The switch arrived and the first thing I noticed when it got here.. Gen 1 exploitable fully boxed in great condition. Exciting!!
This is what nintendo said when this was sent for repair:
And out of the box!
Lets dive straight in... its very clean inside! Nice, and we know we are working with port damage to both the dock and the switch, first thing I do before I even take the board out is check around m92 for shorts, first cap i check is for the PI3USB and its shorted
Whip off PI3USB!
Slap a new one on!
Life! But it goes to the nintendo screen and boot loops
It's also not pulling the right current.
But eventually..... We have life gents! Life! Vince repairs what Nintendont! The super observant out there will notice that its not in the super clean chassis it came in and you would be right. I put it in my spare chassis, you remember the switch with the fried cpu? it finally came in useful as a donor. But because there was an issue with the lcd ribbon cable in the original chassis. I didn't take any photos but i did later swap the LCD from this into the other chassis which was a pain because you need to remove the digitizer but it was worth it.
The first place we looked because not pulling correct current is M92 also because it's fragile and made of cheese so we replaced this here M92T36 (Main power IC), we had some better readings at the meter after (0.4amps draw) so again stepping in the right direction:
Next up I measured voltage at vbat (positive battery terminal) when plugged in and no batter connected, bq along with max17050 should generate 4.25v at the coil next to the charge port and also at the vbat test point... This one doesn't so next up we replace this here BQ24193 (Battery Charge IC)
Slapped on a new port and yes they have a hidden row of pins and yes they are a nightmare, it takes some practice but having done a lot of these now I have my own method and none of this heating from the bottom near max17050 business. That's a recipe for disaster that is. I'm slowly honing my switch port skills. A port only is probably a 20 min job now tops and most of that is tearing the console down and putting it back together again.
Knocked off the fuel gauge MAX17050 doing BQ as pushed down a little hard on it to seat it down and bent the board slightly, max on both this and the switch lite is awkwardly placed so BQ on a switch is 50/50 if you knock max17050 and the charge port on the lite is a 50/50 depending on how you do the port, Anyway I re-balled Max and put it back on
It's only got 9 balls so lucky it's only ever the small Max chip I knock off.
And finally back to where we started PI3USB
Gen 1 HAC-CPU-10 board!
Nice screen!
Thats not bad soldering that right there!
Before Joycon test with everything back together, charge current is looking much better! and its back in its normal chassis with the LCD from the old switch.
Joycons work perfectly! Everything works perfectly! Eshop is available as well so the console isn't banned! Current draw again is looking as it should and ive seen it pull the max 1.5a during some streets of rage so we know this little fella is working as it should.
Got some parts on the way for the dock but its all done and I am very happy indeed with my £80 switch.
video is crystal clear now
