Nintendo Switch - Shorted Diode near fan connector

Nintendo Questions Nintendo Switch
#1

I’ve got Nintendo Switch on the bench.
Issues:

  • Joy-Cons won’t charge
  • Problems with displaying joy-cons serial number
  • Fan is not spinning
  • Battery drains quickly

I’ve located the shorted diode near the fan connector. After removing the diode short is gone and joy-cons are charging, back to normal. I am right now in state of charging console and testing.

Thing is I don’t have a donor board and I assume the diode is not there without the reason.
Anyone know what would be the diode there?

PS. I was trying to attach the photos but as a new user I get notification “Sorry, new users cannot attach the photo”…

#2

Some board does not have that diode, so IMO is protection circuit, you can leave it empty.

1 Like
#3

So I can take it out and not put in a replacement?

#4

That’s right. only early model of the board has that diode. just like the ESD ic next to the type c port

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#5

I’m Sorry I am confused. I have a switch that does not have a diode. But I did some testing with my switch and the joycons connect to the switch and charge for a few seconds when they are put on the rails when they are off the dock. However, When I put it on the dock only the right joycon will charge

#6

And here I think you could be wrong.
I’ve got some more Nintendo Switch consoles meanwhile.
The board which has the diode is marked with HAC-CPU-21.
However I got another console with different revision and marking HAC-CPU-20 - this one doesn’t have the diode in it by default.
I might be wrong but seems like actually the newer ones got the diode in it?

What’s funny I’ve just found in google a news on nintendosoup which says that lots of customers are having issue with that specific diode in board marked HAC-CPU-21. Different thing is that this news is not bringing much information to the table.

Anyway I will leave it for now without the diode and see how it goes.

At the moment removing shorted diode solved all issues regarding to the charging joy-cons, fan and of course is not draining battery anymore as we don’t have a short.

#7

Yup, I’ve got another switch with HAC-CPU-01. It doesn’t have the diode either. Seems like it is present in newer revisions of the board. Seems like they specially redesigned the traces around fan connector even to add that diode there.

PS. Sorry, still I cannot add photos to my posts…