Hardware SD card causing black screen...

[Jamie Jenkins]

I have a Switch that has been running SX OS for a little over a year now. It is on FW 9.0.1 and it started freezing on me a few days ago while playing Luigi's Mansion 3 so I restarted it and put it on the dock. Yesterday when I picked it up, I could not get the screen to come on even though it would show that the payload was successfully loaded in TegraRCMgui. Long story short, after troubleshooting it all day yesterday I discovered it was an issue with the SD card. When the SD card is inserted, the screen will stay black. If I remove the SD card and try to boot something like hekate, it boots hekate up just fine. Again, it wont boot hekate though if the SD card is installed. The SD card I have been using for the past year or so was formatted to exFat. So, I formatted a new SD card to Fat32 and put fresh files on it but the same thing happens. The screen will just not turn on with a SD card inserted. I was going to try restoring my Nand but as far as I know it has to be on an SD card to do that, so I can't do that. Anyone have any suggestions?

 

[Canna]

I have a Switch that has been running SX OS for a little over a year now. It is on FW 9.0.1 and it started freezing on me a few days ago while playing Luigi's Mansion 3 so I restarted it and put it on the dock. Yesterday when I picked it up, I could not get the screen to come on even though it would show that the payload was successfully loaded in TegraRCMgui. Long story short, after troubleshooting it all day yesterday I discovered it was an issue with the SD card. When the SD card is inserted, the screen will stay black. If I remove the SD card and try to boot something like hekate, it boots hekate up just fine. Again, it wont boot hekate though if the SD card is installed. The SD card I have been using for the past year or so was formatted to exFat. So, I formatted a new SD card to Fat32 and put fresh files on it but the same thing happens. The screen will just not turn on with a SD card inserted. I was going to try restoring my Nand but as far as I know it has to be on an SD card to do that, so I can't do that. Anyone have any suggestions?

If your saying you have placed the sd card in to the reader and tried a new and old card and it stops you booting, that could be a sign of a damaged sd reader port on the switch. Maybe time to replace it, may have gotten som sh&t in it and damaged the reader..

Try Format the card to exfat..

Also try placing in the old card with no files on it but the correct partition type , either fat 32 or exfat depending on your system...

If the blank card formatted correctly doesn't let you boot then you know its the reader( Prob a short )

 

[Jamie Jenkins]

If your saying you have placed the sd card in to the reader and tried a new and old card and it stops you booting, that could be a sign of a damaged sd reader port on the switch. Maybe time to replace it, may have gotten som sh&t in it and damaged the reader..

Try Format the card to exfat..

Also try placing in the old card with no files on it but the correct partition type , either fat 32 or exfat depending on your system...

If the blank card formatted correctly doesn't let you boot then you know its the reader( Prob a short )

Would there not need to be something on the card for it to boot, like the boot.dat?

I'm not real sure if it isn't booting because it shows in TegraRCM that the payload was successfully loaded.

 

[Canna]

Would there not need to be something on the card for it to boot, like the boot.dat?

I'm not real sure if it isn't booting because it shows in TegraRCM that the payload was successfully loaded.

Payload goes to the switch not the sd...

What i mean was, try blank sd to launch hekate, and see if it loads now..
.Hekate can launch without sd and or emmc)nand)module installed..
Also try another format rather then 32 try exfat or vs verse....

To be honest tho if its affecting the switch booting on bot sd cards, could be a faulty reader,
But like i said try a blank formatted sd card and launch hekate...

If that works its could be the files your putting on the sd card...

 

[Jamie Jenkins]

Payload goes to the switch not the sd...

What i mean was, try blank sd to launch hekate, and see if it loads now..
.Hekate can launch without sd and or emmc)nand)module installed..
Also try another format rather then 32 try exfat or vs verse....

To be honest tho if its affecting the switch booting on bot sd cards, could be a faulty reader,
But like i said try a blank formatted sd card and launch hekate...

If that works its could be the files your putting on the sd card...

Thanks for the reply, I will try that when I get home today.

 

[The Real Jdbye]

I have a Switch that has been running SX OS for a little over a year now. It is on FW 9.0.1 and it started freezing on me a few days ago while playing Luigi's Mansion 3 so I restarted it and put it on the dock. Yesterday when I picked it up, I could not get the screen to come on even though it would show that the payload was successfully loaded in TegraRCMgui. Long story short, after troubleshooting it all day yesterday I discovered it was an issue with the SD card. When the SD card is inserted, the screen will stay black. If I remove the SD card and try to boot something like hekate, it boots hekate up just fine. Again, it wont boot hekate though if the SD card is installed. The SD card I have been using for the past year or so was formatted to exFat. So, I formatted a new SD card to Fat32 and put fresh files on it but the same thing happens. The screen will just not turn on with a SD card inserted. I was going to try restoring my Nand but as far as I know it has to be on an SD card to do that, so I can't do that. Anyone have any suggestions?

