Nintendo Switch Motherboard repair help

Hello there,

my name is Alex, I’m new into repairs and I have a question about one broken Switch I got. The switch doesn’t charge and doesn’t turn on. There is no batterie symbol on the screen, so I took it apart. The voltage switches from 0,67 and 0,50 all the time when I plug in the charger with the tester. USB-C Port and Batterie seem fine.

Next I checked the motherboard and found some shorted capacitors. I would like to attach pictures, but it doesn’t work somehow. How can I send media here? :thinking:

My multimeter doesn’t react on the coil at the front. Is that normal? Steves Multimeter always reacts when he tests the coil, but mine doesn’t.

Can someone help me? I didnt replace anything on the motherboard yet.

Thank you very much in advance.


EDIT: I thought I already have trust lvl 1 in the forum :melting_face:

Hi! The forum will let you post pictures after a few posts. In the mean time you can always upload them else where and put a link here with some spaces in it.
How are you trying the measure the coil?

Hi Insomniac. I cleaned it now on both sides, I got the beep and it passed the continuity test. + I added the pictures now :smiley:

The motherboard still isn’t working sadly. The capacitors are still shorted. :frowning:

I think you have a short on Vsys(4.25v) line since you mark on the big cap short next to 2R2 coil

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So it couldn be the BQ24193 chip thats shorted?

afaict you listed the 2R2 coil nearby the BQ IC as being OL relative to ground, which would mean you don’t have a short on your SYS rail… but at the same time you’ve labeled the cap nearby the EN IC as being short… which as far as I remember is SYS input as being short… so it’s hard to follow what you mean

If you do indeed have a SYS rail short, then BQ IC would be first port of call, then the caps themselves around the Max IC’s or the IC’s themselvels following

The 2R2 coil is not bad. I cleaned the contacts around the coil and I didn’t get OL anymore. So it might be the SYS input. First I try replacing the BQ IC, then I try replacing the MAX IC’s. Thanks for your quick answer!

I think perhaps I’ve not been clear, when checking for a short to ground we are typically measuring relative to ground (it’s very rare for a coil to fail open) so if you place one probe on ground and another at any side of the 2R2 coil near the Bq IC and it doesn’t register as a short then it implies you don’t have a short on your SYS rail

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I got continuity (no OL) on both sides of the coil with ground. So that means I do have a short on the SYS rail? I’m very sorry asking so detailed, but I’m still new in everything. :smiling_face_with_tear:

So can you confirm, if you put one probe on ground (a screw hole pad is a good choice) and the other probe on either side of the 2R2 coil (doesn’t matter which side) let me know your resistance?

I got 0,5 Ohms on both sides of the coil.

Yeah your SYS rail is shorted, if your meters resistance range is high enough resolution you can often probe around elsewhere where SYS shows up, the lowest resistance reading relative to ground will point to the most likely candidate