If you have had your Nintendo Wii for a while now, there is a good chance that it has just stopped reading discs or is having great difficulty or has gotten very noisy. Sometimes a laser lens cleaner disc will fix it, but often times it doesn’t. You *could* send it back to Nintendo, but they’ll charge you an arm and a leg to fix it.
Fortunately, you can replace the drive yourself for ~$35. It’s not hard to repair a Wii. If you can handle a screw driver and are gentle with things, you should have no problem replacing the drive.
To get started, you’ll need a few tools:
- a small Phillips Screwdriver (size #00)
- a Tri-wing Screwdriver
- a sharp edge or knife (to peel back a few stickers)
- and maybe a set of tweezers
(I highly recommend the two screwdrivers linked above.)
Next! DVD Drive Replacement Repair Part for Nintendo Wii — The price sometimes fluctuates, but it was around $20 when I last checked.
To replace the drive, follow this guide on iFixit: https://www.ifixit.com/Guide/Nintendo-Wii-DVD-Drive-Replacement/5164/1
My only warning with this guide is when you’ve removed the old drive and hooked up the new drive and you’re putting the screws back in (following the guide in reverse order), DO NOT get ahead of the guide and start putting the screws in whatever order you feel like. There are one or two screws that if put back in too early will prevent you from re-attaching the faceplate or other parts.
Other than that, it’s a piece of cake. It took me about 45 minutes, start to finish. And should only cost you $35 (maybe less, if you have all the tools already.) Far cheaper and faster than sending it to Nintendo for repair. Don’t you agree?
One reply on “How to replace the DVD drive in your Nintendo Wii”
I got it torn down and put back together and am having power issues aka red blinking light of death!! I am going to tinker around with it today…have played countless hours on Zelda just got the master cycle before we got the invalid disc issue….so hopefully can fix!!!