Hardware Switch battery seems to be abnormally discharging

PRAGMA · Jul 1, 2019

My Switch was off with the battery connector socket disconnected.
A month later (today), without it touching a power source, I reconnected the battery connector.
I turned it on, it had about 50% battery, messed with it for a day (factory resetting, updating atmosphere, hekate, and such).
It showed around -600 to -900 discharge in Hekate v5. before I did any messing around, I didn't think too much into it.

The 5% warning on HOS notification appeared, so I decided to plug in an unofficial charger (Anker Braided USB-C cable and Anker USB3.0 Qualcomm Certified Quick Charge).
I left it charge for about 30 minutes, it didn't seem to charge at all, unplugging the cable resulted in a 4% warning on HOS notification, meaning it has since discharged 1% since I started charging it.

I went ahead and swapped to the official switch charger and left it a further 30 minutes, to again, no effect.
I opened hekate v5 to see what the discharge values were, it showed values of around -300 when not charging, and +0/+1 when charging.
Whats odd as well, is Hekate is showing 6.3% battery left, yet Horizon OS shows 4%.

https://imgur.com/gallery/RMxk66y

Does anyone have any ideas I could try out?

PRAGMA · Jul 7, 2019

Im still having troubles, left it charging since I made this thread, its now been just under a week and its 11%...
No idea what could be causing it, its super strange.

Hayato213 · Jul 7, 2019

Hekate should recalibrate battery, plug in an official charger, don't use third party let it charge in Horizon OS, then boot up Hekate again.

PRAGMA · Jul 7, 2019

Hayato213 said:
Hekate should recalibrate battery, plug in an official charger, don't use third party let it charge in Horizon OS, then boot up Hekate again.

Ive only since been using an official one, its odd :/

Hayato213 · Jul 7, 2019

PRAGMA said:
Ive only since been using an official one, its odd :/

Let it charge you might have to go through a few time recalibrating, you can also check the battery tab.

PRAGMA · Jul 7, 2019

Hayato213 said:
Let it charge you might have to go through a few time recalibrating, you can also check the battery tab.

I could but im not too sure what I should look for in that tab

Hayato213 · Jul 7, 2019

PRAGMA said:
I could but im not too sure what I should look for in that tab

I would say take a look at the capacity full value if that is much lower than what the design is , then you have a problem with your battery, the amp it is discharging and the temperature, also voltage now.

PRAGMA · Jul 7, 2019

Ive found a blob bridg so im gonna look into that, its on the USB C by the D+/D- used for hardmod. Must have accidentally dabbed a bit in

--------------------- MERGED ---------------------------

After seemingly unbridging:

It seems relatively the same? Im not sure, maybe its worse than I thought or still bridged im unsure.

These are my battery info:

PRAGMA · May 14, 2021

Necro-posting in case anyone has a similar problem. It turns out the 2 shorted pins on the USB C you see above, is what the problem was. Sadly I could not fix it without replacing the entire port as stupidly back in 2019 when attempting to fix I got my soldering iron and wick and tried to get it all off. In doing so, I ended up burning the solder to the pin, and eventually burn that solder off taking half of the pin with it.

See the 3rd pin from the left? It looks like its bent inwards when actually its half with the actual pad on the board being full of solder. r/confusingperspective.

Regardless its very much clear this hardmod attempt went really poor.

So, if anyone encounters an issue like this and has reason to blame the port. I would not recommend just jabbing your soldering iron down there to try wick it off, it wont work (or maybe I just did a really bad job getting it off).

On this image you can see that the inner set of pins were perfectly fine too, just that 3rd pin (and the other 2 from the left being somewhat shorted and bent slightly)

Sir-Pizza-Bot · May 16, 2021

Appreciate the Necro-Post!

PRAGMA · Oct 2, 2022

Yet another Necro-post. I've finally taken the time to re-attach a new USB-C port and replace the battery with one from another faulty unit.

I have not seemingly gotten the inner set of pins flowing, so the USB port only works one way around (so it uses the outermost row of pins, the viewable ones). It does not work docked with this configuration, probably needs to use pins on both sides. I don't know what to do to flow the inner set of pins.

While it does charge, it does still seem to only charge +/- 0. Sometimes up about 2 or 3, sometime down -1 or -2. In the latest Hekate, you can now see the state of the USB PD, and it seems to take fast charging without a hitch, yet still gets these results.

Current state:

- USB only charges one way (regardless if for charging or data, or which wire or device)
- Does not Dock or even charge through the dock
- Left Joy-con rail will NOT attach. It acts as if no such thing exists. Left Joy-con works if wireless.
- I've only noticed one possible short. I cant remember where it is at the moment but it is towards the right of the Charger port.
- The underside of the motherboard is incredibly clean and free of any issues.
- No water damage ever occurred.

Does anyone have any ideas on what to check for in this situation?

PRAGMA · Oct 4, 2022

Does anyone know what the trace numbered 4 deals with? It seems to be shorting with the capacitor to it's right.

I checked around the USB port and cannot find any more problems, only some "possible" issues which could just be the way the light is hitting it.

PRAGMA · Oct 4, 2022

Success!! It now charges!

- That small little short was causing the charging issues.
- The battery may have been problematic, I'm not entirely sure though. I put it into a working switch (that also only charges one USB rotation) and it charges basically not at all. It could also just be a dead battery. It wouldn't of been charged since this thread died (so like 1-2 years).
- The Left Joy-con issue is no more. I simply did not have the flex cable pushed in enough (lol).

It's possible the switch port didn't have any problems and that the issue was simply a short on that capacitor lol.

It still only charges one way but as I mentioned before, the reason is seemingly clear cut and dry (the underlying row of pins did not flow).

Overall, considering my cheapest repair option if I did not do it myself was €85 euro, I'm counting this as a win.

Hardware Switch battery seems to be abnormally discharging

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