Before I get any scoffs or eye-rolling,  I have connected my Wii before. My wii has never freaked out on me like this.

It appears that everytime I try to go online (internet channel, weather channel, everybody votes channel, even just connecting to my wireless router) it freezes or just hangs there. I've cleared out my wireless conenctions on my wii, reconnected wirelessly to my router, & it's all the same: searching for an access point, entering my WEP, & it's all good. But when it comes to testing out the connection, it freezes, and I have to manually turn off my wii by holding the off button for 4 seconds (not on the wii-mote, but on the console itself)

I've tried to connect to the Everybody Votes channel twice, but it has left me hanging every time. That's when I tried to test connect to my router twice as well, & of course, both attempts have been frozen.

My wii is relatively old, I got my wii after New Years of 2007, and I don't think it's under a warranty anymore. This is the second malfuction it's had. The first one was when I froze in the middle of playing Mario Kart Wii, but that was easily fixed when it was restarted. This malfunction however, is a persistent one.

Is there anything I can do that won't cost me? This is the first time I can't play online, & I love playing Mario Kart Wii via WiFi! I can hear my heart breaking into two just by thinking that I may never be able to play one of my favorite games online again.