Nintendo Wii Repair

Diagnose the problems ailing your Wii using the Nintendo Wii Troubleshooting page.

The Nintendo Wii, released in North America in November 2006, is Nintendo's seventh-generation gaming console, a category that includes Sony's PlayStation 3 and Microsoft's Xbox 360, both of which were outsold by the Wii.

The original Wii is compatible with all Nintendo GameCube games (excluding the Game Boy Player disc, as it requires the Game Boy Player which cannot attach to the Wii) and has ports for four GameCube controllers, as well as memory card slots. The wireless Wii controllers (Known as Wii Remotes) communicate with the console via Bluetooth connectivity. Internally, it is quite simple compared to the other seventh-generation consoles; the Wii uses NAND flash memory (Supplemented by an SD card) instead of a hard drive and has a less powerful graphics processor than other consoles. However, it makes up for this in its small form-factor, backwards compatibility with GameCube games, and its one-of-a-kind motion controls.

The Wii also natively supported internet connectivity, so many Wii games can be played online. Although Nintendo shut down the official servers in 2014, community-based projects, such as Wiimmfi, have been created as replacements for the official servers.

The most often replaced Nintendo Wii parts include the DVD drive, faceplate, sensor bar, and fan.

The original Wii is the smallest of the seventh-generation consoles, measuring a slim 44 mm wide, 157 mm tall, and 215.4 mm deep. The model number (RVL-001) can be found at the bottom of the console. The system was only available in white at its launch, although more colors were later made available, despite planning to make these options available at launch. There are also two different versions of the base Wii. The original model (RVL-001) is designed to be placed upright or horizontally, though the text on the console does favor the former, and is backwards compatible with almost all GameCube hardware and software, the few exceptions being the GameCube's AV cables, the broadband adapter, and the Game Boy Player. A notable gray area is the GameCube ASCII controller. Essentially, it was a GameCube controller combined with a keyboard. While it can technically be used with a Wii, its keyboard function is useless, as the only games that make use of the keyboard require the GameCube broadband adapter, which the Wii cannot use. The second model, the RVL-101, did away with backwards compatibility, along with the option to place the console vertically, in order to reduce the price of the console, with the text on the front reflecting this change. Aside from those differences, it is essentially the same as the original.

Additional Information

• Wikipedia: Wii
• Xbox-Scene: Wii Forum
• Nintendo Support: Wii Troubleshooting
• Nintendo Support: Downloadable Manuals