Ripped Pad under APU, is it an important pad?

I contacted the support and got the master key today, so no big deal. And no fee at all.

By the way, I couldn’t get into RCM with 2 seperate 3d printed jigs, tomorrow I will mod my right joy con to enable RCM when the “remove” button is pressed all the way.

Ok, weird stuff happens I guess. I got the Switch into RCM mode, I was 100% sure, but still no connection on PC. So I tried the build in PC connection, while the switch is running, and still nothing.
A bit of google search I found a thread, where someone tells about pins 6 and 7 of the USB C connector being data+ and data- for USB communication. I check the 6 legged IC, fine. The filter above… missin. Well, yeah. XD

I soldered another one, USB connection finally works. I can inject payloads. I tried to start hetake, result: Caution, SD Card mounted in 1-Bit mode, maybe a pin is broken.

Well, yeah? It IS broken XD. So tomorrow I will have to replace the fpc connector. I will try my best to avoid using hot air, but I guess I will need to. I cant possibly solder this by hand, right?

PS: I am seemingly missing the “DATA2” pin, according to the pinout of the connector.

I would solder the sd connector by applying hot air from the back.

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As I touched on earlier, you can just solder the missing pin by hand and you don’t need to replace the whole connector (if your worried about using hot air). Or you can replace the entire connector either by heating from the underside as calvin mentioned or also from the top at lower temps.

Could have swore HOS throws an error about SD issues with a missing dat line… maybe it only does this when transferring files to the SD (?)

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I cant seem to understand, what you guys mean by just “repairing the missing pin”. Do you want me to break a new connector to salvage a single pin of it?

*replace, and yeah but you don’t have to “break” the new connector, your just robbing a pin off it, they are just clipped onto the plastic basically. So just pop a pin contact off the new connector and pop it on your old one where the missing pin contact was and then just gently push it down while soldering it in place. You shouldn’t have any issues here as if it is just a dat line there will be virtually no thermal mass so soldering should be easy.

Again though, you can do as Calvin said and just replace the whole thing, up to you, I only mention as you seemed nervous about using hot air - but replacing only what needs to be replaced is my preference and then you have the other pin/contacts from the new connector for other jobs.

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Is it really that easy? Dammit, I hat the now missin pin in my hand, when I tore it off. I thought to myself that this fpc connector is now gone and threw the pin somewhere to the 9th dimension out of frustration. Had I known that it can be just reinserted… What a bummer.

Haha easy done, they are slightly magnetic (If you’ve got some magnets to do some “metal detecting” on the carpet/bench :stuck_out_tongue: )

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Ok guys, short answer: It is done, the micro SD card went from 5-6 MB/s to about 90 MB/s.

Long story: I have never in my life worked with something that delicate before. These pins are soooooo tiny, it is almost unimaginable. Propably about the thicknes of the antenna of an ant or so.

I decided not to change the whole connector, as I really really REALLY did not wanted to remove the NAND and the screen connector again, so I tried to remove a pin of the new conncetor and chose a GND pin, so I could still use it, if I failed. After about 10 minutes of trying, I managed to extract the pin and, how else could it be, it launched away like the indians launched to the moon. I remembered that @Severence said that the pins are magnetic and somehow, I found it on my t-shirt.

I then inserted it into its new home and soldered it. What an adventure. The Switch is really hard to work on. Like for example yesterday, I told you guys that the filter thingie is missing for the usb-c port. I took one from a ps3 mainboard, I mean, it has usb ports too. But although being so tiny, the ps3 ones was still bigger than the switch one. I soldered the 2 contacts facing the usb-c port and had to expose the copper under the solder mask to make the other 2 connections.

Well, it was still a really fun project and you wouldnt believe my smile, when I could inject a payload yesterday :smiley:

Thank you guys so much, especially @Severence for answering me on a daily, more hourly bases. Best community ever.

I wanted to stop working on switch consoles, after changing my first usb-c port and M92 chip on my first ever switch lite, but this whole adventure made me stick to the console. It is so awesome :slight_smile:

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Nice work man :+1:

Now you’ve just gotta find some intensive game to run and put it through it’'s paces

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Any recommendations? I wanted to start with some nice zelda and pokemon action XD

Yeah Zelda should put it through it’s paces.

Maybe games like wolfenstein and doom too. Funnily enough though, I’ve barely played on Switch despite the fact I’ve probably fixed hundreds :smiley: but these seem like intensive sort of games. Witcher 3 maybe (I think I saw on DF ages ago this was pretty hard on it)

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Oh, now I get it, you want me to stresstest the console with demanding games. Roger that, will do :slight_smile:

I guess, this thread now can be closed? I mean, I dont expect wonders, the switch will propably die in a couple of month, but maybe not, or maybe in about a day. No one can tell.

It was a nice journey and thank you guys for going all the way to the finish line with me :person_raising_hand:

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