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The Wii Disassembled

mrmcgeeber writes "There are two ways to take apart the Wii. The first, as demonstrated by Popular Science, involves breaking the Wii open due to a lack of tools. The second method is a more formal Wii disassembly guide, which is provided by InformIT.com. Either way, you can see some detailed pictures of the internals of the Wii and how the parts are laid out. The InformIT.com version also includes an eight minute teardown video."

9 of 160 comments (clear)

  1. Forgot another method of Disassembly by LiquidCoooled · · Score: 5, Informative

    smashmywii.com!

    Its full of craptastic goodness.

    --
    liqbase :: faster than paper
  2. "Sensor array" is not a sensor array by Matz+L.E. · · Score: 4, Informative

    It's not a sensor array, it's just LEDs emitting infrared light.
    The sensor is in the Wiimote.

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JTGSkYRDpWY

  3. Links for all consoles by alexhs · · Score: 4, Informative
    Where are the "related stories" ?

    And for those who don't have time, motherboards photos :
    • XBox 360 (sorry not directly the JPEG, seems they rely on referer tag. Motherboard pic to the bottom of the page)
    • PS3
    • Wii
    --
    I have discovered a truly marvelous proof of killer sig, which this margin is too narrow to contain.
  4. Re:Grr - triwing screws by Schraegstrichpunkt · · Score: 3, Informative
    Also, it may be the case that in order to get the various certifications (that CE mark or whatever it is) you need to make it so it cant be easily diassembled (I have no idea)

    That's doubtful; That's what the separate power brick is for.

    I think the rule is that anything that has more than 60 Volts RMS going into it has to be certified. Electronics companies avoid having to re-certify their entire devices every time they make a change by using separate, generic power adaptors.

  5. Re:Look at the "revolutionary" technology by LordKronos · · Score: 3, Informative

    Yes. To be more accurate...the article has it backwards. It says the bars on the TV are IR detectors and the Wiimote has an IR output. In reality, the bars on the TV are nothing more than IR emitters, and the detector is in the Wiimote (like you said...a ccd)

  6. Re:Grr - triwing screws by muffen · · Score: 3, Informative
    I hate the way some companies use oddball screws to try and stop people taking the device apart. It doesn't work - those who really want to take it apart will find the tool or improvise, and it merely annoys them. Those who don't want to take it apart wouldn't even if you used screws that could be undone with the tip of a steak knife.
    ... like the xbox360, where you can "make" your own tool by cutting some hard plastic, delays the opening-the-xbox360-process by an entire 5 minutes, and requires one additional tool, scissors.

    I completely agree, the only thing this does is stops "kids" from opening the console, which really has no effect in the end. I guess what they are worried about is people hacking the console, which will happen sooner or later one way or another, and the people hacking it couldn't care less about the screws or even if they have to break the plastic.

    With the internet, it takes just one person to show how its done, and thousands will follow. For the xbox360, there is a company selling the special tool you need, I think the going rate is around $10.
  7. Re:Curious by DDLKermit007 · · Score: 3, Informative

    GC games require the GC controller as far as I know. Virtual Console games however all work with the Classic controller plus the GC controller and depending on the game the Wiimote can be used (mainly NES and some Genesis games). Back to Zelda!

  8. Re:Grr - triwing screws by Animaether · · Score: 3, Informative

    You are also less likely to kill
    - the screw head
    - the screw driver

    while being able to apply a great amount of force, or a set amount of force with factory tools.

    For more info, see:
    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ISO_10664

    Btw - see related topics on the Wiki.. there are a LOT of screw heads out there.

    There is one common property to them, though - if you have a good quality flat screw driver, you can open all but the dotted ones (Spanner Head in the wiki, and a crazy 3-dotted one I encountered once in a greek microwave >_ we ended up drilling those out and replacing them with philips heads on a repair. ha.)

  9. Re:DVD drive? by Akaihiryuu · · Score: 3, Informative

    They called it a DVD drive because it is a DVD drive. It's pretty much the same thing as the DVD-ROM in your computer. Just putting a DVD drive in your computer isn't going to give you the ability to play DVD movies, you'd have to have some sort of DVD player software. You can read the files off of the disk, but if you don't have an MPEG2 decoder, they're just going to be files. I personally don't see the need to have the Wii be able to play DVD movies. It's a game console...if I really want to play DVD movies, the local grocery store has progressive scan DVD players for $28, and these will be better for movies than any game console. It's not like it is when the PS2 first came out, when DVD players were still relatively expensive (and thus having DVD playback on the PS2 was helpful).