My Wii almost met with a tragic end this week when it decided to shut itself off for good. Apparently it couldn’t take the “Wii” jokes anymore.
Last night, as I walk in from a long day of doing nothing, my Wii’s little orangey-yellow light wasn’t on. I, sensing something wrong, did what all red-blooded Americans do: I hit it. I gave it good, hard slap in the self-loading disc drive. Nope, no good. I checked all the wires, all the outlets, and anything else related to the problem, but nothing worked.
Distraught over the loss of my one true friend, I decided to call up Nintendo and plan out a proper funeral for the little guy. With minimal wait time (props to Nintendo for the awesome background video game music while on hold, btw), I got connected with the proper authorities.
Not one to give up on one of its patient however, the technician directed me to the inherent problem of the AC Adapter getting shocked out of commission temporarily. For some reason, it just stops working. We narrowed it down to my Lexar 256MB SD Card. As it is not fully endorsed by Nintendo, the technician advised me to not use it anymore, as it may still cause problems with shocking the AC Adapter. So if anyone has had the same problem, check your SD card and see if it is the source of the problem.
One little interesting tidbit that I heard her say is that Nintendo may be releasing a first-party memory card for the Wii. She advised me in getting one, but quickly took back the statement, saying they haven’t released one yet. Something for the future, or a cute little misunderstanding? Could it be the official Nintendo SD Card from Japan, the one that isn’t overly priced at $60 (I’m looking at you Sandisk)? Time will tell.
As for the Wii, he’s on the road to recovery. He proudly shines his yellowy-orange light, but with a more focused look on the dangers of 21st century life.
Welcome home, little buddy.
Did he give any explanation of how an SD card could possibly short out/shock the AC adapter? Also, does the card still work?
The technician didn’t give me a clear explanation as to how it would short it out. She just pointed to it not being fully endorsed or tested for the Wii. I tried the SD Card with Excite Truck right after and the thing still works. I’ll probably make sure to take it out from now on. Weird situation, though. With the little technical know-how I have, I can’t imagine a memory card taking more energy than it needs to cripple an AC Adapter.