Hacking Hardware Picofly - a HWFLY switch modchip

[Doctorbeefy]

This goes underneath. It is on top and causes a short when you clamp down the heat sync. Basically, without pressure, it works fine, but once you add pressure, you are pushing two contact points on the flex into the metal there, causing the short.

Fix that and no more issue

Once you put it under the metal you will be solid without issue. This is the most common reason for ==* codes on v1 and v2s

 

[Bones00]

View attachment 417174


This goes underneath. It is on top and causes a short when you clamp down the heat sync. Basically, without pressure, it works fine, but once you add pressure, you are pushing two contact points on the flex into the metal there, causing the short.

Fix that and no more issue

Once you put it under the metal you will be solid without issue. This is the most common reason for ==* codes on v1 and v2s

That did it!!!! It's working great now with the whole thing reassembled, it seems. Thanks so much all you guys for the quick responses, and especially you Doctorbeefy for the apparent solution!

 

[Doctorbeefy]

That did it!!!! It's working great now with the whole thing reassembled, it seems. Thanks so much all you guys for the quick responses, and especially you Doctorbeefy for the apparent solution!

No problem tbh I did the same thing I just noticed when I put pressure it caused the issue so I looked at other installs on YouTube and noticed it goes under and not on top

 

[ThiagoDaruma]

hi guys, how are you? well. i've got a switch lite, i've installed the rp2040 zero, as usual, i've done hundreds of them.
I measured everything and made sure there was nothing shorted, clean installation and no problems. the chip started as it should, accessed the hekate. but when I tried to access the original system I got a blue screen.
I removed the entire installation, cleaned everything and the blue screen persists.

any idea what might have happened?

edit:
when connecting with rp2040 it shows "No Sd card" screen
when I insert the Sd I get a black screen.
I've removed everything, cleaned all the contacts and I still get the blue screen.

 

[Viktorsilva]

hi guys, how are you? well. i've got a switch lite, i've installed the rp2040 zero, as usual, i've done hundreds of them.
I measured everything and made sure there was nothing shorted, clean installation and no problems. the chip started as it should, accessed the hekate. but when I tried to access the original system I got a blue screen.
I removed the entire installation, cleaned everything and the blue screen persists.

any idea what might have happened?

edit:
when connecting with rp2040 it shows "No Sd card" screen
when I insert the Sd I get a black screen.
I've removed everything, cleaned all the contacts and I still get the blue screen.

Never had that kind of problem, but in the oled Board it´s a common problem related with the broken resistor on the CMD point. Usually you get over it changing it by a new one (4,7k if i can remember ).when you boot into OFW you will need to acess to physical Nand. If some component get broken during installation you will start having color screns of error (Blue, Violet,Orange....)

 

[ThiagoDaruma]

Never had that kind of problem, but in the oled Board it´s a common problem related with the broken resistor on the CMD point. Usually you get over it changing it by a new one (4,7k if i can remember ).when you boot into OFW you will need to acess to physical Nand. If some component get broken during installation you will start having color screns of error (Blue, Violet,Orange....)

well it's a switch lite. it doesn't even access hekate.
all i get is either a blue screen (in the official firmware).
or the "no sd card" screen when picofly is installed, or when i put in the sd card with the hakate and atmosphere files i get a black screen.

If anyone has any suggestions as to what I can test to diagnose the problem, I would be grateful.
All I can think of is that maybe I have a faulty mosfet or maybe I have scraped the GND pad on the APU too much.
I can't think of anything else, all the other points have been soldered very carefully.

 

[Viktorsilva]

well it's a switch lite. it doesn't even access hekate.
all i get is either a blue screen (in the official firmware).
or the "no sd card" screen when picofly is installed, or when i put in the sd card with the hakate and atmosphere files i get a black screen.

If anyone has any suggestions as to what I can test to diagnose the problem, I would be grateful.
All I can think of is that maybe I have a faulty mosfet or maybe I have scraped the GND pad on the APU too much.
I can't think of anything else, all the other points have been soldered very carefully.

Post some pics of your install

 

[ThiagoDaruma]

Post some pics of your install

I've already removed everything from picofly.

if you need a specific photo of any part, I can send it to you.

 

[superxoi]

hi guys, how are you? well. i've got a switch lite, i've installed the rp2040 zero, as usual, i've done hundreds of them.
I measured everything and made sure there was nothing shorted, clean installation and no problems. the chip started as it should, accessed the hekate. but when I tried to access the original system I got a blue screen.
I removed the entire installation, cleaned everything and the blue screen persists.

any idea what might have happened?

edit:
when connecting with rp2040 it shows "No Sd card" screen
when I insert the Sd I get a black screen.
I've removed everything, cleaned all the contacts and I still get the blue screen.

Bluescreen after modding means that you fucked your emmc the cpu could not negotiate with your emmc and gave you that code. Every solid color has there own solution except orange 'unknown exception' which i am desperating to solve on my 2$ board now. If you are lucky enough your emmc just be panicked at this time and will recover at sometime in a few days(if this is the case,back up your emmc immediately) .If you are unlucky at least you can rebuild your emmc. The catch is that the console will be banned.

Post automatically merged: Jan 31, 2024

I've already removed everything from picofly.

if you need a specific photo of any part, I can send it to you.

