No Wifi, replaced the chip 2 times already

Nintendo Questions Nintendo Switch Lite
16

The chips are the same, one works for one and works for the other - provided it has the switch “FW” on it or it came off a Nintendo Switch to begin with (not sure where all this stuff has came from about them being different or being tied to the SoC)

That being said, I don’t think you have an IC problem based on your symptoms. Sounds antenna or antenna circuitry related to me.

Not initially. Search the forum, I’ve talked briefly before about the first component which has a direct connection to the board connectpr… off the the top of my head it was a 6-pin component… maybe an opamp… not sure tbh so you might wanna start there.

Usual stuff following that, the coax antenna is only two conductors, meaning it’s pretty easy to verify it using point to point continuity tests. You can even strip a phone antenna if the connector is a fit) and use that buzzing out from the stripped wires to the point of interest, then, the point of interest to XYZ and so on. Hope tha makes sense

17

Thanks for asking, I’ll do as you suggest.
Also, comparing some readouts from a spare board with my working switch lite, and I’ve got some caps next to a mosfet-looking chip. On the spare board, they output 3V on the purple spots (image below) but mine does 0.1V, dead short.
Image:

Would that still be because of a faulty chip or related to the smaller chip?

18

I’d just quickly pop that smaller IC off and see if it resolves your short. tbh I haven’t really went into full depth in this area so couldn’t even tell you what this chips purpose is. If pulling it doesn’t resolve your short I’ll take a look tomow and see where it’s connecting to the wifi IC and see what is the most probable cause might be

19

Thanks for your help, Severence. I finally found the time to do it. Just as a quick FYI, my original issue was that my Switch Lite wouldn’t connect to any network (2.4Ghz or 5Ghz) but Bluetooth was fine. I went for that chip replacement and performed it successfully - I know that because those surrounding caps now output 3V (previously they all did 0V) on those spots I highlighted previously. But in reality, things are different. Now the Switch Lite will connect to 5Ghz Access point, but not 2.4Ghz. Also, Bluetooth no longer works. :frowning:

QUICK Edit: You suggested to pull the chip off the board initially. I did, and those caps didn’t change, still outputting 0V, so I proceeded to replace the chip.

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So if these are the symptoms since swapping the wifi IC then it most likely points to an issue with your replacment chip or install - that is - if bluetooth was working before but not since.

Did you get the IC preballed somehwere or did you pull it off a donor and reball it yourself with stencil and solder paste?

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No, I haven’t touched the IC chip. By ‘chip replacement’ I meant the BF chip I mentioned on my previous comment. I got it from a donor board and it isn’t a BGA chip, but a mosfet-looking thing. I’ll be trying a new BF chip tonight and see how it goes and I’ll let you know, if you don’t mind.

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oh I’m with you :slight_smile:

I see, I have no clue what this chip is off the top of my head, could really do with buzzing out which pads of the WIFI IC this chip is connecting to to get a better idea of what is it. If removing the old one cleared that short that’s a good sign but perhaps it’s damaged the wifi IC itself :thinking:

yeah sure thing :+1:

:

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I’m sorry for taking so long, I wish I could make soldering my main job.
Back to my issue, that chip has been replaced but not without any side effects.
The chip is so tiny in such a small yet crowded area. Additionally, it has four pads that are not connected to each other on each side so each one had to be soldered and connected properly and individually, which meant the surrounding 0201 caps had to go, after chip was replaced and I was happy with it, caps were soldered back onto their spots. 2 out of 3 caps have been soldered on nicely, and are now outputting 3V. As for the other cap, it’s been very very hard to do it because this part of the board seems to be heat-resistant or it’s dragging the heat away. I can manage to solder the cap’s spot but I cannot heat it into place - the more I tried, the more I was concerned this would impact the chip replacement I just did - not only is that cap on the left of the chip now impossible to solder back on, so is the next component to the left (both circled in red), check the image below.

nsl_btissue02
nsl_btissue02931×495 91.3 KB

Components in red are now missing :frowning:

I decided to wrap it all up and see whether that would affect how BT/wifi works, and to my surprise, it didn’t. At first glance, I was connected to the internet and my BT controller is now working as it should.

Not really! I figured it was an issue with my firewall/Bluetooth mac filtering list and after enabling my Switch Lite’s mac address it can now connect to both 2.4Ghz and 5Ghz.

Unfortunately my happiness didn’t last long. I played Torchlight 2 with Bluetooth controller for almost 4 hours yesterday then powered off my switch lite.
Today, after powering it on, and getting my controller connected to it, I noticed that in the bottom left corner there is no controller logo, it’s the switch lite even though I was interacting with my switch lite using the BT controller. Now, after torchlight 2 loads into the press start screen, my controller loses connection to my switch lite. If I press the home button on my switch lite, connection is reestablished. And this is where I’m stuck at.

