Nintendo Checks
Nintendo Checks
Nintendo Checks
Lets check the fuse that lets power from USB C reach the battery chip. Unplug the battery. With a multimeter
set to continuity mode, put one probe in one side of the fuse and the other probe in the other side of the fuse.
If there is continuity, good, go to step 2, if not you will need to buy that fuse and replace it.
About this fuse.. Looks like an R type - It could be a Matsuo fuse. Their R rated are 0.315a. Which is FAR too
low. If you need to replace – I would go for this one or equivalent:
https://ro.mouser.com/ProductDetail/Littelfuse/0438035WRA?qs=wd5RIQLrsJi0pp
mxLVSh6Q==
2º - BQ24193
Unplug the battery. On the top of the battery connector, you can see a bit of copper exposed for every cable
(5 cables - 2 red/1 grey/2 black. With a multimeter set to DC voltage, you will put the negative probe on one
of the blacks and then put the red probe on the first red cable and write down the voltage that the multimeter
reads. After that do the same but for the second red cable and write down the value. After that plug the battery
back in and, without touching the power button, put the switch charging for 30 minutes. After the 30 minutes,
unplug it of the charger, redo everything that I said. If the voltage after 30 minutes is higher than it was, you
can assume that your console is charging so the BQ24193 is fine. One less thing to worry about, go to step 3.
If it didn't charge at all, probably your BQ24193 is dead.
When you plug a charger into the switch
Check the voltages on BQ24193
After step 2, and everything is fine, just leave it charging for more than 1 hour, after that 1 hour, try power it
on and if nothing appears on the screen, hold the power button for 15 seconds, release it and press back on
it. Still nothing? Go to step 3
3º - Now that you know that your switch is charging, you need to check for shorts. Unplug the battery, remove
every thing that is on top of the motherboard(ribbon cables, aux board, cpu cooler and fan, etc. just dont
remove the eMMC chip because is a pain in the *ss to take it out) and with a multimeter set to continuity
mode, put the black probe on a good ground(the big metal shield to the left side of the battery or the metal
part of the usb c port) and with the red probe check every capacitor(little brown things). It's supposed to have
continuity in one of the sides of the capacitor, continuity in both sides of the capacitor means short to ground.
Check the M92T36 pins for shorts too(Its suppose to have like 3 shorts to ground on that chip). After checking
the front side of the main board, remove it out of the switch and check in the back for shorts to ground. There
is an area full of capacitor, right behind the CPU, if one of those capacitors is shorted, the switch is trashed. If
you found one or more shorts around a chip, 2 options, or the capacitor is bad, remove it and test to see if the
short still there. If so, most likely the chip that is by is side is bad and you need to replace it. Or you remove
the capacitor and the short disappear, then you need
to replace that capacitor. No short? That's nice, go to
step 4.
5º - Visually, inspect the screen ribbon cable and the backlight ribbon cable. Check both connectors on the
board. If nothing looks wrong, go to step 6.
6º - The console is most likely turning on, is not showing anything. If you know that your console is in version
7.x.x, sorry but for now the only thing that you can do is leave it charging all night and trying to put it to recovery
mode and leave it there for 2 hours or more. If you don't know the version or is below 7.x.x, you can put it in
RCM mode and try to inject hekate latest payload. There is a lot of tutorials online on how you can put your
console into RCM mode and how you can inject payloads. If the screen turns right on with hekate payload,
your console is fine, the firmware is not, and from there you will have to follow a lot of things that I can explain
to you later on. If even the payload method failed, you probably will have a PI3USB30532 bad or the CPU is
just dead af.
So, with the board upside down you'll see just above the USB C connector is a rectangular chip - this is
PI3USB30532, a "6:4 differential channel bi-directional matrix switch solution for switching USB3.0 and/or
DP1.2 signals through USB3.0 Type-C connector"
Applications
• Routing USB3.0 SuperSpeed and DP1.2 signals through the USB Type C Connector
• Applications include Ultrabook, 2 in 1 notebook, tablet, mobile workstation, All In One PC.
1st check if pin pads on the PI3USB has blown (check pin connection, mass is correct)
Check the coils, they should have continuity in parallel but not in cross (check each one)
Now this is important... Does the dock LED go green and the TV attempts to find a signal?
Check around the passives around PI3USB. In particular the ferrite filters. These aren’t the strongest! Bell them
with a meter / check impedance / continuity is uniform with all of them
If you have power to the PI3USB, the PI3USB is confirmed good, USB port is soldered good... Caps etc are good
around PI3USB...
Those resistors (4 in total) should be good. Guessing they 150R. There is a big (well... 0603 size I think) inductor
between pins 4 and 10. Check that. An LC tester would be good for this.
