Recently, our family's Wii U decided to not start properly anymore. When turning on the console, it will show the "Nintendo" logo on the gamepad, but never gets any further. Nothing can be done and the system must be forced to shut down by holding the console's power button for 5+ seconds.
Then, we try again and it usually works the second time. One time, it even started showing the Wii U logo (which is usually the sign that the boot-up process is working), but it locked up anyway.
Here are the symptoms: won't boot up, must force reset, hangs on Nintendo logo usually, hangs on Wii U logo sometimes, disc doesn't seem to spin on the failures, nothing is shown on the TV screen, eventually the gamepad states that it can't connect to the console.
I've tried various things, like booting from the gamepad, booting from the console, and unplugging for a while. We are not abusive gamers, nor do we even play for overly extensive periods of time. This only started happening recently. The only thing that has changed has been the addition of Mario Kart 8 and the system update.
I'm afraid that my system will not turn back on one of these times after force restarting. The system was a gift last Christmas, so it's not even a year old in terms of ownership.
What should I do?