Nintendo Wii Maintenance Guide

An RVL-001 opened during a modchip installation, with the disc drive turned over to show its board (left) and the drive shield in the lower case (right). Photo: Antoine Turmel, CC BY 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons.

Care and preventive maintenance for the Nintendo Wii, model RVL-001. Nintendo published no service manual for the Wii. Its owner's manuals cover placement, ventilation, cleaning and the clock battery, and its support site covers the AC adapter. The procedures inside the case come from community sources, chiefly iFixit's disassembly guides and the WiiBrew wiki. For fault-finding see the Nintendo Wii Troubleshooting Guide.

Identify your console

Where to find the identifiers

Item	Where	Example
Model number	Rating label on the underside	RVL-001, RVL-001(JPN)
Serial number	Rating label on the underside	North American serials begin LU, KU, LB, KB or HW
Mainboard revision	Silkscreen on the mainboard	C/RVL-CPU-01

The procedures are for the RVL-001. The RVL-101 has no GameCube ports and its drive does not read GameCube discs; the Wii mini (RVL-201) is a different design.

Placement and ventilation

The Wii draws air in through a vent on the underside and blows it out through the vent on the back panel, beside the USB ports. Nintendo's instructions:

• Leave room around the console for air to flow. Do not run it on carpet or in a closed cabinet, and keep the vents free of dust.
• Keep anything out of the vents. Nintendo warns that an object in the exhaust vent can stop the cooling fan, and the console then overheats.
• Dust collects on the intake vent. Unplug the AC adapter from the wall and clear the vent with a vacuum cleaner from time to time.
• Stand the console upright only in its stand, with the stand plate fitted. A Wii that falls over can be damaged, especially while the drive is running.
• Keep it away from direct sunlight, stoves and heaters, and out of a closed car in summer. The operating range is 10-40 °C.
• After bringing the console in from the cold, leave it switched off with no disc inside for a few hours so that any condensation dries out.
• Put nothing but discs in the disc slot. The slot draws objects in, and Nintendo names SD cards, Nintendo DS cards and coins.

Nintendo's Channels and Settings manual gives blocked vents and nearby heat sources as the causes of the power cutting out during play.

Cleaning

Clean the case with a soft cloth dampened with water only, and let it dry completely before use. Switch the console off before pulling any plug, and pull by the plug body, not the lead.

Wipe a dirty disc with a soft cloth from the centre outwards, in straight lines, not round the disc. Nintendo warns against benzine, record cleaners and antistatic sprays on discs. For the drive lens, Nintendo sold a Wii Lens Cleaning Kit. With the drive opened, WiiBrew's advice is a cotton bud with isopropyl alcohol on the lens, used gently, and a cotton bud for dust on the guide rods.

AC adapter

The console takes 12 V DC at up to 3.7 A from the RVL-002 adapter, and draws no more than 45 W. Use only the adapter supplied with the console.

• Check that "Wii" and RVL-002 are moulded into the adapter case. Nintendo warns that unlicensed adapters may not work correctly.
• Look for frayed leads and a cracked case. Nintendo lists both as causes of the console shutting down.
• Plug the adapter straight into a wall socket, not a power strip or surge protector.
• Unplug the adapter only when the Power LED is red. If it is green or orange, hold POWER for four seconds or more until it turns red; from orange it shows green briefly first. Nintendo warns that pulling the plug on a green or orange console can stop it working properly or corrupt save data.

The adapter has a circuit breaker that an accessory fault or a mains surge can trip. The reset that clears it is on the troubleshooting guide.

Clock battery

A CR2032 lithium coin cell keeps the clock running. It sits in the battery cover, a small tray on the underside of the console held by one cross-head screw that stays captive in the cover. Removing it resets the system time.

Nintendo's two manuals treat the cell differently. The North American manual says to leave the battery cover alone unless Nintendo's customer service asks you to remove it, and notes that the cell contains perchlorate. The Japanese manual gives a replacement procedure for when the clock stops keeping time, and warns that removing the cell for no reason can corrupt data stored in the console. Its procedure:

1. Check that the Power LED is red, then unplug the AC adapter from the wall.
2. Turn the console so that the underside is accessible and loosen the cross-head screw in the battery cover.
3. Pull out the cover and lift the cell from it.
4. Fit a new CR2032 in the cover with its + side facing up.
5. Refit the cover and tighten the screw.

Check the tray and contacts for corrosion while it is out; see Battery Explosion, Capacitor or Corrosion Damage.