If all turns out to be good, it HAS to be the filters. All it can be.
They smooth the signal between the power rails and VBUS
and if you get the Switch recognized while docked but then
you don’t see image, they are probably the issue
Here are some of the most common problems regarding the Nintendo Switch’s charging port and common
power issues:
Nintendo Switch won’t turn on or screen is blank: This is one of the most common issues with the console
and can be the result of a couple of different things. The first thing to check is to make sure that the system’s
battery is charged by leaving it in the dock for a while. If the console still won’t turn on, it may be frozen and
will likely require a hard reset. You can hard reset your Switch by holding the power button down for 15-20
seconds. Once you have held the button down for the allotted time, wait 4-10 seconds for the console to shut
down completely and try to restart the device. If it turns back on, that’s great! If not, that’s okay, keep on
reading...
Charging port won’t work: This issue seems to be caused by many possible conditions and I’m going to try to
cover all of them right now.
• Third-party docks: There are reports all over the internet of Nintendo Switches being damaged by the
use of third-party docks causing charging ports to fail, or worse, bricking consoles. When in doubt, use
official Nintendo accessories to charge your device to prevent any issues. Some 3rd-party docks seem
to output the wrong voltage which can cause slow charging or brick the console. Many times a "bricked"
console is actually just a console that has a faulty charge controller on the motherboard. This charge
controller is a small chip on the motherboard that controls when and how the console charges. If this ic
goes bad then the console will not charge even when the charge port is good.
• Wrong charging cables: Nintendo also recently warned against the use of any 3rd-party USB charging
cables. They have stated that use of any USB-C cable that isn’t the one included with the console, the
pro controller, or the Joycon charging grip can result in permanent damage or a slower charging cycle.
• External battery packs: The rise of portable battery packs has risen sharply in the last few years due to
the increasingly heavy power demand of modern electronic devices. Many people have tried to charge
the console with portable chargers only to find that the Switch doesn’t charge quickly or breaks
completely. If you are insistent on using a battery pack, make sure that you are using a USB-C to USB-C
charging cable and that your battery pack outputs the standard voltage and amps (5V-15V and 2.6A
output by the official AC adapter) required by Switch chargers.
• Resetting official Nintendo AC adapter: Nintendo recommends the following procedure if your Switch
has a blank screen or won’t wake up from sleep mode: replace the Joycons into your Switch, unplug the
AC adapter for at least 30 seconds, and plug the USB-C from the AC adapter directly into the Switch. If
the screen still is blank, try hard resetting the console again.
If you’re using the provided AC adapter or the official Nintendo Switch dock and they aren’t charging the Switch
and none of this works, it’s likely that you will need a new dock, a new adapter, or a repair.
If the charge port on your system is broken, which you can determine by looking inside and finding broken or
twisted pins and the console won’t charge or turn on, there is a DIY fix to it. The fix will require soldering skills
and a soldering station. If the word ‘soldering’ brings horror to your mind, you should think about sending your
console in to have experts fix it for you. For the adventurous few, TronicsFix is going to give you a quick
overview in this article. A more in-depth explanation is available on our YouTube channel.
The first thing you’ll need to do is remove the back case of the Switch by taking out all of the screws holding it
in place. The Switch’s motherboard must then be removed from the console. The motherboard is the where
the charging port is located and, once the board is removed from the system, you can replace the broken
charging port. Unfortunately, the charging port is soldered onto the motherboard and must be removed with
a hot air soldering tool. Soldering flux must be added to all of the connection points before the broken charging
port. Then you must carefully heat up the charging port connection points until you can gently pull up the
broken charging port, being careful to not let the motherboard bubble from overheating. Now you can replace
the broken port with a new one by slowly heating up the pins on the motherboard. Once the solder on the
board is melted, you can quickly attach the new charging port onto the pins. Now that the charge port is
installed correctly, you can replace the motherboard into the Nintendo Switch and re-attach the back cover
on the console.
This process is very advanced. If you don’t feel comfortable with soldering tools or opening up your Nintendo
Switch console, it’s probably easier to let an expert do it for you.
Pinouts
Cluster A
Pad
Name Type Levels Continuity Frequency Comment
#
1 Batt GND?
Pulse 0-
2 Battery pulse? L-5?
train 3.3V
3 Battery Vdd
6 Weak GND?
0-
7 SDA I2C
1.8V
0-
8 SCL I2C
1.8V
USB-PWR- Square 0-
9 K-4, K-5? ~11 Hz
WAVE? wave 3.3V
USB-PWR- Square 0-
10 K-4, K-5? ~11 Hz
WAVE? wave 3.3V
Cluster B
Pad # Name Type Levels Continuity Frequency Comment
2
D+ USB-C Cluster B - 3
3 D- USB-C Cluster B - 2
6 GND
Cluster C
Pad
Name Type Levels Continuity Frequency Comment
#
UART-A 0-
2
TX 1.8V
UART-A 0-
3
RX 1.8V
0-
4 ??
