Wii Power - Amber, Red or off?

[Neverending Project]

I am on my second power brick for my Wii, and it is maybe 6 months old and rarely played. The first time it went out, the Wii would not power up at all, and there was no light on the power switch on the front of the Wii. I tested the Nintendo AC adapter, and it turned out to be bad so I bought a Nyko replacement.

The Nyko has a blue light on the brick to let me know it is getting power. This worked for a short while, but then the Wii stopped working again. This time there was a red light on the power button but it would not power up, no matter how much I unplugged everything and reset the unit. The blue light remained on the Nyko adapter, but nothing worked. This time a call to Nintendo had a new (refurb) AC adapter shipped to my house in a day.

So now that it is working again, I am suspecting something in my setup is causing failures. Do you leave your Wii in stand-by mode (amber light on the power switch), off mode (red light) or turned off completely at a power strip? I am beginning to think I should plug it into its own strip and use that to power it on/off.

[severdhed]

wow, that sucks.  are you using any kind of surge protector?  Those $5 power strips you get at walmart aren't necessarilly surge protectors.  I keep my Wii in standby mode at all times.  if there is a thunderstorm or something i'll occasionally unplug everything, but normally it is just in standby with the amber light.

[ahofle]

Mine shuts off completely and turns red (turn off standby mode in Wii settings).  The Wii gets very hot just sitting there in amber mode so I got rid of it.  There really isn't any point in having it sit there and access the internet when I'm not around anyway. 

[hypernova]

wow, that sucks.  are you using any kind of surge protector?  Those $5 power strips you get at walmart aren't necessarilly surge protectors.  I keep my Wii in standby mode at all times.  if there is a thunderstorm or something i'll occasionally unplug everything, but normally it is just in standby with the amber light.

If you are indeed in standby mode instead of powering down completely to the red light, you are wasting power, producing unnecessary heat, and reducing the life of the Wii.  There really is no decent reason to maintain standby mode.  Any updates can be done when you power it on to play it.

NEP...as long as you power down to red, you'll be fine, as no heat is being generated.

Edit:  Just remembered the main reason to power down to red.  Most people who develop graphical glitches on their Wii had it in standby mode when not in use.  The heat is enough over time to ruin the graphic's card in the Wii.  It is a known issue, but no actions were taken by Nintendo to resolve it.  It's not nearly on the same scale as RROD on the 360.

[danny_galaga]

mines shut to red. and mostly switched off at the wall...

[Neverending Project]

The best part about a full power down is that it kills the USB ports, so you can use the extra one to toggle your hard drive off and on.   

I read through your HD thread, and am doing the same. Did you say somewhere that a USB powered drive such as the WD won't work?

[ChadTower]

...unless you're using one of them as your network interface like I am.

[ChadTower]

Get a splitter, problem solved.  Or do you mean it never shuts off the USB ports if you've got a network adapter in there?

Hrm... can't say I like the Wii's USB controller with 3 devices on it.  Having that fail would suuuuuck. 

[ChadTower]

The relay is not a 'third' device, it's simply using the 5VDC (minimally) and ground to activate.  No logic required.

I didn't look that closely at it... it's pulling 5v from both USB ports, yes?  It's not the logic that concerns me, it's the amount of current.  Nintendo didn't put that controller in there with much use in mind.

[Hoopz]

The best part about a full power down is that it kills the USB ports, so you can use the extra one to toggle your hard drive off and on.   

I read through your HD thread, and am doing the same. Did you say somewhere that a USB powered drive such as the WD won't work?

I set this up last night using as WD Passport 160gb model and didn't have any problems.  I'm pretty sure it powers off when the Wii does too but I didn't pay too much attention to that.  I can check it tonight/tomorrow and post more if you want.   My model is about 2 or 3 years old.  FYI.

[severdhed]

is there a setting on the wii to make it shut completely down when you turn it off with the controller?  or do you guys actually get up and walk over to the wii and press the power button?

