A few months ago during the release of the Resident Evil 4 port for the Nintendo Wii, I can across a few gamers who were having video issues with the game and possibly attributed to there something wrong with the game itself. Of course it wasn’t the game, as Resident Evil 4 being one of the awesomest games in existence. Turns out that the video issue wasn’t just limited to Resident Evil 4, but to other games as well. OK. Not sure whats going on here. Perhaps some issues with their video connections maybe?

After searching through some more, I came across some news report of the Wii actually overheating. Now this comes as a surprise because I wondered, how in the hell could a tiny little thing like that possibly overheat? Unfortunately, news of Wii’s overheating was already circulating since the time of it being launched. I just wasn’t aware of it at the time since I had no issues myself. This of course lead to the video issue again. Turns out that the over heating in some of the Wii’s out is actually what causes the video issue by damaging the Wii’s internal video card. Wow, I wondered. Can some people out there be so addicted to the Wii that they play it to the point of overheating? Or perhaps people have no concept of proper ventilation? Well, thats not actually the case either.

The nifty “Wii Connect24” feature of the Wii also has its hand in it. What do I mean? Well, try this. If you have the Wii Connect 24 turned on, go and touch your Wii. Yes touch your Wii. You know you want to. Now touch it. TOUCH IT!!!

 Ok, notice how strangely hot it is? Even if the last time you even turned it on was 2 months ago, its still unnecessarily hot. This is due to the Wii Connect 24 being turned on. And when it’s turned on, its ALWAYS on even on “standby-mode” when you’re not even using the Wii. So how much power is it actually using then? Nintendo claims that the Wii Connect 24 feature uses the equivalent power of a small light bulb. Well a light bulb, no matter how small can get pretty hot if left on for a long period of time.

Now I wouldn’t freak out about it too much. Cause there are millions of other Wii owners who still have their Wii Connect 24 on and have no issues. And the last faulty report from Nintendo is that only less than 2% of Wii have been actually found to have issues. So its not like we’re having the Xbox 360 epidemic here. But as for me, I’ve turned my Wii Connect 24 off when I’m not using the Wii and only turn it on when ever I need to. Not trying to risk anything if I don’t have to.

Note : Now if for whatever reason that you are still paranoid about the Wii over heating from Wii Connect 24,  but would rather have it turned on, check out my post on the Illuminating Cooling Stand. If you don’t mind the infernal LED lighting, it will keep your Wii constantly cool (and cool looking!) even with the Wii Connect 24 on.