Well that’s a slight exaggeration, but it got your attention !

I turned my Wii on for the first time in a few weeks yesterday, and noticed some odd graphical artefacts, not unlike these:

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6RZu-2vBoLc&rel=0&color1=0×3a3a3a&color2=0×999999]

After a bit of research on the tinterweb, it would appear this isn’t all that uncommon. If, like me, you leave the Wii on standby with Connect24 turned on so you can receive messages etc, you’re sitting on a timebomb.

What happens is thus. When the Wii is sat in standby mode, the fans don’t run. This wouldn’t be a problem if the WIFI chips weren’t bang next to the GPU. Hot WIFI chips + GPU + no fan = cooking. I noticed the thing was hot to the touch, so I think it’s safe to say this is indeed what’s happened.

Luckily enough Game swapped it right out, without even taking it out the box. They didn’t seem at all surprised when I told them what was wrong, so suspect there’s been a few go back with the same symptoms.

So now I’ve got my new Wii all set up, waiting for No More Heroes. I do have a question though. If this is something Nintendo must know about, is my new Wii likely to be redesigned at all? I don’t know whether to turn it off when not in use, or carry on like before. After all, I do still have 9 months of warranty…..

Has your Wii suffered a similar fate? Let us know in the comments section.