Wii system battery cover

I started by removing the Wii’s system battery. This would be the first on many,. many screws.

Removing the Wii system battery

GameCube controller and memory card port cover

Next I moved to the black cover that surrounds the GameCube controller and memory card ports.

Removing the GameCube connector cover

Three small Phillips screws hold the Wii’s black GameCube controller and memory card port cover.

Triwing screws

After removing the black GameCube port cover, I hit my first roadblock–triwing screws. Some argue that triwing screws make the manufacturing process easier, but these annoying fasteners are also designed to discourage people from doing exactly what I’m about to do–take this thing apart. Nintendo also uses triwing screws on the GameBoy Advance, GameBoy Advance SP, GameBoy Color, Nintendo DS, and GameCube controllers.

Triwing screwdriver

You’ll need a

Mix of Phillips and triwing screws

Once you remove the black GameCube port cover, you’ll find a mix of triwing and Phillips screws that should be removed.

Wii hides screws under stickers

Several screws are hidden under white stickers, like the two under the Wii’s front face plate.

Remove this sticker

Hidden triwing screw

Removing the sticker reveals one of the triwing screws, that secure the Wii’s front panel.

Hidden screw removed

Hidden screw on side

Hidden screw on back

Removing the Wii's front cover

With the side and face plate screws removed, you can gently detach the face plate from the Wii.

Remove the rear case screws

With the face plate removed, you can remove the remaining two triwing screws that secure the wii’s plastic case. these are found under the two rubber pads near the back of the Wii’s bottom shell.

More triwing screws

Top cover removed

The the top cover removed, we get our first real look inside the Wii. A large metal shield still covers most of the Wii’s inner workings.

Top cover removed - Top

With the metal shield removed, we can see the wii’s optical drive, wireless two wireless antenna, cooling fan, and air intake cover.

Top cover removed - Front

Top cover removed - Left side

You can see the heatsink under the black intake cover.

Top cover removed - Right side

From the right side, you can see the GameCube memory card and controller ports.

Top cover removed - Back

The Wii has two wireless antennas (green boards) mounted at the back of the machine.

Wireless antenna 1

Wireless antenna 2

DC power, Sensor Bar, and audio/video ports

Cooling fan, USB ports, and wireless antenna

Optical drive screws

Optical drive screws

Ready remove the optical drive

The optical drive is connected to the main PCB by a thin ribbon cable and larger power cable. By disconnecting the power cable you can set the drive flat.

Optical drive connected to main PCB

Optical drive Panasonic chip

Optical drive PCB

The optical drive PCB contains an Elpida chip offering 16MB of SDRAM–only viewable from the underside.

Air intake cover and wireless antenna

Wireless antenna cords

The two wireless antenna cords run under the motherboard protective metal shield. Take care not to break these small wires when removing the shield.

Air intake cover

Wii optical drive, air intake cover, and chassis

Wii chassis support

Optical drive removed

Wii motherboard cover

Wii motherboard

With the metal shield removed, we got our first look at the Nintendo Wii’s motherboard.

Broadcom 802.11B/G wireless card

Wii motherboard heatsink

Wii motherboard - GameCube controller and memory card ports

Wii motherboard - Underside

Samsung NAND flash memory

Samsung 512M x 8 Bit NAND flash memory

Wii motherboard - Audio/Video encoder

According to a forum post on wareu.org, this chip is the Wii’s audio/video encoder.

Wii motherboard - System Battery connection

Wii motherboard - Underside GameCube controller ports

Bluetooh chip

USB ports and GameCube memory card slots

Wii Mothboard - Back

Wii Heatsink

Wii motherboard - Heatsink removed

Removing the heatsink reveals the Wii’s CPU and GPU.

Wii CPU and GPU

IBM Broadway CPU

ATI Hollywood GPU

Samsung 16Mx32 GDDR3 SDRAM, 700 MHz

Sharp chip

Macronix RTC Firmware?

Wii completely disassembled

It took another hour or so, but I managed to completely reassemble the Wii. It even worked. There will Wii tennis for many weeks to come in the TechRepublic game room.