Your problem now reside on your emmc which is corrupted by your modding . removing does nothing now.

 

[ItzMeGab]

Is this the dat0 or I hit the wrong spot? I just notice the three dots is not aligned with the solder point.

The diode value I get is about 560

 

[ThiagoDaruma]

Bluescreen after modding means that you fucked your emmc the cpu could not negotiate with your emmc and gave you that code. Every solid color has there own solution except orange 'unknown exception' which i am desperating to solve on my 2$ board now. If you are lucky enough your emmc just be panicked at this time and will recover at sometime in a few days(if this is the case,back up your emmc immediately) .If you are unlucky at least you can rebuild your emmc. The catch is that the console will be banned.

Post automatically merged: Jan 31, 2024

Your problem now reside on your emmc which is corrupted by your modding . removing does nothing now.

no man, if it was the EMMC I believe it would be possible to access the hekate. and when I put in the picofly and add the sd card to access the hekate, the console simply goes black.

I really believe it's the APU and not the emmc

 

[superxoi]

no man, if it was the EMMC I believe it would be possible to access the hekate. and when I put in the picofly and add the sd card to access the hekate, the console simply goes black.

I really believe it's the APU and not the emmc

Who tell you that a bluescreen(corrupted nand) can access hekate???? If you have bluescreen and add sd card in it it will show you blackscreen. You can use that emmc for other console not linked to your system the console can access hekate,yes. But if it linked to your console you can not access to hekate.

 

[ThiagoDaruma]

so how would I back up the nand? by removing the chip and putting it in a reader?

but that's very strange, I'm absolutely sure I did a clean installation and perfect welds. why would I have problems with the nand? if it was an oled I'd understand.
I can only think that some component was damaged

 

[superxoi]

so how would I back up the nand? by removing the chip and putting it in a reader?

but that's very strange, I'm absolutely sure I did a clean installation and perfect welds. why would I have problems with the nand? if it was an oled I'd understand.
I can only think that some component was damaged

I'm busy right now. It is nearly vietnam's new year the consoles are piling up. Let me tell you this. I received 2 lite 1 pink 1 yellow from a modding guy with bluescreen after hwfly installing. The pink(coral) one occasionnally fixed it self so i let it be that way for a week and it totally fine. The yellow in other hand kept showing blue and in the end i have to remove the emmc and replace it with another one and it is now my console now. As you can see i built it from donor nand so it permanently be banned. The corrupted emmc i use for another v2 and sold it already. You just keep it that way to see if you are lucky enough to be a pink one.

 

[malgamer]

Is this the dat0 or I hit the wrong spot? I just notice the three dots is not aligned with the solder point.

The diode value I get is about 560

i think that's ground

 

[psycho-neon]

Is this the dat0 or I hit the wrong spot? I just notice the three dots is not aligned with the solder point.

The diode value I get is about 560

That is dat0 yes.

Post automatically merged: Jan 31, 2024

i think that's ground

If its ground it will have a diode reading of 0.00

 

[_kedo_]

I really believe it's the APU and not the emmc

I bought a faulty Switch Lite with the same problem as you described. Guy tried to install hwfly RP2040(look at photo) and end up with broken console.

Spoiler: hwly rp2040

He broke CMD line and SP2 capacitor. With broken CMD line and without chip console looks totally dead just a black screen when you try to turn it on. After CMD line was restored i got a BLUE screen. Looking to a board under a microscope i found MAX77812 having a crack underneath where phase 3 is located. As far as i understand phase 3 is used for SDRAM I/O(VDDq rail). No voltages were on other phases(L1+L2 GPU, and L4 CPU)

Spoiler: broken MAX77812 PMIC

Don't know how this happened. Is something wrong with the hwly chip, or a guy physically damaged this chip somehow, or shorted VBAT to this component. Long story short after removal this PMIC and installing a new one from Ali this console works just fine.

 

[abal1000x]

hi guys, how are you? well. i've got a switch lite, i've installed the rp2040 zero, as usual, i've done hundreds of them.
I measured everything and made sure there was nothing shorted, clean installation and no problems. the chip started as it should, accessed the hekate. but when I tried to access the original system I got a blue screen.
I removed the entire installation, cleaned everything and the blue screen persists.

any idea what might have happened?

edit:
when connecting with rp2040 it shows "No Sd card" screen
when I insert the Sd I get a black screen.
I've removed everything, cleaned all the contacts and I still get the blue screen.

If the nosd screen shows, means the emmc is okay.
The nosd code is uploaded from the picofly TO the emmc once (the white light).

And the one who run the nosd and shows the image is the CPU.
So both emmc and CPU is okay or atleast partially okay.

Something else broken.

 

[FXDX]

Is this the dat0 or I hit the wrong spot? I just notice the three dots is not aligned with the solder point.

The diode value I get is about 560

It's good. Be careful how you insulate well with the UV mask.

 

[ItzMeGab]

That is dat0 yes.

Post automatically merged: Jan 31, 2024

If its ground it will have a diode reading of 0.00

Thank you, how about other dat#, do they have the similar values with dat0?

Post automatically merged: Jan 31, 2024

It's good. Be careful how you insulate well with the UV mask.

Yes the switch is now running fine, the transparent solder mask is so hard to use, I can't tell if it is insulated already or not gonna use colored solder mask next time