The money-box Wii

Wednesday, 20 January 2010 12:49

Written by Simon Olsen

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Funny story. So Ally and I are having a BBQ with friends. Ally's best friend's niece, aged two, had a money box.

She's at that age where she is discovering money I guess.

She has been very excited about her piggy bank. And I guess from what happened to Dad's Nintendo Wii, she's also at the age where she is discovering bank transferals.

The blue light emanating from the Wii disc drive, to a two-year-old, must indicated the most irresistible money box in the world!

Sure enough, Dad went to play a game and discovered his disc wouldn't insert. After he unplugged it and gave it a shake, it's devastating rattle indicated only one thing. An interrogated two-year-old confirmed this indication.

At the BBQ, he politely asked me if I could fix it. He knew I was a bit of a tech-head He also mentioned if he couldn't do it, he'd probably throw the thing against the wall.

I had no experience in this sort of thing, but how hard could it be?

Like a good boy, I thought I'd better give it a Google. There were plenty of videos online that showed how to open the Wii safely. This one was quite good.

But there was a mention of a tri-wing screwdriver. I thought it'd be like the screwdriver you use to open a Nokia mobile phone, with the six points.

Yes, I understand there are six points, and tri is three, but it is essentially like three intersecting flat-heads. I didn't know what the bloody thing was called!

Upon removing most of the fillips-head screws and stick-pads covering more screws, there it was. A three-pointed indentation in the top of the screw, something I'd never seen before.

It's beyond me why they have used these. My first thought is to stop people from opening them, maybe even to stop people working out how they work and copying them, chipping them, hacking them in general.

But Ally's Google results showed plenty of places that had these in stock. She ordered one from Hong Kong, and within a week, it had arrived.

Maybe these tri-wing screwdrivers weren't around until the Wii was created. If anyone can shed some light on this, leave me a comment below.

The only other difficulty we had was one coin jammed in where the game disc immediately enters. We thought we had all the coins out, sp AUD$1.65 richer, we put the cover back on with the minimum screws, turned it on, got to the home screen, attempted to insert a game disc, and the disc wouldn't insert. The drive inside was buzzing and whirring, but it wouldn't take the disc from my fingers.

I inspected the mechanism that grabbed the disc; the one that determined (I guess) whether it was a GameCube game or a Wii game.

And there it was, jammed in there; one more coin lodged behind the part that grabs the hole in the Wii disc.

Platypus of the 20c Coin, Guardian of the Disc Drive!

Now AUD$1.85 richer, I tried the Wii again. Success! Disc inserts, ejects, loads, plays. Dad's Wii came off the operating table OK.

One difficulty I'll share was removing the front face plate. I probably should have watched the videos a little closer. I had to rip that bugger off pretty hard. But watch the little two-wire cable when you do. You can unplug it and remove the front face completely, but careful you don't rip it out!

A handy hint to know when you remove what looks like a massive watch battery. This powers the memory of the Wii. It won't wipe the memory when you remove it, and you do have to remove it in order to get the Wii completely open. All of Dad's data was still there when I had fixed it.

One more photo before we go. This one was taken while we were waiting for the tri-wing screwdriver to arrive. This is our cat Karma. That's her official name, but she usually answers to Dingus, as she has a bell on. If she was an outside cat, all manner of wildlife would be in trouble!

Cat's really can sleep anywhere!

I hope you found this useful if you found this after your kids have used The Ultimate Money Booooooooxxxxxxx! You're not going to do much to your Wii. On close inspection, it'll definitely look like you opened it, that's for sure. But you'll be back to Wii Sports Resort before you know it.

Any other funny stories about things that have happened to your console? Tell me about it below.