With the fan out of the way, we're (temporarily) slowed in our journey to the center of the Ouya—the heat sink is soldered in place, obscuring the processor.

According to an Ouya engineer, solder was chosen over clips for mechanical strength, as they were (rightfully) worried about such a small console being knocked around or dropped. Soldering the heat sink to the motherboard proved a much tougher design, better at surviving drop tests.

No trouble for us, we pulled out our trusty soldering iron and desoldering wick and quickly freed the heat sink.