Hacking eMMC error - dead internal memory

[chankarik]

DOWNLOAD MEMLOADER
EXTRACT THE ZIP.
PLACE THE FILES FROM THE SAMPLES FOLDER
AND COPY THEM TO THE ROOT OF THE SD CARD
PLACE SD CARD IN SWITCH
RUN THE PAYLOAD
SELECT OPTION EMMC
RUN HACDISKMOUNT SELECT OPEN PHYSICAL DRIVE
Do you see partitions ?
View attachment 160911
View attachment 160912

Nope, no partitions.

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Your board needs looking at mate.

You are losing 3v or CLK somewhere I`m guessing.

No amount of memloadering or hacdiskmounting will sort this one.

The BTB from emmc needs probing back to the Tegra.

Send it this way if you like. I don`t mind taking a look. I had a unit come in with failed emmc just before xmas. Turned out to be some kind of acid damage or corroded liquid damage, on just one trace. It is very rare for the actual chips to fail. It is normally something leading to the emmc chip that is letting you down.

Cheers
Matty

Hey Matty.

Thanks for giving my case a look. You see, I can't send it over to you because I am in Brazil and can't afford the freight. I do have some experience with soldering and assembling-disassembling electronics (that's how I fixed my joycons for one), so I'm down for suggestions. I wish I had the money to actually pay for your time and work, but me & the wife have been struggling with rent.

If you somehow still want to give me a hand, I'm all ears. I am sure we can proceed with some kind of remote 'surgery' for diagnosing if I can follow any steps you send my way.

Yeah, I'm desperate as heck. The Switch was one of the few pleasures we've had to deal with all the storm that's going on. And I know I won't be able to just buy another, since they cost roughly 500-600 dollars over here. Our rent alone is around 250 dollars a month.

I used to buy consoles and games, no troubles, a few years ago. But for the past 5 or so years, the country's economy has been shit. I bought the Switch when it costed around $350, last year. Now the prices have hiked up (for pretty much everything). Before that, I had had the Wii U and 3DS - and made several videos on tutorials to help Brazilians to install homebrew. Never thought I'd end up with a tough-as-nails case myself.

 

[chankarik]

Update: I have just found out that the dock isn't charging the Switch, nor sending the image of Hekate to the tv (should it?).

It behaves as if it's being handheld while in dock, screen on and all. When it touches the contacts on the dock, there is a very brief flash of the green LED and nothing else.

I have to wonder if power surges from power outages (power was blinking for a good 10 seconds, more than once due to storms in January and February, before going out for hours) have somehow damaged the eMMC.

This error happened gradually - I couldn't load the payload easily since then, requiring several tries that got worse and worse by the time, until it stopped reading the eMMC at all.

Also, the error would show up whenever I had the Switch in sleep mode for the night, after playing in bed. I would then try to turn it on again, and it would seldomly give me that error, not booting even Horizon. I had to rerun RCM and inject the payload again.

 

[SuzieJoeBob]

Update: I have just found out that the dock isn't charging the Switch, nor sending the image of Hekate to the tv (should it?).

It behaves as if it's being handheld while in dock, screen on and all. When it touches the contacts on the dock, there is a very brief flash of the green LED and nothing else.

I have to wonder if power surges from power outages (power was blinking for a good 10 seconds, more than once due to storms in January and February, before going out for hours) have somehow damaged the eMMC.

This error happened gradually - I couldn't load the payload easily since then, requiring several tries that got worse and worse by the time, until it stopped reading the eMMC at all.

Also, the error would show up whenever I had the Switch in sleep mode for the night, after playing in bed. I would then try to turn it on again, and it would seldomly give me that error, not booting even Horizon. I had to rerun RCM and inject the payload again.

Are you using the original Switch dock? I remember people were using the Nyko dock and were frying the USB-C ports on their Switches. If using the Nyko one, maybe this is a super extreme example?

 

[chankarik]

Are you using the original Switch dock? I remember people were using the Nyko dock and were frying the USB-C ports on their Switches. If using the Nyko one, maybe this is a super extreme example?

Nope, it's the original dock.

 

[P3T3]

Nope, it's the original dock.

Don’t use dock, plug charger in direct to switch then try booting to charge your battery before you try anything else! Or payload then quickly plug adapter in switch!

 

[Canna]

Don’t use dock, plug charger in direct to switch then try booting to charge your battery before you try anything else! Or payload then quickly plug adapter in switch!

Sir he said his battery was fine..

 

[P3T3]

Sir he said his battery was fine..

Ok I missed that

 

[SuzieJoeBob]

Do you have a triwing screwdriver and Philips screwdriver small enough to open your switch? If there are hardware issue with the eMMC, opening your Switch and looking for burn marks or a broken/loose component.
https://www.ifixit.com/Teardown/Nintendo+Switch+Teardown/78263

Once the metal shield covering the circuit board is removed, the eMMC is right there.

