Note from Wololo: This tutorial was initially published by /Talk member HarmfulMushroom, as part of our monthly tutorial contest. HarmfulMushroom won both the PS Vita contest and the “mods award” in August (a $20 PSN Code) for his entry. You can find the original post here.

I know I’m not the only one excited about the news of a possible hybrid firmware made by Katsu, (even though it may never be released), but after seeing the picture of the NAND read points on the PS TV I had to see for myself just how small those suckers actually are. After going through Google for a teardown tutorial I couldn’t find anything besides a couple pictures of an already disassembled one and a couple vague pictures of a Vita TV taken apart.

Unless I’m blind there has apparently never been a full tutorial released online about how to disassemble a Playstation TV, not even on ifixit! So I believe Wololo.net will be the first site to have a tutorial like this. I’ll start by saying I consider this teardown to be easy to do.

First we have our PS TV(s):

Flipping it over reveals no obvious screw holes (since there are no screws holding the bottom on) or points to start disassembling the console. I’ve circled in red where all the tabs are located which hold the bottom piece onto the PS TV casing, (along with my other TV which has already had the bottom piece removed):

I’ve always found it easiest to begin popping the tabs out on the side of the TV where you insert your game cartridges:

Popping these tabs are pretty easy to do. If you have gigantic disgusting finger nails like I had at the time of taking these pictures those can work to pop those tabs open. Or if you actually have the correct plastic tools that make doing something like this infinitely easier those would work perfectly as well:


Once I got those tabs popped out on my console I took an old debit card and slid it down both the front of the vita and along where the ethernet/usb/power button/memory card slot is in the back. There is one black plastic tab on the side by the face of the TV and two metal tabs on the back, (really difficult to get a picture of me doing this). Once those tabs all pop out the last two tabs will pop out easily. Here’s a close up of the bottom of the case:

There isn’t a warranty sticker that I can see, but all the metal components on the inside are all fingerprint magnets. For those of you who want to leave as little evidence as you can you may want to wear gloves or something. After you get the bottom off there are going to be 5 black screws and one silver screw to remove:

Once the screws are removed you can carefully pry up the metal piece on the back. Be careful not to bend it though as there is a thermal pad holding that piece of metal to one of the components underneath:


Make sure you don’t forget about that last black screw. Make sure to also remove any games still in the game slot or it’ll be a little more difficult to remove the board. Once those are removed carefully remove the motherboard from the rest of the casing:


Here’s a close up of the top of the case for those interested:

After that is removed flip the motherboard over, (I just layed it back in the top case to try and prevent making the thermal pad less adhesive). There aren’t any screws holding this piece of metal onto the motherboard, but again there is another thermal pad so carefully pry it off:


After that’s off there’s just one last piece to remove if you want to get to the CPU! This piece of metal is held in by little metal notches, to pop them out I carefully used a very small flat head screwdriver to carefully pry the sides out a little bit. Once you get three of the sides out the fourth should pop out pretty easily as well, but once again yet another thermal pad is holding this piece of metal onto the CPU so be gentle when prying it up:

Once that’s off you’ve successfully disassembled the Playstation TV!

That’s how I managed to get mine apart. I’m sure that anyone with enough skill to solder to those microscopic points will be able to easily figure out how to disassemble the PS TV themselves, but I personally like to have a guide to go off of just to make sure I’m doing everything correctly.

Here’s the album with all the pictures used in this tutorial.

Want a chance to win a $10 PSN Code and be featured on the blog with your own guide? Join our monthly tutorial contest here!