updated firmware was installed.


Tomorrow is another day. The saga continues for this console.

Back at it again. The console was stuck in the factory reset crash loop, just like the first Wii U I worked on and repaired. This made it easier for me to isolate the problem and resolve it. I went back and looked at the logs for this console and decided to just do a MLC Check. Came back and there are some corrupt files/folders. I removed these folders using wupclient/wupserver, if you want to know how to use those look at the guide here

After removing 8 corrupt files and moving 2 folders to another location. The console was still stuck in the factory reset boot loop. It wasn't until I deleted all user title data and used the recovery menu to set the console initial state to initial setup that it booted to the setup screen. Console is setup and working now. I am going to do a factory reset (which is delete all content and settings on a Wii U) to see what happens. I want to know if this problem will come back and is repeatable. I suspect it is because it has something to do with the corruption that I am unable to delete.

This time I didn't walk away and I get to see the error message:


and now the console is back in the factory reset crash loop. So this is repeatable. I am going to format the MLC and see if this will resolve this problem permanently. I would prefer that a factory reset could be performed especially since I wanted to give this console to someone else. 

Great news! It turns out formatting the MLC and rebuilding it from a clean/fresh state removes the corruption and thus fixes the factory reset crash loop from occurring. This console can now be factory reset and it completes like it should.

In my opinion this is the preferred way to restore this console. I don't see any reason to fix corruption from a restored MLC that was corrupt. It was fun going down that path though and seeing what could be fixed and what couldn't be fixed.

Also something I noticed, with corruption on the MLC these consoles seem to take much longer to load saves or save games. During my testing before formatting the MLC it would take 17 minutes to grab an update for Hyrule Warriors and install it. Most of the time was spent in installing. It now takes only 5 minutes. Just a theory here, the corruption may actually slow these consoles down.

I did some more testing to verify this console was fully working. Full factory reset is no problem now. That being said after installing some additional games I saw Error 105-3015 when a game download for Wii U Sports attempted to save to the console. I have been researching and testing why this would occur after the console had played 3 Wii U titles, 1 Wii title and has been turned on and off many times without a problem.

I dumped the log files for the console. Full logs uploaded with this post. The only part of the log that stands out to me is
00:01:22:330: FSA: ### DATA CORRUPTION ERROR ###, dev:odd05, err:-2949147, cmd:2, path:(null)

This would seem to indicate the disc in the drive is a problem. Except that when I use the same game disc in 2 other Wii U to test it installs the game/updates without a problem and without an error like this showing up in the logs. I believe this error is related to the recovery menu and something to do with it. I am still combing through everything but I have a theory that some directory lost the correct permissions and updates for games are being downloaded but when they go to be written to memory they cannot due to this permissions error.

I need to setup homebrew on this console and take a look at the directories using FTP. This should be able to show me if the permissions are indeed messed up. I also need to figure out which directory I need to be looking at. Not entirely sure right now but I think it might be the  /usr/packages directory.

I discovered one way of avoiding error 105-3015. Do not uninstall ISFShax when you complete the MLC rebuild process. Leaving ISFShax on the Wii U means the folder permissions do not get screwed up and game updates can download and install properly. This makes me suspicious that something in the uninstalling process of ISFShax is causing either permissions to disappear or become corrupt. I need to investigate this further and I still need to setup FTP with homebrew to see is that is a possible solution to the problem as well