 

[chankarik]

Do you have a triwing screwdriver and Philips screwdriver small enough to open your switch? If there are hardware issue with the eMMC, opening your Switch and looking for burn marks or a broken/loose component.
https://www.ifixit.com/Teardown/Nintendo+Switch+Teardown/78263

Once the metal shield covering the circuit board is removed, the eMMC is right there.

Yes, I opened it, checked everything and it all seemed to be ok. I even dettached and reattached the emmc just in case.

 

[P3T3]

Yes, I opened it, checked everything and it all seemed to be ok. I even dettached and reattached the emmc just in case.

Sounds like could be a bad solder point on board, get microscope or magnifying glass and check all solder points, one will probably not look shiney, will be dull silver, reflow should fix it if a bad solder point.

 

[chankarik]

Sounds like could be a bad solder point on board, get microscope or magnifying glass and check all solder points, one will probably not look shiney, will be dull silver, reflow should fix it if a bad solder point.

Thanks, I will give it a try.

 

[CTCaer]

Based on the problem with eMMC and the "can't charge" one, your BM92T chip is dead.

You need to replace it and also make sure to never use that wall outlet again and also to only use the official charger for your dock.

 

[P3T3]

Based on the problem with eMMC and the "can't charge" one, your BM92T chip is dead.

You need to replace it and also make sure to never use that wall outlet again and also to only use the official charger for your dock.

They said charging was not the issue ((I also missed that )think he got it working), so not shore if BM92T is the issue there CTC, sound like it’s dead along the the emmc line somewhere.

 

[CTCaer]

He said battery is ok, which is irrelevant with BM92T.

If it doesn't charge and the battery is not at 4.2V then the problem is on BM92T.
But even if it is at 4.2V, the BM92T is needed for the supplementary power mode.
So it needs to be checked at least.

 

[chankarik]

The controller wasn't charging because the ribbon cable wasn't attached properly, as I have just found out. It's all fine now.

Is there any way I could diagnose the battery? I can get a report from Hekate, I think, so would that be conclusive info?

Also, I have managed to take some photos of my eMMC board - and I think they show something. They definitely have some weird scratch marks that have been there since the first time I disassembled the Switch.

Please have a look:

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Also, I have never used any unofficial chargers - I used to leave it at the dock, that's all. Again, I have the feeling the power surges from intermittent power outages in January may have had something to do with that.

 

[CTCaer]

The controller wasn't charging because the ribbon cable wasn't attached properly, as I have just found out. It's all fine now.

Is there any way I could diagnose the battery? I can get a report from Hekate, I think, so would that be conclusive info?

Also, I have managed to take some photos of my eMMC board - and I think they show something. They definitely have some weird scratch marks that have been there since the first time I disassembled the Switch.

Please have a look:

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Also, I have never used any unofficial chargers - I used to leave it at the dock, that's all. Again, I have the feeling the power surges from intermittent power outages in January may have had something to do with that.

Well there were reports of strange outlets killing switches or emmcs.
Yeah send a battery info.

As for the pcb there, such little scratches ain't gonna kill the traces.
You can try to install that on another switch if it's possible and check if it works.
If it doesn't, replacement pcbs with the 32GB emmc chip installed are very cheap (before many months I checked they were 12 us dollars).
And restoring your backup to them, just works.

But as a user here said, it's better to make some probing and check the voltage lines at least.

 

[chankarik]

Well there were reports of strange outlets killing switches or emmcs.
Yeah send a battery info.

As for the pcb there, such little scratches ain't gonna kill the traces.
You can try to install that on another switch if it's possible and check if it works.
If it doesn't, replacement pcbs with the 32GB emmc chip installed are very cheap (before many months I checked they were 12 us dollars).
And restoring your backup to them, just works.

But as a user here said, it's better to make some probing and check the voltage lines at least.

Right.

So, I have dumped the info to the SD - is it the fuel_gauge.bin file?

 

[CTCaer]

Right.

So, I have dumped the info to the SD - is it the fuel_gauge.bin file?

Just a photo of that screen with the battery info is enough.

 

[chankarik]

Just a photo of that screen with the battery info is enough.

That and a few more, just in case. There are two pics of the battery info, one with it plugged to the charger and the other one unplugged.

 

[CTCaer]

They seem normal.
The capacity now/full/design is normal to be like this, because you removed the battery and haven't booted into HOS to restore them.

As for charging I have a special hekate that restores the battery stat regs to a pristine condition backup.
If I can find it I can send it to you so you can test battery charging properly. Did you use official charger or PC for the charging photo?
(From the stats it seems it's PC)