Wii Maintenance

As the Wii continues to grow older, there is a possibility of failure with some of the components. This is intended to be a comprehensive guide to all hardware-related issues with the Wii, and how to correct them.

Tools Required & Recommended

A tri-wing screwdriver to open up the Wii.
Compressed air
Q-tips
Isopropyl alcohol

Disassembly Guides

For a written guide that goes up until the disc drive, see this guide. For a video tutorial, we recommend this guide.

Clock Battery

The Wii has a clock battery that can be unscrewed from the bottom and pulled out. This battery is a CR2032 battery, and should be replaced on many older systems where this battery has most likely died.

Dusting

It is recommended that when opening up a Wii that has not been opened before, it should be dusted out. The easiest way to do this is via compressed air, and is recommended most on the fan and the heatsink of the system. Crevices can be further cleaned out with a q-tip. It is also recommended to clean out the dust screen on the bottom inlet of the Wii.

Disc Drive

The disc drive is the most likely component in most Wii systems to fail, with the most likely component being the lens. It is recommended that if there are issues with the drive, the first option should be to open the top of the drive to clean the lens, using a q-tip with isopropyl alcohol. Remember to be gentle with the q-tip, and to not press too hard on the lens. If this does not work, there are two options from here:

Replace the lens
Replace the drive

The former requires more work but can be the cheaper option. The latter doesn't require as much work. Be very careful with the first option, since it is attached via a ribbon cable which can be hard to work with and is prone to breakage.

Thermal Pads

The Wii uses thermal pads with it's heatsink. These thermal pads cover the Broadway processor and the Hollywood graphics processor. It is recommended that in all older systems, these thermal pads should be changed with newer pads. This isn't exactly required, however, it can help reduce the temperatures of the two processors. It is recommended to use 1.5mm thermal pads to replace the existing pads with, and to cut them slightly bigger than the original pads. We recommend using thermal pads made by Arctic.

Deeper hardware issues

In the case that a system has been bricked via any type of hardware issue, it is recommended to diagnose the problem and to see what component has failed. The most likely case is that the WiFi module is faulty, which can be corrected by replacing the module.