Okay, first I will say that this is not for me, but someone at my local youth center who was saying he was having problems with his Wii. I guess I'm kind of the tech geek there, so he came to me first, and he said that after he plays for about an hour each time it will overheat and turn off. I begin my quest here. Does anyone know the first step here? He gave me a very vague description and it was just a few hours ago, so I don't have it with me to describe it myself. I was just hoping someone here might know a possible cause to this problem, as it has not plagued me in the past.

when you wii is doing that he playing way to long and leaveing it on too long when he go eat or do something turn it off so it can cool down and if those vents are not getting air flow then game will crash too.

Was it laying on anything that conducts heat ? Either that or his fan is broken, the same thing happened to my gamecube.
Hope this helps.

Tell him to make sure the fan is working. My Wii was doing the same thing and had to be replaced.
If it overheats it automatically shuts itself off. Get it fixed right away or he'll have worse problems.
Ever hear of Artifacting? That's broken pixels in all your games due to a fried GPU and it's not pretty.
If he keeps trying to use it it'll get really messed up. Send it in for repairs ASAP!

Ooh, that could be problematic. I was thinking it was the fan, too. I wish I knew more, like if it was sitting on a heat conductor, but as I said, he gave me a very vague, brief description.

Also, Mr_Moore, perhaps you didn't read clearly. I said that this happens after only an hour of play. An hour is not too long, I've left mine on for much longer. In fact, I find a console that can only be used for an hour at a time rather pointless.

plenty of ventilation space and turn off wiiconnect24

word bub its all trill man.

might want to have him get it off the carpet too, those things insulate consoles like crazy, I've never had such a problem with my Wii, but checking the fan is also a good idea, might also want to make sure everything's hooked up correctly, in theory, if it's not, it could cause a short that overheats the console, but then, only things I've ever had overheat on me are my old N64 and Miranda (yes I named my laptop Miranda)

To Yasha: Ya lublu egrat zelda? I'm just at the alphabet, but does your sig mean "I love Zelda?" or close to that? And is my pronunctiation close?

On topic, thanks for the help guys. I'm hoping that this will settle it, but I won't find out until next Monday, assuming he even goes to the youth center this Friday. I will report back here when I find out more.

If it's only staying on for an hour it's most likely a broken fan. Mine was lasting about that same length before shutting off.
Sometimes less. Finally I decided to check the fan and sure enough it wasn't moving at all.
Those things get hot quick without the fan blowing.

it means, I love to play Zelda, so close enough, and it's more ya liubliu eegrat Zelda (I'm a Russian major so I'm having this drilled into me all the time, lol), but you were pretty close, I'm just really nit-picky, hahaha

Yeah, I just started recently, I'm teaching myself through the internet though so it goes pretty slowly. I generally use the exact same phrase of drilling it into my head, actually. Hahah.

hahaha well, I'm a college student at the University of Maryland (just northeast of DC if you didn't know) and my major is Russian Language and Literature, so I've been studying it for a few years now. Nowhere near fluent, but getting there.

Like others have said, it is most likely the fan, but it could also be that the vent is clogged with dust or that their isn't enough circulation around the system.

Mine never shut down, but there's an unlicensed accessory that force shuts the Wii down like a timer/excessive play blocker. Check for that or clogged vents in the back. My vents can get dirty.

Is the system placed vertically on the stand? If so, it should run much better horizontal. As sexy and majestic as it looks on the stand, puffing its chest out like that is tiring. Discs are read easier when it's lying down - but keep it on a hard surface and away from carpet.