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Nintendo Wii Teardown
Teardown
Teardowns provide a look inside a device and should not be used as disassembly instructions.
User-Contributed Guide
This guide is not managed by iFixit staff.
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In this teardown, we open a Wii to the logic board. I couldn't have done this without the help of my girlfriend, Elizabeth.
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Step 5
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Remove all screws from the case.
Some screws are under rubber feet, or small, square paper screw covers (red square). I used a sharp metal tool to get under the screw covers. You could use an X-acto knife.
Several case screws require a Tri-Wing screwdriver.
The next step has more pictures of removing rubber feet and the screws underneath. The feet and screwcovers are self-adhesive, but not every foot or screwcover has a screw.
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Step 7
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Careful! If you don't remove the feet and the screws underneath before you try to pull off the front panel, the tab can split!
Once all screws are removed, you should be able to pull off the front drive panel.
The wire connecting the front panel (green squares in the third image) can be pulled out gently by hand or with the help of a spudger.
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Step 9
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We lifted up the cover of the optical drive by removing the six Phillips #00 screws. These are all labeled on the previous image.
Because of a secured wire leading to the drive, we reattached the cover to facilitate the remove of the entire drive assembly without harming any of the electronics.
There are a ton of parts in the optical drive, but there is nothing very fancy about this drive compared to other slot-loading drives, so I didn't take it apart completely. There are also a ton of gears and levers that I did not want to deal with.
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Step 10
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The screws holding in the drive were deep within the casing.
Once those screws were removed, the entire case could be lifted off.
Don't pull too hard! There are two cables attaching the drive to the logic board underneath.
This wire slid out from its horizontal slot. Once it was detached, the ribbon cable came out as well.
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Step 12
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We begin trying to get to the logic board by removing this small black plastic rim.
Once within the case, all screws are Phillips #00. There are marked on the logic board with arrows, triangles, boxes, and crosses. From what I can tell, an arrow means that it just goes through the logic board cover. A triangle means that it is a longer logic board cover screw. A cross means that it holds on a plastic piece, and a box means that it holds on another EM shield / or heat sink.
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Step 13
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Remove all screws from the logic board cover. Two are recessed in the middle; others are along the edge. More will become visible as other parts are removed. It's like a game! You can start with the screws holding in the black plastic pieces, but I started with the most visible and went from there.
There are two wires (shown in the third picture) coming from the logic board and connected to what appear to be thermal sensors. These are delicate. Do not break them.
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Step 17
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With the black plastic covers off, we can see all the screw holes. Most of the screws are out by now, but once the rest of them are out, you can lift off the logic board cover.
Note that at least one part is thermal padded to the logic board cover. You might have to replace this thermal pad, but I didn't. I just pushed them back together. Oh well!
Remove any remaining screws in the logic board cover.
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Step 22
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We stopped there.
A muffin tin worked really well to organize all the screws.
Putting the Wii back together took only about half an hour, and it works perfectly. We improved Nintendo's design by three or four screws and one square nut, but worsened their design by one piece of duct tape (to hold in the bios battery).
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