Nintendo Wii WiFi problem FIXED
November 22, 2006 by Josh Highland
Filed under hacks, video games
Last Saturday, Massive mat and I stood inline with a bunch of other geeks to get Nintendo Wiis. I will write a blog post about that, and about how fun the Wii is to play, but for now, im going to bitch about it for a minute…
One of the big reasons that I wanted to get a Wii was the fact that you are able to play EVERY nintendo game format on it. NES, SNES, N64, GameCube, and now Wii games! To play the old games you have to join their version of XBox Live, and buy them.
The Wii is so futuristic, that it doesnt have an ethernet port on it, no no, wifi is the way nintendo wii rolls!
I wanted to buy some of these old games and play them, but you have to connect to a wifi connection first. Not a problem, I have a Linksys WRT54GL router upstairs serving out some 802.11g love.
The Wii would see the access point, I would enter the WPA password, then the Wii would think about connecting then spit back and error, "ERROR 52230 contact support.nintendo.com". SUCK!
Ok, so I go to the nintendo site, search forever and then find a place to enter my error code. It returns something stupid about trying changing the channel that the router broadcasts on. Weird, but I try it… no LUCK.
I searched up and down the web seeing people with similar problems to mine. I couldnt figure it out for the life of me. All my other wifi gear worked fine.
I did a little research on what was actually inside the Wii as far as a wireless card. Thats when I found this site,
http://www.informit.com/articles/article.asp?p=677908&seqNum=2&rl=1 where they actually took a Wii apart.
I found my answer there in the form of a simple statement "The 802.11 card only operates in the 2412-2462GHz range. In 802.11b mode"
802.11b MODE! WTF!
I dont own any 802.11b equipment, only 802.11g. 802.11b is shitty and slow compared to G. NO WHERE IN THE NINTENDO MANUALS OR ON THE NINTENTDO SITE DOES IT SAY THAT IT ONLY OPERATES AT 802.11b.
Why would nintendo do such a stupid thing? B is 5 times slower then G! Who the hell rund 802.11b equipment? My Damn cell phone has 802.11G support in it! Im more pissed that they didnt print it anywhere in the manual. They talk about WEP and WPA, but not the fucking protocol they use for the connection!
So I logged into my router and put it on Mixed (B/G) Mode, and what do you know, the Wii was able to connect to the nintendo server and get the updates that I needed to connect to their store.
So if you are having problems connecting your Wii to some WiFi. make sure that the router is set to mixed mode.
Nintendo, thank you for a great machine. Screw you for putting in a slow wifi card and not telling people more details about it.
I hope someone else can finally get their Wii online after reading this post.
hey, your advice got me on the internet. I wanted to thank you for taking the time to write this.
Hey guys…I tried this and it worked….
When you cant access the Wii Channel but everything else works…I get the error 291600 something like that…a timeout error…click to try it again…
While it is still accessing the connection…I tried pressing the RESET button on the Wii console and guess what…it worked….I got a message to wait …downloading
I think there is a glitch in the software update on the Wii Channel. This all started when i updated the wii channel.
Email me if it works…..Im a happy camper now.
when its connecting and gives you an error code…
re-try….but dont push the reset button yet…wait for a about 30 seconds when u press the reset and it resets….its no good…you will get the error sign again….
when you press the reset button and it doesnt reset(u have to wait at least 30 seconds) if it doesnt reset, continue holding the reset button…you will connect to the wii channel soon.
hope this helps
email me when it works or if you have any questions on my instructions…mine works now …and i still have to do this everytime…sucks
when you are connecting to wii channel….try holding the reset button…if it doesnt reset then you will be connected soon…continue holding it till you get another message.
Try turning the wireless mode to 802.11b only. I had a new Wii, and mixed wouldn’t work. Turning on b only allowed a connection, where an update resolved the problem. I then turned on g mode only. Done deal…………
Anyone with WRK54G? Routher is about 5 years old. Works great, although have not been able to upgrade the firmware, Linksys stopped supporting it about 3years ago. I’ve tried all of the tricks previously mentioned ie; ch 6 to 11 then 1; WEP and TKIP; mixed mode; MAC address. I’m able to connect most of the time, then upgrade with no problem, weather and news no problem. When I try to go to WII SHOP it gives me an error somewhere from first connecting and not much further. Help!!!
I’ve had error 51330 and a Linksys WRT54g access point using WPA and mac filtering. I’ve tried a number of options:
* wifi channel to 1 or 11, no effect
* mixed mode on access point, no effect
* b mode only, no effect
* rebooted AP and wii, no effect
* disabled mac filter, bingo! wii connects and asks for a system update. I’ve let it update itself.
* reset wifi channel to auto and mode to G only, the wii continued to connect.
* re-enabled mac filtering and used the NEW mac address in the MAC filter. The system update apparently changes the mac address. The wii still connects to internet.
So now I’ve got a wifi connection with my wii. Btw, thanks all other posters for the suggestions.
ok um how do u change it to b/g mode??
That’s config of your accesspoint (router)…the difference between mixed mode and G only.
Wow — without this site i would of not figured it out. My router is set to Mix mode and the Wii still did not want to connect. Not until i set to B only did I find success.
does setting it to b only mess up any thing?
i have netgear model WPN824v3
If you set it to wirless B only, other devices that use wirless G only will not connect. If you have a laptop that does wireless G or B, and your set to B only, you will connect with B which is slow.
so mixed would be best if it works, G only is better, B only, only if you have to.
so does a wii do wireless G? my wii connects when wireless G only is selected, but other computers connected with wireless G on the network are getting intermittent internet.
the answer is no, it does not mess anything up to set it to B only. If you do have problems you can always change it back.
I wasn’t able to connect using 128bit WEP. I had mixed mode selected and on Channel 11 on the router provided by Verizon (FIOS). I changed the WEP to 64bit and the Wii connected. Once the Wii updated it’s software, I changed the router WEP back to 128bit and reconfigured the Wii to 128bit. It then connected right away.
I am trying to connect my laptop to my Wii and my internet connection is coming from my 3G Blackberry via tethering. I have tried just about everything I have read except buying a router and going with cable internet which I really don’t want to do. ($10/mo vs $50/mo) I tried the B only setting on my wireless card with no luck. Factory was a mix of A B and G. Not seeingwhere to disable MAC.
help?
Tried every suggestion under the sun for the past 4 hours. Switched to “b” mode only and it worked. Dual mode did not. Now Wii is updating itself. Thanks a lot for the post guys.
Miohael