Hardware Switch not turning on (need insights)

[CSpiritsong]

Hi folks. I've read abi, but i'm not sure if I'm doing it right.
In any case, i have a 'dead' switch that just refuses to charge (actually, I don't even know if its charging).

What I have and what I know:
I have 2 Switches. One hacked (the one that's dead) and the other one clean.

the charger seems to work (because charging the clean switch = i can boot up, see battery with lightning icon)

when I disconnect the charger and plug it to the hacked switch, nothing. Screen is blank.


I've tried a few things.

1) Nintendo's "recommendation"
- hold the power button for 20 secs
- disconnect both end of the charger
- plug it in

- unplug everything
- plug in joycons (yes Nintendo said so)
- disconnect both end of charger
- plug it in.


*result = no dice*

2) hold power button, volume + and volume - button (all three simultaneously), hold, then plug charger.
*result = no dice.



As far as I remembered, one game crashed, and then I sort of "oh its late night" didn't bothered too much, slept, and next days / weeks i forgot to charge it (because real life).
At the point of crash, it was on Firmware 6.2 with TeamXecutor OS on it.

I don't think I have autoRCM on, because every time I boot the device (from coldboot) I use the dongle + jig that came along with it, because of initial concerns of battery life.


So, what options I have to troubleshoot exactly?

Any help here? I think i'll leave the switch connected to the charger for hours for now (who knows a miracle would happen, as of typing), as in beginning now. The joy cons are also plygged together.

 

[LapCheong]

Did you update your device with choidujournx? Because if you have it the option for AutoRCM is automatically turned on unless you turn it off otherwise

Is your sd card in exfat format? Maybe it is corrupted try formatting it and put the boot file

Try plugging in tegrarcmgui and see whether it recognizes your switch in rcm mode and try hekate

 

[CSpiritsong]

Did you update your device with choidujournx? Because if you have it the option for AutoRCM is automatically turned on unless you turn it off otherwise

Is your sd card in exfat format? Maybe it is corrupted try formatting it and put the boot file

Try plugging in tegrarcmgui and see whether it recognizes your switch in rcm mode and try hekate

wait, i did upgrade via choidujournx


and now i've read that it still sucks battery and if its at 0% it'll be forever dead, right?


okay downloaded TEGRARCMGUI, installed it (and the drivers?)

from red, now its green. RCM detected.

So... erm... what do I do? It means I've got a Switch with dead battery? Or? there's something that's not processing?

 

[CSpiritsong]

okay.. update.

so plugging to PC, TegraRCMGUI detects it..

injects "hekate" as requested.

so it sorta boot into... erm, i'm not sure? its a side screen, launch, optopn, CTCaer. This is hekate?

It says battery 11.4%, c<3720mV>, charge +218mA

but it has a warning

"Warning: Sleep mode library is missing".


So I tried unplugging it, then boot SXOS, doesn't wanna (pressing power button normally doesn't even boot, as in no boot up screen, etc).

So....dead battery where it has to be forever console mode only? Or I'm missing something?


I didn't press reboot normal / reboot rcm via hekate due to fear. I just click power off from this hekate screen.


Advices please?

 

[Paulsar99]

Try formating your card to fat32 first then put whatever cfw you're using then try injecting the payload again.

 

[LapCheong]

No your device is not dead. I suggest charging it in hekate until full then try Again.
Your switch might be not boot up from the dongle because the capacitor in the dongle has to be charge up before it can push the payload into your switch. Since your switch is dead it cannot charge the dongle. But maybe I was wrong your dongle is faulty. Alternatively you can also use tegrarcmgui to push the sx os.bin file. Make sure boot.dat is on your SD card

AutoRCM will not drain your battery. In the past, there were reports that it is draining their switch is due the fact that the switch was not correctly shutdown. The proper way of shutting down when you have autorcm enabled was to boot back into hekate and shutdown from there. But from ams 0.85 onwards shutdown was fixed.

 

[CSpiritsong]

Try formating your card to fat32 first then put whatever cfw you're using then try injecting the payload again.

I guess I'll have to try this later, assuming once the device actually boots itself up.

No your device is not dead. I suggest charging it in hekate until full then try Again.
Your switch might be not boot up from the dongle because the capacitor in the dongle has to be charge up before it can push the payload into your switch. Since your switch is dead it cannot charge the dongle. But maybe I was wrong your dongle is faulty. Alternatively you can also use tegrarcmgui to push the sx os.bin file. Make sure boot.dat is on your SD card

AutoRCM will not drain your battery. In the past, there were reports that it is draining their switch is due the fact that the switch was not correctly shutdown. The proper way of shutting down when you have autorcm enabled was to boot back into hekate and shutdown from there. But from ams 0.85 onwards shutdown was fixed.

Now this is weird.

from tegraRCMUI, i can inject hekate payload and it boots into hekate. Once in Hekate however, booting into official OS / custom OS (from hekate menu) doesn't work. The screen goes blank.
Though the battery this point says 15%.

Now let's say i charge it to 100%, but the same thing happens (use tegrarcmgui to push/inject payload) but in hekate, it refuses to boot into normal / custom OS... what do I do?

 

[Paulsar99]

I guess I'll have to try this later, assuming once the device actually boots itself up.


