Question Shorted fan header?

[flygineer]

Hello! Complete newbie in microelectronics here, sorry if this is a dumb question.

I was measuring voltage of the fan header on the Wii motherboard and I accidentaly touched the 2nd pin (ground I think?) with the red probe of my multimeter.

It now measures 0.5V instead of 5V and the fan is not spinning anymore when connected. The fan is still working, it will spin on another Wii motherboard.

Everything else is working normally, the USB ports are also working.

Is it permanently dead or is there any way to fix it ?

If not, would extended gaming sessions be fine with no fan on a 4 layer board ?

Thanks!

 

[JamesPi]

I don't have too much knowledge about the Wii motherboard currently, but check if either of these two components are damaged in any way from the short. I'll test some stuff on my motherboard later today to see if there's any definitive component that would be messed up.

EDIT: It would also probably be a good idea to check this capacitor as well, as that links directly from 5V to ground.

 

[flygineer]

I don't have too much knowledge about the Wii motherboard currently, but check if either of these two components are damaged in any way from the short. I'll test some stuff on my motherboard later today to see if there's any definitive component that would be messed up.
View attachment 38815

EDIT: It would also probably be a good idea to check this capacitor as well, as that links directly from 5V to ground.
View attachment 38816

Thank you for your reply!

Here are the measurements I made around the capacitor and the fan header (not sure if all of them are relevant):





For the two components you've shown on the first picture, I tested in continuity mode on the multimeter as I'm scared of doing more damage measuring the voltage.
Here are the values shown by the multimeter:



The Q1 transistor looks damaged?

EDIT: I ended up measuring the voltage of those two components:

 

[flygineer]

Update!

After reading Shank's Wii Super Thread, I decided to give a try to remove the transistor and connect the fan to the 5V line.

After 2 hours, a lot of flux and a piece of wire I took from the disk drive, the fan is spinning again!

It doesn't look great, but it's working.

 

[JamesPi]

Ah, that's great! I checked the resistances of that transistor, and mine were slightly off, but not enough to be concerned. My Wii has been inoperable until just today, so I was about to check the voltages, but I'm glad you figured it out! Nice job making it wireless, I would've just caved and used a wire lol

 

[JamesPi]

Note: sorry, didn't see the part about you grabbing a wire from the disk drive lol. Either way, I'm happy everything's working again