Opening the console

Opening the case takes a Tri-wing driver (iFixit calls it Tri-point) and a small Phillips driver. Several screws hide under rubber feet and under small square covers stuck to the case, and not every foot or cover hides one. Remove every hidden screw before pulling the faceplate: iFixit's teardown warns that its tab splits otherwise. iFixit's sequence for the outer case:

1. Prise off the two white screw covers near the front of the lower case and remove the two 8.3 mm Tri-wing screws under them.
2. Remove the 5.9 mm Phillips screw under the controller port door nearest the faceplate.
3. Peel the rubber foot from the side near the disc slot and remove the 5.9 mm Phillips screw under it.
4. Pull the faceplate away, disconnect the LED cable from the mainboard with tweezers, and set the faceplate aside.
5. Pull off the controller port and memory card doors, remove the two 4.1 mm Phillips screws along the controller port bezel, and lift the bezel out.
6. Remove the two 5 mm Phillips screws above the controller ports.
7. Peel the three screw covers from the side and remove two 5 mm Phillips screws and one 8.2 mm Tri-wing screw.
8. Peel the two rubber feet near the rear ports and remove the two 8.2 mm Tri-wing screws under them. The holes are deep; iFixit suggests a 4 mm nut driver to extend the bit.
9. Lift the outer case straight up.

The two Wi-Fi antenna leads that run from the mainboard are delicate.

Cooling

Fan

The fan sits in a shroud on the heat sink and can be changed without removing the drive. Lift its connector out of the mainboard socket with tweezers gripping the plug, not the socket, then remove the two 10 mm Phillips screws. With the console running, hold a hand behind the rear vent to check that air is coming out.

Standby heat

With WiiConnect24 on, the console sits in standby with the Power LED orange. WiiBrew traces the green half of the LED to power on Hollywood, so orange means Hollywood is running while Broadway is off. iFixit reports that some consoles run hot in this state because the fan does not run, and suggests switching off WiiConnect24 standby if that is a concern. The setting is under WiiConnect24 in Wii Settings.

Heat sink and thermal pads

The heat sink sits on the processors under the mainboard cover. Reaching it means removing the drive (below), the fan and its shroud, both Wi-Fi antennas, the EMI fingers and two brackets, then nine 7 mm screws in the mainboard cover; four 11.3 mm screws hold the heat sink itself. On some consoles a thermal pad for the wireless chip is stuck to the underside of the mainboard cover; put it back on reassembly. The pads under the heat sink tear easily. iFixit notes that thermal paste can be used if you replace them. Keep the small square nut held in the front bracket.

Disc drive

Removing the drive

From iFixit's guide, after the outer case is off:

1. Undo the captive screw in the battery door and pull the door out. This resets the clock.
2. Remove the 8.2 mm Tri-wing screw that was under the battery door.
3. Remove the two 8.2 mm Tri-wing screws holding the drive shield near the controller ports and lift the shield off. Its edges are sharp.
4. Remove the four 9 mm Phillips screws holding the drive to the bottom panel.
5. Lift the drive on the side away from the controller ports, ease the power cable out from under the plastic shroud near the heat sink, and unplug it from the drive.
6. Flip up the locking flap on the ribbon cable socket with a fingernail, pulling the flap and not the socket, and slide the ribbon out.

Drive power connector

The drive takes three supply rails through a 12-pin connector, so the mainboard's 3.3 V, 5 V and 12 V supplies can be measured there.

Disc drive power connector (WiiBrew)

Pins	Signal
1, 2, 5, 6, 9, 10	Ground
3, 4	3.3 V
7, 8	5 V
11, 12	12 V

The data cable is a 32-way ribbon carrying an 8-bit bus, strobes, reset, cover and error lines and the drive's streamed-audio lines.

Tools

• Tri-wing (Tri-point) driver and small Phillips drivers. A 4 mm nut driver helps reach the deep rear screws.
• Metal spudger or a craft knife for the screw covers and feet; tweezers for the fan and LED connectors.
• A magnetised screwdriver for the screws sunk deep in the plastic.
• CR2032 cell.
• Isopropyl alcohol and cotton buds for the lens.
• Thermal pads or paste if the heat sink comes off.

See also Recommended Tools.

Maintenance checklist

1. Check the adapter for its Nintendo moulding, a sound case and an undamaged lead.
2. Vacuum the intake vent on the underside with the adapter unplugged.
3. Check that air comes out of the rear vent while the console runs.
4. Check that the clock keeps time after the console has been unplugged; if not, replace the CR2032.
5. Clean the case with a damp cloth and the discs from the centre outwards.
6. If discs give read errors, clean the lens before anything else.

Related pages

• Nintendo Wii
• Nintendo Wii Troubleshooting Guide
• Nintendo Wii Capacitor Replacement Guide
• Nintendo Wii Documentation
• Battery Explosion, Capacitor or Corrosion Damage
• Recommended Tools