After Hours

Cracking open the Nintendo Wii

By // December 6, 2006, 3:44 AM PST // billdetwiler

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  • Wii disassembled

    After a week of trying, I finally got my hands on a Nintendo Wii. After taking it for a test drive, I began the painstaking and somewhat frustrating disassembly process. Come along as we go inside the Wii and see the hardware that makes Nintendo's console tick.

  • 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

    With the power cable disconnected, you can set the drive next to the rest of the Wii.

  • Optical drive

    disconnect the optical drive's ribbon cable to completely remove the drive.

  • 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

  • SD Card Slot

  • 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.

Wii disassembled

After a week of trying, I finally got my hands on a Nintendo Wii. After taking it for a test drive, I began the painstaking and somewhat frustrating disassembly process. Come along as we go inside the Wii and see the hardware that makes Nintendo's console tick.

Related Topics:

After Hours Innovation Hardware Tech & Work

By Bill Detwiler

Bill Detwiler is Editor in Chief of TechRepublic and Tech Pro Research and the host of Cracking Open, CNET and TechRepublic's popular online show. Prior to joining TechRepublic in 2000, Bill was an IT manager, database administrator, and desktop supp...