“To Start Please Step Off Me and Press A” – Broken Balance Board, a cautionary tale
This is somewhat of a cautionary tale.
I’ve owned the Wii Fit since November 2008 and its worked flawlessly for 11 months. Then yesterday, in the middle of a game I got this message saying “To start, please step off me and press A”
Problem is, I would step off and nothing would happen. I’d try getting on and getting off, and nothing would change, the screen would just be stuck on this message. The balance board, to use geek parlance, is bricked.
After searching on the Internet, I found that this is not an uncommon problem. Those commenting have dubbed it the “white screen of death”. Nintendo has an FAQ on the subject, but it’s fairly useless if you’re in this predicament. Oddly, when you select “Settings” from the Wii Fit main menu, the diagnostics all check out okay.
And unfortunately there seems to be no solution. The warranty on the Balance Board is three months, so if you’re within that period you can call Nintendo at 1-800-255-3700 and they’ll repair or replace it for free. If it’s after that time, unfortunately, you’ll have to pay about $50 to get it repaired.
Here’s a compilation of all the tips I’ve found on the Internet on this subject. In some cases, people have reported that these steps have solved the problem. In my case I didn’t have luck, but maybe you will.
- Most importantly: if you are using a silicone cover on the Wii Fit OR are using a rechargeable battery (instead of standard batteries), STOP IMMEDIATELY. Evidently this is a common theme across Balance Board units that fail. It galls me, because vendors will push these products upon us at discounted prices, but in the long run Nintendo personnel have stated unequivocally that these things have caused problems and WILL invalidate warranties. Caveat emptor.
- Try a basic “reset” of the system. Here’s how:
- Disconnect the Wii from the wall outlet and remove all batteries from the balance board for at least 15 minutes.
- Plug in the Wii and power it on
- Open the front cover of the Wii and press the red “sync” button of 15 seconds. This should clear all controllers from your system.
- Take your primary Wii-mote and open the battery cover. Press the red “sync” button on the Wii-mote, and then quickly (while the front blue lights are blinking), press the red “sync” button on the Wii. Your Wii-mote will register with the system
- Put the batteries in the balance board
- Start up Wii Fit or Wii Fit Plus
- Once the game has started, press the “sync” button by the balance board’s battery cover and then quickly press the red “sync” button on the Wii. Your balance board will get recognized as the fourth controller.
- Desperation measures. Some users have reported success when they rotate their balance board. Presumably if there was a stuck gyrometer or something, this would unstick it.
. The one good thing out of all this is that I can give the extra copy of Wii Fit Plus I get to my nephew for his birthday. It was a tough $93.99 pill to swallow, but now I know NOT to use a rechargeable battery pack in the future. I also used a credit card with extended warranty.
Has the ”To start, please step off me and press A” white screen of death happened to you? Post a comment to report your troubleshooting steps, or just to vent!
I just had this problem with my balance board. Nintendo is fixing it for $55 so that's better than buying a new one but I bought a new one anyway since some of the fitness games let you use more than one. I was using the rechargeable battery pack. Nintendo told me on the phone not to use the rechargeable battery pack in the balance board or the rechargeable wii remotes so I've chucked all that stuff out. They said it was fine to use rechargeable batteries that were charged outside the wii devices (balance board and remotes). Funny thing is when I bought my new balance board what was sitting right on top of the display of balance boards at Best Buy? The rechargeable packs. Stop that Best Buy!
Just got one for Christmas and allready have that message….and NO…it's not on a carpet amd NO…I don't weigh 300 lbs and NO….I didn't neglet to try to reset EVERY BLOODY thing 20 times including removing batteries etc ad nauseum……
What makes me mad is that yet ANOTHER irresponsible manufacturer passes on their "cruddy' and untested junk on a willing and trusting consumer only to throw up their hands and say…we didn't know….send it back ( at our expense BTW ) and we'll fix what should never have gone out in the first place and…oh….hope you like our polite answer-girls.
I say….SHOVE IT NINTENDO…you haven't done anything right since the damm 8 bit and let's face it….even that was so breakdownable it made us resort to a hundred different home-remedies to fix YOUR problematic console….
Got wii fit for Christmas and haven't been able to use it yet because all I get is "Step off me and press A". I'm becoming really annoyed with it as I've tried all the disconnecting/re-syncing etc that everyone suggest.
I'm going to have to contact the shop I got it from but if anyone has any other suggestions please let me know!
Yes, I've only had the board two days. The first day it worked. My daughter put the silicone sleeve on last night and sure enough… today we have the white screen of death. Glad I bought it at Walmart and they'll take it back.