You can restore NAND with memloader and HacDiskMount from a PC. But it's not gonna fix your issue, as the issue occurs even in Hekate which is completely separate from NAND. It's likely a hardware issue.
The SD reader is on a separate board which slots into a connector on the mainboard, I've seen several cases where this connector was damaged, it could happen from something as simple as dropping the Switch if you have bad luck. It could also be bent pins in the SD slot itself if you've been rough when inserting or removing the MicroSD.

 

[Jamie Jenkins]

You can restore NAND with memloader and HacDiskMount from a PC. But it's not gonna fix your issue, as the issue occurs even in Hekate which is completely separate from NAND. It's likely a hardware issue.
The SD reader is on a separate board which slots into a connector on the mainboard, I've seen several cases where this connector was damaged, it could happen from something as simple as dropping the Switch if you have bad luck. It could also be bent pins in the SD slot itself if you've been rough when inserting or removing the MicroSD.

Thanks for the info. I ordered a replacement SD card reader this morning. I'm hoping that's the issue.

 

[The Real Jdbye]

Thanks for the info. I ordered a replacement SD card reader this morning. I'm hoping that's the issue.

It could be the connector on the mainboard that's damaged. That won't be an easy fix unless you're good at soldering with a hot air station.

 

[Jamie Jenkins]

It could be the connector on the mainboard that's damaged. That won't be an easy fix unless you're good at soldering with a hot air station.

Yeah, hopefully it's just the SD card reader though. I'm decent at soldering, used to mod a lot of 360s but don't have a hot air station. I'll report back after swapping the reader out.

 

[Canna]

Yeah, hopefully it's just the SD card reader though. I'm decent at soldering, used to mod a lot of 360s but don't have a hot air station. I'll report back after swapping the reader out.

Yeah goodluck, im hoping its something as simple as the sd card reader...
The zif connector were the sd card reader meets the main board needs to be lined up correctly, and you should feel or hear a gentle Click,pop.. when connected correctly, i found to gently remove the foam pad sometimes helps locate and connect. Make sure to put the foam pad on the new one..And as always with Flexible Flat Ribbon Cable they can break easy so try not to bend them too much(Talking about the one on the sd reader board )

 

[Jamie Jenkins]

Yeah goodluck, im hoping its something as simple as the sd card reader...
The zif connector were the sd card reader meets the main board needs to be lined up correctly, and you should feel or hear a gentle Click,pop.. when connected correctly, i found to gently remove the foam pad sometimes helps locate and connect. Make sure to put the foam pad on the new one..And as always with Flexible Flat Ribbon Cable they can break easy so try not to bend them too much(Talking about the one on the sd reader board )

Good info, thanks!

 

[Jamie Jenkins]

Well, I just replaced the SD card reader but I am still having the same issue. Not sure what to do now.

Anyone know what it would mean if I keep getting "Failed to init SD card" error in hekate and Lockpick_RCM before and after replacing the SD card reader?

 

[Canna]

Well, I just replaced the SD card reader but I am still having the same issue. Not sure what to do now.

Anyone know what it would mean if I keep getting "Failed to init SD card" error in hekate and Lockpick_RCM before and after replacing the SD card reader?

That sucks.
Whats your format method and what are you using to format the sd card ?...Let us know.

You say your having issues with two sd cards and also you replaced the sd card reader,
Im guessing your using the latest hekate so all i can say is your cards are not being formatted correctly .. or there is a more serious and deeper issue with the system

So Try a different format method, i never use windows own format method cause it never works correctly.

Use a app called SD CARD FORMATTER https://www.sdcard.org/downloads/formatter/

I like to use mini partition tool to format my stuff.
https://www.minitool.com/partition-manager/partition-wizard-home.html
Format to either Exfat cluster size 128kb
Or FAT 32

I think also if you remove all partitions, Volumes from sd card. you can place sd card into switch boot stock Ofw and it will format the sd card for you...

 

[Jamie Jenkins]

That sucks.
Whats your format method and what are you using to format the sd card ?...Let us know.

You say your having issues with two sd cards and also you replaced the sd card reader,
Im guessing your using the latest hekate so all i can say is your cards are not being formatted correctly .. or there is a more serious and deeper issue with the system

So Try a different format method, i never use windows own format method cause it never works correctly.

Use a app called SD CARD FORMATTER https://www.sdcard.org/downloads/formatter/

I like to use mini partition tool to format my stuff.
https://www.minitool.com/partition-manager/partition-wizard-home.html
Format to either Exfat cluster size 128kb
Or FAT 32

I think also if you remove all partitions, Volumes from sd card. you can place sd card into switch boot stock Ofw and it will format the sd card for you...

I use minitool partition wizard to format the SD card and I have tried both Fat32 and exFat formats. Not sure how important the cluster size is but I just left that at default but I will try formatting it again and adjusting the cluster size to 128kb and see if that helps.
Is there a way to boot into OFW without using the SD card? I tried disabling RCM with hekate but it doesn't work.

 

[Canna]

you dont have to disable AutoRCM..


Sd card is not required to launch, but is for say hekates config files.

Use hekate and launch stock. does it work ?
Whats your battery reading within hekate ? can u post .
Can you launch into OFW at all ? Problem may lie somewere else rather then SD card.
As switch doesn't need a sd card to boot ofw.

