I'm afraid I'll have to send my Wii to Nintendo for service. What I'm not sure about is if my Wii will still be linked to all the games I've downloaded. If you send your Wii into Nintendo for service, do they send you your same Wii or send you another one refurbished? I'm asking of course to save all the VC games I had bought on that Wii. I have a second Wii now but all my downloaded games are tied to the specific Wii that the game was originally downloaded.

You should ask nintendo that.

I had to send my wii to get repaired by Nintendo. I didn't get the same one back, but all the games I had bought I was able to download free from the wii shop channel.

Definitely a question for Nintendo, you never know what repairing your Wii will require. Back up your save files just in case... If they end up formatting your Wii system memory, you'll lose all your existing save and channel data, though without erasing your Wii Shop account you should still be able to re-download everything you had bought previously.

Yeah, all my save files were erased.

It really depends upon the repair. I saw my machine had a different serial number when it came back (foolishly semi-bricked my machine running AnyRegionChanger through the Twilight Hack rather than the Homebrew Channel), but I was assured it was the same machine, just that the nature of my "repair" involved swapping the main board which changes the internal ID of the machine and the external serial number as a consequence.

Whilst I lost all my Miis and save data, they did tie the new ID to the shop, so I was able to redownload stuff just fine (this was before the speed boost to SD read/write, so it was faster to download than copy back from SD card!).

One thing to note is that the system generally doesn't allow save game data to be copied back until the game has been played once, so you may end up swapping discs and then copying save data back. If you have a game that doesn't allow save data back-ups, you're just hosed (well, there are Homebrew apps that get around this, but I don't think it's worth it).

Also older games like WiiSports and WiiPlay appear to somehow tie your Mii to the system ID, so even if you restore your Miis from your wiimotes (don't forget to back them up!), the system won't recognise them as having originated on your the Wii (you won't be able to edit them in the Mii Channel either) and you'll lose all previous records. Thankfully WiiFit is a bit more clever and just cares that the Mii is the same.

Of course if they only format the machine and don't swap the board, you shouldn't have these problems and it's just a matter of restoring the data.

Thanks. I can live without most of my save data except SSBB took quite awhile to unlock all that stuff. We'll see though after it comes back from Nintendo if I can copy all of the save data back. Maybe I could post on here my experiences for anyone that may have to send their Wii for service in the future.

Always nice to read. What's the problem with the machine exactly?

I actually don't know for sure yet. All I know is that my son apparently tore it up somehow. It may be salvageable but I have to check it out. I will know for sure when I go visit in a couple weeks.

A friend of mine got a problem with his Wii system.. like all of a sudden he cant get access to the Wii Shop Channel, like once he picks it and starts to load, it doesnt show any screen at all and it just stays black and nothing happens at all.. i mean, he can get through all the other channels except the Wii Shop Channel, its weird but im thinkin maybe his Wii overheated or somethin cause that day it was really a hot weather and stuff... so i dunno if u guys got that problem too.

I don't have an overheating problem with my Wii although I think that may have been an issue with my PS3. My bedroom is kinda small so it can get pretty warm inside. I've occasionally had problems with the Shop channel but I just reload it and it works fine.

I've had some channels take time to load as well like Wii Shop and the Mii channel; I'm pretty sure it's network-related as both will try to access the net at launch.

Some times after I press start on the Wii Shop Channel menu, I often get a black screen for a few mins. After that it works. Weird.