I’m thinking about purchasing some hot tweezer to get those caps soldered back on but I’m not sure that’d work with 0201 components.
@Severence What’s the deal with the blue-looking cap? I know I should have soldered the cap on the left because it outputs 3V when tested in diode mode, and believe me, I tried. But as I mentioned it is very hard to get any solder onto the spot of the cap. I can manage to do that, but after solder is there, there’s just no way to hot gun this cap into place because my solder just won’t melt, all the heat is being dragged away. Any ideas?

I’m sorry for the long post -_-

24

Hey,

Working from memory but I’m pretty sure one of the components you highlighted in red (blue colour component) is a filter, so your gonna need that. The other highlighted component is a cap, I’m not as concerned with this one being missing.

Yeah, don’t waste your money

Best I can suggest is practicing on a donor board, practice makes perfect :slight_smile: on your donor, remove passives of a similar size on a similar (or the same) mass board, after, tin the pads with your iron with leaded solder, if your iron is struggling to effectively tin the pads then bring your hot air in with your other hand at 150/200C to assist you, after place the component in position and bring to reflow.

If you still can’t manage then I’d put the blame on your hot air station not having the capacity. In which case might be worth inverstigating if it’s simply incapable because it’s a bad unit or it may simply be way out of calibration or something :+1:

25

Severence, thanks for your input. I hope you find this useful:
Did as you told me. The blue cap has been soldered back onto its spot. Checked for values in diode mode, it’s doing 0.08V and 0.02V, acting like a wire, just like other filters around that area.
Connected all the cables and reassembled. Then I got my controller connected to the switch lite. Same issue, and even though my controller was connected to it, the handheld symbol was being displayed at the bottom left corner. But I noted that, using the switch lite, when I kept right or left on d-pad pressed down, it was highlighting/jumping from one option to the next one much more slowly than it usually does. I then tried my left stick and it was not responding. So that meant the daughterboard connector was not pressing down on the connections, in my mind.
I disassembled my switch lite, and using a toothbrush and some IPA, I carefully cleaned under the latch, along with the cable header contacts with a cue-tip, then reinserted the cable and closed the latch. Upon powering on the handheld I could see a controller symbol was now being displayed at the bottom left corner. I can now use my controller to play all the games, left stick on the switch lite works as expected. So my conclusion is: I’m totally lost. I had no clue Bluetooth had anything to do with the daughterboard connector – well maybe it doesn’t, so what really explains Bluetooth working all of a sudden after cleaning the connector? I feel like there’s more to this connector than meets the eye.

Long post again. sigh. My apologies.

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I would guess that it wasnt a bluetooth issue as such, but the console refusing to switch away from the onboard controls even though a controller was connected.

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@Severence Nevermind, issue is back.

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Is that even possible? Could it be caused due to a hardware or software issue? Something tells me the daughterboard connection could have something to do with that, but I see no relation between it and this issue.

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@Insomniac Right now, I’m at the main screen of the OS. There’s a weird issue, I’ve made a video showcasing what’s going on (please watch): youtube dot com/watch?v=ZyS2-36n2cI

@Severence do you have any idea what’s causing that? Have you ever experienced that before?

30

Sorry not specifically this issue. afaict the main issue is controller connectivity when launching software, right? is this exclusive to this wireless controller or all of them?

I recall MyMateVince had similar symptoms on an (sorry I forget specifically) an xbox or playstation, suffering a trigger fault or button fault afair, worked fine in the OS but software refused to allow input… maybe something similar is going on here :thinking:

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I had the same issue as vince on a vita, where the pull down resistor was missing causing all controls on the daughter board to be giving a high signal. They all worked on the main OS screen, but no input in game.
I couldn’t say whether a switch would behave the same way, but certainly a button stuck ‘on’ in hardware can cause weird issues.

As for it switching when ever a button is pressed, i feel like that might be normal but will check on mine in a bit.

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Can confirm that my switch also switches to the controller that you last touched sonething on. So wuth my joycon driftibg a little it tends to switch to that all the time.

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@rbez
Have you tried the Mainboard in a Different housing with Different Touch screen, Different doughter Board and Different game card Reader?

Maybe you have a problem with the touch/digitizer, thats Reading an input even if you dont Touch it?

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Unfortunately I’ve got no spares to try your suggestion with, so I tried the ‘test touch screen’ option, and all it reports is a white screen, no input whatsoever.

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This could be an rf switch。 If this is broken it won’t be able to receive and transmit signals