Hardware Backlight dying after applying pressure to semi stripped backplate screws?

[burningup]

Hi. So um, about four years ago my dumb 17 year old self stripped the screws on this thing’s backplate as I didn’t have any triwing or proper Philips driver tips back then. Don’t even know what I wanted to do after opening it up.

Flash forward to last Friday when I cracked it open to get some dust out & repaste the SoC/heatsink, I bought a big ass screwdriver set with special Nintendo tips, and yes they’re the exact type I needed. I had to apply like.. quite a bit of pressure with the screwdriver as the backplate screws barely had any give, due to them being stripped, and now, I’m scared I may have killed the backlight after putting everything back together (the actual LCD panel and touchscreen layer work just fine as per the attached image). I didn’t touch the display assembly or apply direct pressure

I tried everything like going into maintenance mode and whatnot hoping it’d work, to no avail. However, the backlight DOES turn on while it’s showing the nintendo logo (think right after turning the switch on) but from that point onwards it’s lights out for some reason. Is there an explanation for the backlight only working for like 3 seconds?

Am I royally fucked?

 

[thesjaakspoiler]

Either the backlight or the circuit that drives the backlight might be broken.
There might be some safety mechanism in the Switch that turns off the backlight if it draws too much current.
Leds can draw more power as they get older, potentially damaging the circuit that drives them.
To prevent this, most modern displays have a simple mechanisme to prevent such damage.
Apple Cinema Displays have a similar design.
When the backlight draws too much current, it just shuts down the backlight.
If you're into repairing stuff, this vide might give some clues :

 

[FAST6191]

Without watching the video I would question whether this it is going to be helpful as that likely covers the general failures (though the measurements in the thumbnail could be a more generalised approach). Stripped screw and a lot of pressure is more likely to be cracked board, cracked backlight (rarer in modern stuff compared to cold cathode where it was a bit more delicate, not to mention if it turns on for a few seconds it is likely not that) or chips/resistors bent off the board somewhere (I will spare you a pondering of the nature of surfaces during bending, any engineering textbook should handle it though if it mentions the phrase neutral axis in relation to bending). There is an outside chance something is overheating and shutting down but I would not expect it for a screen in a device like this.

It lighting during power on is likely some form of power on self test, however it likely wants a signal from elsewhere to keep it on (variation in this signal then presumably speaking to backlight level).

Chips being bent off is the more likely of them (get a resistor holding on and the board bending and brittle fracture of solder joints is likely to happen) with what you say. Measuring them could be a pig if the pressure from the probes (might actually be a case where test points rather than legs are a better case) sorts a connection inherently. That said the fix is much the same whether you know what specifically is the problem or are doing the quick and dirty fix, that being a reflow and possibly replacement of any missing resistors if there are any. Cowboy method is to find what tells it to power on and run a wire from somewhere to replicate the signal.

 

[hippy dave]

(I will spare you a pondering of the nature of surfaces during bending, any engineering textbook should handle it though if it mentions the phrase neutral axis in relation to bending)

 

[burningup]

Without watching the video I would question whether this it is going to be helpful as that likely covers the general failures (though the measurements in the thumbnail could be a more generalised approach). Stripped screw and a lot of pressure is more likely to be cracked board, cracked backlight (rarer in modern stuff compared to cold cathode where it was a bit more delicate, not to mention if it turns on for a few seconds it is likely not that) or chips/resistors bent off the board somewhere (I will spare you a pondering of the nature of surfaces during bending, any engineering textbook should handle it though if it mentions the phrase neutral axis in relation to bending). There is an outside chance something is overheating and shutting down but I would not expect it for a screen in a device like this.

It lighting during power on is likely some form of power on self test, however it likely wants a signal from elsewhere to keep it on (variation in this signal then presumably speaking to backlight level).

Chips being bent off is the more likely of them (get a resistor holding on and the board bending and brittle fracture of solder joints is likely to happen) with what you say. Measuring them could be a pig if the pressure from the probes (might actually be a case where test points rather than legs are a better case) sorts a connection inherently. That said the fix is much the same whether you know what specifically is the problem or are doing the quick and dirty fix, that being a reflow and possibly replacement of any missing resistors if there are any. Cowboy method is to find what tells it to power on and run a wire from somewhere to replicate the signal.

Thank you.
It seems like I keep staring at my Switch funny (sarcasm) as everything seems to worsen each time I pick it up. It entered some sort of boot loop after docking it just now. LCD still works, but there’s no HDMI output or entering maintenance mode, basically it’s semifunctional if I shine my flashlight onto the panel.

”Repair“ shops in my area do board swaps for everything, so the only “wise” thing I could come up with -as a total hw repair noob- is backing up my saves for now and just getting a replacement in the summer, sigh. Scared to even touch anything.