[ahofle]

I can confirm that a WD Passport 320GB external drive is sufficiently powered by the Wii's USB port and powers off when the Wii is shut down (and it only pulls power from one USB port).  This one:
Passport drive link

[hypernova]

I just have a 500 GB WD Mybook external HDD, and it works perfectly fine.  Powers off when the Wii is powered down.

is there a setting on the wii to make it shut completely down when you turn it off with the controller?  or do you guys actually get up and walk over to the wii and press the power button?

The old way would have been to hold the power button down on either the Wiimote or the console until it went red.  But just do as pbj said and disable WiiConnect24.  You'll still be perfectly able to connect to online games and such just fine.  It's just the weather and news that don't work without it.

[Neverending Project]

I am beginning to think that having it on amber for months is what caused my power supplies to fail. I didn't realize what was happening, since when I set it up I just assumed that WiiConnect24 was the Wii network connection. So when I pushed the power button and it went to amber, I just assumed that the Wii was powered down. Little did I know that it was secretly heating itself into oblivion.

Now that WiiConnect24 is off, I will hope that going red will be good enough.

Oh, and I got a Simple Drive from Fry's (500GB) so let's hope that it works.

Edit: The SimpleDrive does not show up in USB Loader. I guess I will return it and try to get a WD, or one that is known to work.

[SavannahLion]

Edit:  Just remembered the main reason to power down to red.  Most people who develop graphical glitches on their Wii had it in standby mode when not in use.  The heat is enough over time to ruin the graphic's card in the Wii.  It is a known issue, but no actions were taken by Nintendo to resolve it.  It's not nearly on the same scale as RROD on the 360.

I'm one of those victims. I believe part of the reason that Nintendo has not taken steps to resolve it (outside of warranty repairs) is that there are some that believe that the heat generated during standby isn't enough to damage the video chip and it's a result of a manufacturing defect.

[severdhed]

ahh, cool.  i didnt realize it was that simple.  i though wiiconnect24 would have been cool, but it is really just a joke.  i very rarely ever go into the news or weather channel on my wii, and when i do, it still has to sit there and take forever to update.  i think i'll turn mine off.

[patrickl]

ahh, cool.  i didnt realize it was that simple.  i though wiiconnect24 would have been cool, but it is really just a joke.  i very rarely ever go into the news or weather channel on my wii, and when i do, it still has to sit there and take forever to update.  i think i'll turn mine off.

What I never understood is why you need to be connected 24/7 just to read the news or weather report once in a while (if ever). How about downloading the data when I need it?

[hypernova]

ahh, cool.  i didnt realize it was that simple.  i though wiiconnect24 would have been cool, but it is really just a joke.  i very rarely ever go into the news or weather channel on my wii, and when i do, it still has to sit there and take forever to update.  i think i'll turn mine off.

What I never understood is why you need to be connected 24/7 just to read the news or weather report once in a while (if ever). How about downloading the data when I need it?

I've always questioned that myself.

[SavannahLion]

ahh, cool.  i didnt realize it was that simple.  i though wiiconnect24 would have been cool, but it is really just a joke.  i very rarely ever go into the news or weather channel on my wii, and when i do, it still has to sit there and take forever to update.  i think i'll turn mine off.

What I never understood is why you need to be connected 24/7 just to read the news or weather report once in a while (if ever). How about downloading the data when I need it?

I've always questioned that myself.

After thinking about it for sometime, I realized one feature that I almost immediately disabled (read: forgot about). That damn annoying blue light. IIRC, whenever an update, email, or whatever comes down the tubes, the Wii actually has that annoying ass flashing blue light indicating something is waiting for you. Aside from some nefarious purpose Nintendo might have up their sleeve, I seem to recall that this was once a selling feature ( ) of the Wii. Someone sends you an email and you instantly know, even if it's 2 in the morning and you're trying to sleep with a giant blinking night light.

[ChadTower]

I always figured the WiiConnect24 requirement for simple XML feeds was only to get you to stay connected for auditing purposes.  There really is no technical reason for it but if they can convince you to do it their network and usage goes way up artificially.

[SavannahLion]

Speaking of which. Given the bog standard connection, I'm left wondering why no one went further with this.

I imagine it would give us a better idea of what the Wii does during standby.