A few things to remember before you start:

Keep all your screws in separate little boxes so you don’t misplace or confuse them when you’re putting the system back together.

Put a mousepad or something soft on your worktable so you don’t scratch up the system when you turn it over.

Opening The Gamecube

Turn the system over, and using a long-handled screwdriver with a 4.5mm external Line-Head® bit,  remove the screws at the four corners.

Take the screws out and turn the system right-side up again. The top of the system should slide right off.

Locate and remove the two screws securing the cooling fan. Let the fan dangle off on its wires to one side. The back panel and controller ports of the system come off easily enough; simply grasp the clips around the posts with both hands and gently pull them forward. The controller ports will be connected to the main board by a ribbon cable. Take it between your thumb and forefinger and slide it upwards out of the connector. Locate the memory card connectors. They are thin pieces of metal held together by two screws each. Unscrew them and put them aside, and keep their long screws in the holes so you don’t lose them.

Now you’re ready to take the CD drive assembly off. There are about 16 screws all the way around the drive. Make sure you get all of them off and then pull the drive up and off the system.

See that shiny, silver metal grill? That’s the GameCube’s heat sink. It keeps the Flipper chip and the subprocessors nice and cool. Take all the screws off the heat sink, and pull them out with needle-nose pliers. Careful; these screws are in there very tight, and you don’t want to force them. To make sure we got these screws out without any danger of stripping them or damaging the main board, we used a powered screwdriver.

Nintendo used some putty-like material to tack the heat sink on the chips. Even after you remove the screws, the sink won’t come off. What you have to do here is grab the heat sink lengthwise at both ends and work it side to side while pulling up until it gives. Be careful not to work it far enough to knock up against the capacitors (round, little battery-looking things­). When you get the heat sink off, you’ll see the main board, which you can leave at the bottom of the system.