According to Hekate, my SD is in 1-bit mode...

[ss3matt]

I have been noticing games and Atmosphere itself are taking a long time to boot (They're fine once they have, I presume because they dump into the Switch hardware or whatever) and file managers are being weird with deleting stuff and moving large amounts of files. I thought nothing of it because whatever it still works and I stick to one game normally, putting it into sleep mode so it isn't really an issue for me.

I was updating stuff, and for the first time in ages I booted into Hekate and a message about it being in 1-bit mode and the card reader maybe being damaged. I checked the SD card data as it said a bunch of data on the card, but I have no idea if there's anything off about it. Benchmark test ranges from 3-5 mib/s which I believe is slow for a sandisk card.

I'm guessing I need to get a replacement reader, which is thankfully very cheap, but is that what you guys would do, and if so, is it easy to do?

 

[The Real Jdbye]

I have been noticing games and Atmosphere itself are taking a long time to boot (They're fine once they have, I presume because they dump into the Switch hardware or whatever) and file managers are being weird with deleting stuff and moving large amounts of files. I thought nothing of it because whatever it still works and I stick to one game normally, putting it into sleep mode so it isn't really an issue for me.

I was updating stuff, and for the first time in ages I booted into Hekate and a message about it being in 1-bit mode and the card reader maybe being damaged. I checked the SD card data as it said a bunch of data on the card, but I have no idea if there's anything off about it. Benchmark test ranges from 3-5 mib/s which I believe is slow for a sandisk card.

I'm guessing I need to get a replacement reader, which is thankfully very cheap, but is that what you guys would do, and if so, is it easy to do?

Check if the connector on the mainboard is damaged.
Replacing the SD reader board didn't fix it for me, presumably the connector is not making good contact even though it looks fine.
I am going to measure continuity with a multimeter next time I see my cousin (it's his Switch), I suggest you do the same before buying a replacement SD reader so you don't waste money on it like I did.
If the multimeter finds an issue, then you just need to solder a jumper wire.

 

[ss3matt]

Hm, that's odd...

I installed Deepsea to reconfigure a few things I knew were wrong, and now the SD problem seems to have fixed itself. At first it had a fatal error when I went on "all software", but after a couple of reboots that fixed too. Now it all sooms to work fine, and the SD is loading everything as it should.

I guess the thing could be on its last legs, so I might get a new sd reader anyway just in case (The pin is fine)