As most people know by now, leaving your Wii in standby mode for a long time may cause the GPU to overheat, and leave you with dark, ugly pixelation. I had this issue and sent it in for repairs, and it's back now, good as new. But while I was on the phone, the Nintendo guy didn't seem to be well-informed about the issue. He kept constantly saying, "Well...the Wii is designed to be left in standby mode...the Wii is the best thing since sliced bread..." I thought this would have been a well-known problem and setting up repairs shouldn't have taken more than 2 minutes.
Anyways, now that I have it back, I'm debating whether I should leave it in standby mode or not. I've heard that it could just be that my Wii was old or faulty or something, and it should be fixed now. However, they merely replaced my damaged components; they didn't send me a brand new console. So it could still be faulty. Has Nintendo released a firmware update that fixed this overheating issue?

some wiis i assume the older models are more prone to heating, mine is, so i bought like a 5$ intercooler that runs constantly through one of the wiis USB ports.

this issue hasn't been raise for at lesat half a year... LOL~
well I got my Wii Jan 2007 and it has been on wiiconnect24 since the day i got it and it never overheated....

i bought my wii on launch day and it has always been on stand by mode since then and it has never over heated. a possible reason for your wii overheating so much is probably because it's hotter where you live?

my Wii has never overheated. mabye where you have it located it does not get any ventilation....is in a case like an entertainment center? if it is maybe you need to cut a vent hole in the back so the wii can breathe

It's actually quite a rare problem. I wouldn't worry about it.

I haven't had my Wii for a year yet and I have the same problem as the OP.
The Wii has ample ventilation and it's not the weather or room temperature.

poop i didnt no this, and i leave it on standy by a hell of a lot

I'm pretty sure that it has proper venhilation. It has a TV a couple inches to the right of it (but it's a flat screen, so it shouldn't be a problem), the top of my desk a couple inces to the left, the wall about half a foot behind it, and the front faces out in the open. Is this ideal, or is it still too enclosed? It's on a hard, flat surface though, unlike the carpet I used to put it on. Could this have been the problem before?

Mine's Been On Standby Since Launch! 0_o

WTF!?

OK, so doing some research, I found out that the more recent models of the Wii actually had the wireless card attached correctly, whereas in older versions, the wireless card was built onto the GPU, thus causing it to overheat and frying it. But as I said before, when I got it back, it was apparently repaired, but not brand new. They said they only replaced the damaged components, which I assume is the GPU. Does this mean that they finally assembled the thing "correctly"? Or am I stuck with the same model which will eventually meet its pixely death again? Someone please clear this up.
I can't tell if the things overheated already. It's warm to the touch, as if you would cup your hands to your mouth and blow hot air onto it. Is that considered dangerously hot?

My Wii wasn't in the coolest place in the house. So I had someone my friend knows and he worked on mine. He replaced the original heat sink with a solid copper one with an additional fan and used thermal tape to re-attach that heat sink and drilled holes for the screws. It no longer over heats so I'm happy. I tried to get a hold of him but he didn't want to give me instruction on how to do it.

Mine gets quite hot as well in standby mode, and I've always wondered about this. Also, if you leave a game disc in the Wii, then the Standby mode makes it QUITE hot when you eject it. It doesn't seem like a good temp to leave any disc anywhere, but I guess if it's a rare problem..........hmmm..

It's not guaranteed the GPU will fail regardless of how the Wii was manufactured. It's just that some GPU chips came out of the factory borderline flaky which made them more prone to heat problems (even with decent ventilation), while others can take much more heat without having any problems. I got a Wii at launch in Nov 06 and I've had WiiConnect24 on the whole time and have had no problems. Just play games and try not worry about it.

Thanks! I guess I gotta stop being so paranoid and use the Wii for what it does best. But just to put me at ease, would you consider warm to the touch overheating? (cup your hands to your mouth and blow air into it. That's about the temperature of my console). It seems quite warm, but not dangerously hot like it used to be. Is this considered OK?

That should be fine. Mine is warm to the touch as well.