October 10
2009
Wii Heatsink Fix
So I know my Wii was overheating. The warranty was expired so I took it apart to see if i could fix it.
Turns out Nintendo used some crappy thermal paste that shrinks as it gets old.
there is a good nickle thickness between the heat sink cpu and gpu :-O
So I filed down the posts on the heat sink so it now sits flat on the cpu and gpu.
You must use good thermal paste.
I used little springs to keep the ground to the heat sink working :)
good work :)
many people should do this type of work if needed. use the same stuff as the 360 for overheating arctic silver
did you get rid of the graphic ‘glitches’ after fixing the heatsink? i got some white spots while playing 3d games on my screen. but my wii isn’t freezing up or something like that.
I didn’t even have graphical glitches but after reading this page I went and opened my Wii and was appauled to find the same thing: The heatsink sat about 2-3mm above the CPU and GPU and the gap between each chip and the heatsink was bridged by a thick thermal pad that was about 15mm x 15mm. I know the Wii is low powered and the chips don’t generate a lot of heat but this was just rediculous.
So I sanded the ‘legs’ of the heatsink down enough so that there was clearance between the motherboard and the legs when the heatsink was resting on top of the chips. I applied Arctic Silver 5 to the top of the chips and then screwed down the heatsink firmly.
I would very much like to know if this fixes the graphical glitches some people experience or if the glitches are still prevalent even after this mod. Please email me at pwnsweet@gmail.com with your findings.
I used some fins from a old heatsink to fill the gap put artic silver 5 on both sides of fin to transfer heat ,
I did file the legs just slightly. it did help but i beleive that the damage was already done as i still have some articacting, but it does run cooler noe.
Thanks
B
Do you see that black component(screw hole with spring near cpu) on pictures 3 & 4.You have to file the heatsink down so the whole heatsink will be equally flat on the gpu/cpu.