Is there any reason to update to Wii system 4.2?

[t0yrobo]

I know this is kinda old news now but I haven't been paying attention to the scene much. But yeah, the title pretty much says it all.
The reason is my younger brothers Wii has the homebrew channel and all that good stuff on it, and he's a)12 and, b)3 hours away from me. I really don't want to get a phone call saying a game asked for a system update and now his Wii is bricked. Especially with Christmas coming up and him likely getting new games.

[Upsidedown Fuji]

I'm a victim of the 4.2 update. I just got a brand new Wii from my girlfriend for Christmas and we were dinking around with it making Miis because we didn't have any software for it yet. Eventually I got my wireless network connected to it and it immediately asked me if I wanted to update. Not knowing anything about the Wii scene, I accepted because I expected it to be as normal as an XBOX 360 update.

Nope, I was greeted with a black screen full Wii brick. Less than one day after taking it out of the box. Now I don't think I'll have a working Wii sent back to me before Christmas.

After reading tons of websites and forum posts relating to my recent abrupt Wii's death, I found there's no benefit to upgrading to 4.2 if you can avoid it.

I'd suggest holding off on updates till the next one, if there ever is.

[Cronson]

I'm a victim of the 4.2 update. I just got a brand new Wii from my girlfriend for Christmas and we were dinking around with it making Miis because we didn't have any software for it yet. Eventually I got my wireless network connected to it and it immediately asked me if I wanted to update. Not knowing anything about the Wii scene, I accepted because I expected it to be as normal as an XBOX 360 update.

Nope, I was greeted with a black screen full Wii brick. Less than one day after taking it out of the box. Now I don't think I'll have a working Wii sent back to me before Christmas.

After reading tons of websites and forum posts relating to my recent abrupt Wii's death, I found there's no benefit to upgrading to 4.2 if you can avoid it.

I'd suggest holding off on updates till the next one, if there ever is.

I'm obviously out of the loop. Are you saying you had a brand new Wii, in no way modded, and it bricked when you updated it? If so, that just sucks.

[ejamer]

Regarding the update:
Not really any good reason that I know of, other than some new games requiring the latest firmware to be played.


Regarding bricking issues:
The code Nintendo uses for error checking when updating a critical part of the Wii firmware doesn't have good error checking. If there are flaws with the hardware, it can cause your Wii to brick. Getting a replacement in that case isn't such a bad thing, and the percentage of people who it happens is to extremely small - well under 1% from the math I've seen.

Internet fanboys have greatly exaggerated the issue, but it's true that there is a (small) chance the update could brick your Wii. I think the outrage comes with the fact that any possibility of bricking is too much for those people... so I guess they must also be strongly opposed to 360 on principal, and dislike PS3 updates since report of a few bricked systems always come out afterwards? (Hint: No, the volumn of complaints is just because Wii is involved and people like to bitch.)

Oh yeah, and apparently if you have a grey-market Wii where the original firmware was replaced with firmware from a different region that will also cause bricking issues.

[corn619]

I just leave my Wii disconnected from the net. I works fine out of the box so why mess with? When I bought Super Mario Wii there was a update on the disc which I'm not sure if it updated the FW or not. I'll assmue it did though. I hope this doesn't mess with my ability to play the Fatal Frame 4 fan translation coming out shortly.

[MrPopo]

Have your brother update the Homebrew channel to the latest version so that if he gets New Super Mario Bros the update it installs won't remove the Homebrew channel.

[jp1]

Or just install a preloader and disable the disc update check.

A guide for that is here...

http://gbatemp.net/index.php?showtopic=144835

[Upsidedown Fuji]

Yup. That's exactly what happened. No modding or tinkering what so ever. It was straight out of the box. I was considering putting the homebrew channel on it so I can play legal purchased copies of American version games on because I can borrow from a local friend here. Buuuuut I didn't even have a chance to play around with the new mii I created. I just accepted the update unaware of the possible risk, then boom, dead Wii.

[DNT 2.5]

Updates are the reason I miss the Dreamcast,
Nintendo, Sony, Microsoft, YOU ARE ALL GUILTY
Sega, you are pure pwnage

[MrHealthy]

Or just boot all the games through Gecko OS. Thats what I do if its got an update on the disc.