Switch left without power for months, won't turn on or show any charge, can't boot it via TegraRCMGUI.

[Wolvenreign]

Don't lend your consoles to your young relatives, folks.


I lent out my hacked Switch to my nephew with explicit instructions to not allow it to power down or else it would be a whole entire thing to get it to work again. Unfortunately, they let it die twice. I was able to revive it the first time, but this second time it would appear that TegraRCMGUI doesn't detect it as being in RCM mode. I've left it on a charger for days, though admittedly it wasn't the official Nintendo charger.

I've tried all sorts of button combos, power plus vol up 30 seconds etc, no dice. It won't even show the charge icon.

Wat do?

 

[impeeza]

if you use the search function at top of page, you will find a thread dedicated to this issue.

you must to connect directly to charger and leave charging for no less than 1 hour, then press power button for 30 seconds and try to start your console as usual injecting the payload as always.

 

[thesjaakspoiler]

If your battery is dead, the Switch might not turn on.
If you are handy enough, you could open the Switch and measure the voltage of the battery.
If it is below 2.4 volt, then the safety mechanism will prevent it from getting charged.

A new battery is the easiest and safest solution.

The cheapest solution is to give the battery a boost with another lithium battery so that it is above 2.4 volt.
This might work if the voltage is somewhere between 1.5 ~ 2.4 volt.
Downside is that the battery might already have encountered some damage and will not work or might catch fire in the process.
So proceed at your own risk.
Here Be Dragons.

 

[guily6669]

Or if you have like a RC battery charger you can also try using with 1cell Li-ion mode (Li-fe\Lipo modes also work fine if you are just trying to wake it up) to manually charge the battery externally to switch and if you have a good precise one it will precisely tell how much charge is actually charging too.

(note for doing this you have to disconnect the battery plug from the switch board first and connect the RC charger plugs to the battery plug, you can use wires to make the connection just make sure they make good connection between both tips).

I literally have done this to my Nvidia Shield tablet cause the sucker for so many times went OFF with low battery voltage and then sometimes it takes literally days in the official charger for it to finally come alive and keep pressing power or anything sadly does nothing not even if pressed for 1 minute, but using external charger fixes it right away and make the bastard to turn ON quickly (and on the tablet is much worse cause it has no plugs, I literally had to desolder the battery cables ).

EDIT: forgot to say maintain charge to like max 0.5 A (500mah) or less just to be safe even though it might take 1C but why risk it...

 

[fvig2001]

Sounds like your battery is dead.
Usually I would just charge it for 10 minutes, press power, use a usb dongle then swap out a charger once the boot logo appears. Usually that allows faster charging and then switch eventually boots normally at1% charge.

Although I really hate opening up the OG switch. The sd card connector is so badly made that you risk 1 bit mode every time you take out the sd card reader connector.

 

[guily6669]

Yep, externally charging is last resort and should only be used if everything else fails unless you don't care to wait maybe a good amount of days if it goes like my crap Nvidia Shield tablet

If you can't bring it to life in 1 day max and doing the power button pressing like explained on above comments, then you should really charge it externally.

ps: Also with a good battery the more you let this happen usually the less life cycles you will get and if you leave it below the threshold voltage for many time it might not ever be back healthy or might lose a considerable amount of charge sadly . It's beyond sad but until now I think only old crap Ni-CD batteries like even 0V if I remember well...

 

[Jayro]

The sd card connector is so badly made that you risk 1 bit mode every time you take out the sd card reader connector.

I haven't heard of this before, what's it mean?

 

[impeeza]

The connector of the sd card module is weak as hell, it get damaged even when you are super careful and once damaged sometimes the card goes on 1-bit mode which is the slowest mode to read a card. Then the only way to fix it is change it or solder wires from board to card reader.

 

[mrdude]

Most Lithium batteries have overvoltage and undervoltage protection circuits in them, if they drop below the undervoltage your switch will not turn on, this is to protect the battery. If the battery has been left for a long time with low voltage the battery can basically start electroplating itself and lower the charge capacity of the battery cell, or even kill the battery completely. You need to plug the charger into the switch and leave it for a while and then try to turn it on, if you have auto RCM enabled - you will need to check your Micro SD is working - or try and use a computer to inject hekate when you turn it on if you don't have a working micro sd card with the correct files on it.

Always keep your battery charged to around 3.7 volts, lower than 2.4 volts and your battery will suffer some damage, So even when not in use - charge your switch at least every 2-3 months to be on the safe side. Most of the time batteries become useless is because they have not been charged and have partly electroplated the anode or cathode themselves.

 

[Hayato213]

Leave it to charge, if you left it in autoRCM mode, it take a while to charge.

 

[Wolvenreign]

Most Lithium batteries have overvoltage and undervoltage protection circuits in them, if they drop below the undervoltage your switch will not turn on, this is to protect the battery. If the battery has been left for a long time with low voltage the battery can basically start electroplating itself and lower the charge capacity of the battery cell, or even kill the battery completely. You need to plug the charger into the switch and leave it for a while and then try to turn it on, if you have auto RCM enabled - you will need to check your Micro SD is working - or try and use a computer to inject hekate when you turn it on if you don't have a working micro sd card with the correct files on it.

Always keep your battery charged to around 3.7 volts, lower than 2.4 volts and your battery will suffer some damage, So even when not in use - charge your switch at least every 2-3 months to be on the safe side. Most of the time batteries become useless is because they have not been charged and have partly electroplated the anode or cathode themselves.

I don't know much about battery stuff, but my friend is asking if charging it with a 12 volt jumper would be too strong, and if so what is the strength of the charging battery that would be acceptable. I know you mention voltage here, but I'm not sure if charging it with a 12 volt battery is different from the amount to charge the Switch battery to. I'm a tad confused on this point.

Thanks everyone for your replies thus far!

 

[Hayato213]

I don't know much about battery stuff, but my friend is asking if charging it with a 12 volt jumper would be too strong, and if so what is the strength of the charging battery that would be acceptable. I know you mention voltage here, but I'm not sure if charging it with a 12 volt battery is different from the amount to charge the Switch battery to. I'm a tad confused on this point.

Thanks everyone for your replies thus far!

Should only use the official charger in this case, your friend make it worse with a 12v

 

[impeeza]

I don't know much about battery stuff, but my friend is asking if charging it with a 12 volt jumper would be too strong, and if so what is the strength of the charging battery that would be acceptable. I know you mention voltage here, but I'm not sure if charging it with a 12 volt battery is different from the amount to charge the Switch battery to. I'm a tad confused on this point.

Thanks everyone for your replies thus far!

the charging systems allows only 5v to start, and ONLY AFTER DATA EXCHANGE the charging system ask for very controlled 12V,

if you put 12v at start the chip who handle the USB will fried, on fact that's why some old third party decks "bricks" some consoles.

 

[mrdude]

the charging systems allows only 5v to start, and ONLY AFTER DATA EXCHANGE the charging system ask for very controlled 12V,

if you put 12v at start the chip who handle the USB will fried, on fact that's why some old third party decks "bricks" some consoles.

The charger might be 5v but it will only charge to 4.2v max and the charge will stop. You should never really directly charge a battery without using a BMS, like the TP4056 - it's output voltage is max 4.2v, they are extremely cheap - you can get them for 12pence from Ali express, or 10 for less than £3 from ebay.



For the dude putting 12v into your 3.7v battery - don't be an idiot!, do some research about such things.