And switch doesnt need emmc module or sd to go into hekate.

Just had a thought, send the memloader payload to your switch and select SD Card option see if your sd card shows when u plug the switch into pc...

 

[Jamie Jenkins]

you dont have to disable AutoRCM..


Sd card is not required to launch, but is for say hekates config files.

Use hekate and launch stock. does it work ?
Whats your battery reading within hekate ? can u post .
Can you launch into OFW at all ? Problem may lie somewere else rather then SD card.
As switch doesn't need a sd card to boot ofw.

And switch doesnt need emmc module or sd to go into hekate.

Just had a thought, send the memloader payload to your switch and select SD Card option see if your sd card shows when u plug the switch into pc...

I haven't been able to get OFW to boot, I don't remember seeing a 'launch stock' within hekate but will look again and try what you said in memloader after I get home from work today.

 

[Jamie Jenkins]

you dont have to disable AutoRCM..


Sd card is not required to launch, but is for say hekates config files.

Use hekate and launch stock. does it work ?
Whats your battery reading within hekate ? can u post .
Can you launch into OFW at all ? Problem may lie somewere else rather then SD card.
As switch doesn't need a sd card to boot ofw.

And switch doesnt need emmc module or sd to go into hekate.

Just had a thought, send the memloader payload to your switch and select SD Card option see if your sd card shows when u plug the switch into pc...

Sorry, I didn't get to mess with the Switch last night.

For the battery reading it shows, "Battery: 98.4% (4157 mV) - Charge: -1mA"
When I try to use the Launch option in hekate with an SD card, it gives me "Failed to init eMMC"
When I try to use memloader it gets all crazy looking like the matrix and gives a weird error. I attached a picture showing what I'm talking about.
I am going to open it up again tonight and check the connector where the SD card reader connects. I've seen in other forums that the connector pins can come off. Hopefully that's not whats happening.

 

[Canna]

Sorry, I didn't get to mess with the Switch last night.

For the battery reading it shows, "Battery: 98.4% (4157 mV) - Charge: -1mA"
When I try to use the Launch option in hekate with an SD card, it gives me "Failed to init eMMC"
When I try to use memloader it gets all crazy looking like the matrix and gives a weird error. I attached a picture showing what I'm talking about.
I am going to open it up again tonight and check the connector where the SD card reader connects. I've seen in other forums that the connector pins can come off. Hopefully that's not whats happening.
View attachment 190016

Format the sd card to Fat 32 and try again. please
And does the console boot into OFW without sd card inserted >?

 

[Jamie Jenkins]

Format the sd card to Fat 32 and try again. please
And does the console boot into OFW without sd card inserted >?

Okay, I tried formatting to Fat32 and tried to make a backup of the Nand but it still says Failed to init SD card and I have had no luck getting into OFW with or without the SD card. If I go into Console Info in hekate and click on "print eMMC info", it says Failed to init eMMC.

What's weird is that the SD card reader does seem to be working for some things. In hekate under Console Info, I clicked Print Fuse Info and is showed that it saved 2 files to the SD card. I removed it and there are folders and files on the card and it was completely blank when I booted into hekate. On the card, there is a folder named: BOOTLO~1 with 3 empty folders and a file named: HEKATE~1.INI. There is also a backup folder with another folder with the I guess console ID, it's the same folder setup I got when I originally made a NAND backup. In that folder there is another folder named dumps with 3 files named: V]CEWA~1.BIN, V]SE_C~1.BIN and V]SE_C~3.BIN which I am assuming is the files it backed up after clicking Print fuse info. All of the other print options freeze the console.

 

[Canna]

Right so here goes,

Originally i thought you had said that OFW was working fine, that you can get in or to the nintendo main menu without a sd card in..

Now..
If you cant boot into OFW then sir you have bigger issues then a sd card..
The sd card and or reader maybe fine, but a bad diagnosis.

That said, its time to look at or fix nand.

Try something for me.
Remove SDcard.

And go into hekate and take screenshots or pics of the emmc information.
If it does not work. Then we need to look at the emmc module,
Could you be a little gentle and remove the EMMC module, check the pins on the zif socket.
and reseat it.. Do you get emmc info in hekate now ?

If not . Try this.

Use memloader payload but this time mount the EMMC

Then use Nx Nand manager or hacdiskmount. and see if you can load the pyhsical drive..

Im thinking now that you have Emmc issues,


Get as much info out of Hekate take pics and post, also same with memloader and or any errors you get along the way.

If you cant boot ofw, then you def have hardware short,failure or corrupt emmc or dead emmc, il say it how it is..
You was playing a game and it froze, now you cant boot ofw and your getting Weirds emmc or sd issues, Im hoping you didnt overheat and cause a cold solder joint..

I dont mean to scare ya or think oh ffs. But we need to look at nand now..
If your able to restore or not or even boot into OFW should be our first step.
You say you have a backup,? Did you backup boot0 boot1 and your system keys ?
You should.we may need those.

Also thinking about it, try sending the LockpickRCM payload also, with sd card in. See if you can dump keys Without getting errors of unable to read package 1/2 etc..

Report back. Hope i made some sence..