1.8V
0-
5 ??
1.8V
0-
6 ??
1.8V
0-
7 ??
1.8V
0-
8 ??
1.8V
0-
9 ??
1.8V
0-
10 ??
1.8V
0-
11 +1.8V
1.8V
Cluster D
Pad # Name Type Levels Continuity Frequency Comment
1 GND
Cluster E
Pad # Name Type Levels Continuity Frequency Comment
10 Reset
11 Vdd Referance
Cluster G
Pad # Name Type Levels Continuity Frequency Comment
2 GND
Cluster I
Pad
Name Type Levels Continuity Frequency Comment
#
1 GND
0-
2 Screen_on On/Off Screen power state, active high
1.8V
0-
3 UART 1.5MBaud?
1.8V
0-
4 UART 1.5MBaud?
1.8V
Flow 0-
5 Flow control for pad I-4?
control 1.8V
Cluster J
2 GND
3 ? Edge 0-1.8V Turns on around same time as pad J-1, slightly after
8 ? Edge? 0-1.8V Turns on ~1s after J-6/J-7, turns off at unknown point
Cluster K
Pad
Name Type Levels Continuity Frequency Comment
#
1 GND
2 D- USB-C Cluster B - 3
3 D+ USB-C Cluster B - 2
USB-PWR- Square 0V- Appears to mirror K4. Duty cycle 66.67%. Low on
5 A-9, A-10? ~11 Hz
WAVE? wave 3.3V screen lock. Off until first interaction.
Power ~3V- None 0 when usb-c not plugged in, falls slowly on first
7 Unknown N/A
supply? 0V known interaction if USB-C plugged in. Power draw related?
Cluster L
TODO: Update diagram
Pad
Name Type Levels Continuity Frequency Comment
#
2 GND
6 GND
-
Attention the values in the picture are measured in circuit,
can only be used for comparison of the values on board, so must by removed and tested again.
For example if you replace the 5.6kohm resistor with 10k ,bq 24193 will not charge the battery because the
temp set for charghing will bee out of range.
So the 3.8 k and 5.6 k values are critical and its used to set the charghing related to temperature of the
battery. (bq 24193 tipical aplication recommend 2.2 k and 6.86k for ts1 and ts2 pins)
Below are diode mode reading (red probe on ground)
Samsung KLMBG2JENB 32 GB eMMC
PCB Reverse Side
On a separate storage board was a Samsung KLMBG2JENB 32 GB eMMC. Interestingly, iFixit found
a Toshiba THGBMHG8C2LBAIL 32 GB eMMC NAND Flash IC here. Does this independent storage
board indicate plans for a future model update with expanded storage, as some have speculated, or is
it simply to accommodate these variations in memory manufacturers?
The reverse side of the PCB included a Maxim MAX77621 DC/DC converter, a Realtek ALC5639
audio codec, and a Pericom PI3USB30532 USB 3.0/DP1.2 3:2 matrix switch.
STMicroelectronics FT9CJ touchscreen controller on board
Also on a separate display board, we found the STMicroelectronics FT9CJ touchscreen controller.
The FT9CJ is from the STM FingerTip multi-touch ultra-low power touchscreen controller product line.
Based upon observations of the pinout and the flex connector, this touch solution may have up to 60
channels. This device is not on the STMicroelectronics website and must clearly be a unique design
by STM for Nintendo. STMicroelectronics has had great success with their touchscreen solutions in
the mobile phone industry. In fact, they are branching out even further into automotive and industrial
as described in this recent article.
• A small gathering of Miis ICs populates the front side of the motherboard:
• NVIDIA ODNX02-A2 (presumably the Tegra X1-based SoC)
• Samsung K4F6E304HB-MGCH 2 GB LPDDR4 DRAM (x2 for a total of 4 GB)
• Broadcom/Cypress BCM4356 802.11ac 2×2 + Bluetooth 4.1 SoC
• Maxim Integrated MAX77621AEWI+T three phase buck regulator (x2)
• M92T36 630380 Power management IC
• And on the back of the motherboard:
• Pericom Semiconductor PI3USB30532 USB 3.0/DP1.2 matrix switch
• Realtek ALC5639 audio codec
• Maxim Integrated MAX77620AEWJ+T PMIC
• B1633 GCBRG H