Easily fixed by reseating stress sensors.
If anyone needs a detailed fix post a reply here.
it has happened to me but i am gonna try some of your tips and see if this works. will let you know the outcome. thanx
unfortunately this did'nt work so i'm gonna have to buy another. thanx anyway
My husband just bought me the wii fit. Today is the first time I've tried to use it and all I keep getting is the "please step off me and press A". It will let me select a mii, choose my height and birthday and then when it says now it's time for a body test all I keep getting is "step off". And I've never even used it before nor have I ever stepped on the board.
I have this problem too. How do you reseat the Wii Balance Board stress sensors?
I like your blog. Thanks for a great web site!
How do your reseat the stress sensors?
Please let us know what the stress sensors are, and how to reset them.
thanks
I have a brand new one and it was bad out of the box. I understand that these are junk but they are all there is. I would like the instructions for reseating the stress sensors. Information is a two way street and I would greatly appreciate this information. I am an electrical engineer and I have designed test equipment. I asked them for a calibration procedure but they told me there isn’t any. I believe they may just be getting these boards back and doing a simple five minute recal and sending them back out.
It looks like “anonymous” who posted on February 5, 2010 is not responding.
From the comments on this blog post, I can see this is a widespread problem. Not to be a conspiracy theorist, but Dennis, I think I agree with you. From the consumer’s perspective, we all probably give Nintendo the benefit of the doubt, in some cases even taking the blame upon ourselves. But bottom line, Nintendo shouldn’t be selling a product that has such a high failure rate and then not own up to it.
I ended up selling mine on eBay, and I presume that people are figuring out a way to fix them, because people are buying them. Search for Broken Balance Board
and you’ll see a bunch from week to week…
If anyone out there has a solution, please post a reply here, and I’ll gladly dedicate a blog post to it…
I just had this problem happen yesterday. Am going to try the fixes here before calling Nintendo. Why isn’t the rechargeable battery warning on the product? I never would have bought one if I knew.
Does anyone know if NIMH batteries are okay to use with the Wii Remotes? It says on Nintendo support that they are, but now I kind of don’t trust what Nintendo says
Thanks!
Well, none of the fixes worked for me, so I have to take the board in for repair (luckily, I work close enough to the repair center that I can drop it off and save $10 on shipping and weeks of being without my board). The support person said, though, that the rechargeable batteries were okay to use with the board. Hmmm. Will have to ask the repair folk about that and will post here with what they say, if anyone is interested.
Yeah, I can’t think of any possible reason rechargable batteries or a plastic cover could possibly damage the balance board.
I can see, perhaps, how the Nyko Energy Pack or any other unit that remains plugged in constantly may possibly cause some kind of power surge that might damage the unit. For what it’s worth, I’ve used Sanyo Eneloops
on my Balance Board and my Wii remotes and have been very, very happy with them.
I get the sense that Nintendo support is just using these as excuses to cover up a more chronic problem. I hope they are monitoring this and the many other boards and blogs discussing this problem and are working on a solution. Blaming a widespread problem on one’s own customers only goes so far.
Anyway, definitely keep us update on how it goes. And if anyone out there has a DIY tip on how to get into the balance board to fix this problem, please let us know!
Ugh, I have the Nyko Energy Pack, which I will never use again now. I did ask the tech about the battery packs, and he said he’d heard of this problem being caused by them before. He didn’t think it was a good idea to use rechargeable batteries in the board (although the instructions say NIMH are okay). He said that the silicone covers shouldn’t do any harm at all, though. He also didn’t know about the Wii Remotes & rechargeable batteries.
I don’t know yet what was wrong with the board, but I received a replacement today, so whatever it was was not fixable. I’m very impressed that I received a new board today when: 1) I only dropped it off yesterday and 2) they shipped it UPS ground. Now that’s customer service
Hi…. I had the same problem after 10 months of very light use….only option was to send it in for repair. Had a letter back from Nintendo saying that it would cost £50 to repair…however found out that this was the cost for a new board from Nintendo. All sounds good …I thought…..apart from the fact that the kit fails after only using it a handful of times….quality workmanship and rigorous testing eh??? ha ha
any way I paid the £50, and they sent me a wii balance board by return of post…. great …. here we go …. oh no…..no no nono straight out of the box the exact same error message !!!!! I borrowed a friends board to check out the system and theirs worked fine on my Wii…. my guess is that they have sent me back my old board….not bad for £50 eh? Nice one Nintendo – get your act in gear eh?