Switch Blue Screen - Where Do I Start?

Hi, I was donated a Nintendo Switch that displays a blue screen and nothing else. It’s not super bent, no obvious water damage, etc. Hasn’t been opened before I got it but it has for sure been dropped a few times.

What I’d love to do is just reball the RAM & CPU, since I’m pretty good with soldering and this is a perfect change to practice & expand my skills, but I figured I should learn how to properly diagnose the issue before jumping straight to open-heart surgery. :slight_smile:

I have a volt meter and am happy to poke every component, but I have no idea where to get started or what readings to look for. Plus I typically just use my meter in continuity mode for quick checks so I’m not very knowledgeable about how to get real readings, or which ones matter. Happy to learn though if someone can help me get started!

I’ve also seen references to using software “payloads” as a diag tool but I have no real idea what those actually are or how to use them, and my quick searching isn’t really getting me anywhere. I’m more of a hardware than software type of a person anyway…

Any help is appreciated, even just links to past threads!

Hi Man,
Did you ever get any feedback or get this working?

Hi.

Most probably the problem lies on either the APU, RAM, or the eMMC; so the first thing I would do (and I have already fixed at least 2 lites like this) is to try and reflow the APU. If this fixes the problem, there people who say the APU should be re-balled for a longer term fix.