Now this is weird.

from tegraRCMUI, i can inject hekate payload and it boots into hekate. Once in Hekate however, booting into official OS / custom OS (from hekate menu) doesn't work. The screen goes blank.
Though the battery this point says 15%.

Now let's say i charge it to 100%, but the same thing happens (use tegrarcmgui to push/inject payload) but in hekate, it refuses to boot into normal / custom OS... what do I do?

That's why I suggest trying fat32 first then inject payload because if it blackscreens rather than load cfw it's because it wasn't able to read your card.

 

[LapCheong]

I guess I'll have to try this later, assuming once the device actually boots itself up.


Now this is weird.

from tegraRCMUI, i can inject hekate payload and it boots into hekate. Once in Hekate however, booting into official OS / custom OS (from hekate menu) doesn't work. The screen goes blank.
Though the battery this point says 15%.

Now let's say i charge it to 100%, but the same thing happens (use tegrarcmgui to push/inject payload) but in hekate, it refuses to boot into normal / custom OS... what do I do?

That's why I suggest trying fat32 first then inject payload because if it blackscreens rather than load cfw it's because it wasn't able to read your card.

If the screen is blank when you booting to ofw through hekate you might have a different problem since hekate will bypass fuse check and should boot even you have the wrong fuse count.

Hekate does not depend on anything but the tegrarcmgui and its .bin file

Sx os required the .bin file either injecting through dongle or tegrarcmgui and boot.dat in your sd card. If either of those is corrupted, obviously the cfw will not boot.


What you can do the try to narrow down the problem is as Unleanone999 said, reformat your sd card with only the boot.dat file and see if it boots
OR
Use kosmos with a formatted sd card in fat 32 and launch hekate.bin then boot > kosmos cfw

Worst case you might need to rebuild your nand following this guide but i doubt it since you only crashed it and stop using it since. Well its definitely not brick if you get to hekate. I hope you have your backup ready...

 

[CSpiritsong]

If the screen is blank when you booting to ofw through hekate you might have a different problem since hekate will bypass fuse check and should boot even you have the wrong fuse count.

Hekate does not depend on anything but the tegrarcmgui and its .bin file

Sx os required the .bin file either injecting through dongle or tegrarcmgui and boot.dat in your sd card. If either of those is corrupted, obviously the cfw will not boot.


What you can do the try to narrow down the problem is as Unleanone999 said, reformat your sd card with only the boot.dat file and see if it boots
OR
Use kosmos with a formatted sd card in fat 32 and launch hekate.bin then boot > kosmos cfw

Worst case you might need to rebuild your nand following this guide but i doubt it since you only crashed it and stop using it since. Well its definitely not brick if you get to hekate. I hope you have your backup ready...

yikes...

backup.. i didn't had any (apart from the pre-upgrade. I didn't backed up after the upgrade via choidujour.

On the sdcard front, i'll try it once the charging is complete. For some reason, with a USB-C cable to the laptop / pc, i'm getting 300+ mA, but from the original charger (Nintendo), i'm only getting 100+mA. Which is weird.

But yes, I couldn't boot to official firmware from hekate. That's why I'll as @Unleanone999 said and try to find another sd card with payload in it. The only thing that really bothered me was if I boot into hekate, the screen lights up a bit (you know, like light bleeding from the edge thing) but when from hekate to official firmware / custom firmware, nothing happens. Just blank. I hope its not the worst case to happen.

 

[CSpiritsong]

update: the weirdest thing happened.


1. I tried booting up, no dice
2. In the off state, I plugged a USB-C cable to the Switch, then to the PC, nothing happened.
3. I turn on the TegraRCMGUI app in PC, and suddenly switch boots. into OFW.


Funny thing is now every time I plug in the USB-C from the PC to the Switch, TegraRCMGUI would remain red, but the Switch will turn on.



I don't know what happened, but its somewhat unnerving that I couldn't get TegraRCMGUI to turn green, even when plugged in when the Switch is turned on / off.

 

[Paulsar99]

update: the weirdest thing happened.


1. I tried booting up, no dice
2. In the off state, I plugged a USB-C cable to the Switch, then to the PC, nothing happened.
3. I turn on the TegraRCMGUI app in PC, and suddenly switch boots. into OFW.


Funny thing is now every time I plug in the USB-C from the PC to the Switch, TegraRCMGUI would remain red, but the Switch will turn on.



I don't know what happened, but its somewhat unnerving that I couldn't get TegraRCMGUI to turn green, even when plugged in when the Switch is turned on / off.

Not really a mystery, afaik once you plug an off switch to pc or charger it automatically turns on. Well in my case that's what happens.

 

[CSpiritsong]

Not really a mystery, afaik once you plug an off switch to pc or charger it automatically turns on. Well in my case that's what happens.

which it didn't happened before the post. As in when I plugged in, nothing. It was only right before I posted that when I plugged in (because normal boot up would not happen), then it happened.

Now i'm completely baffled.

 

[LapCheong]

which it didn't happened before the post. As in when I plugged in, nothing. It was only right before I posted that when I plugged in (because normal boot up would not happen), then it happened.

Now i'm completely baffled.

By right, as long you do not have any cable plug into your switch and your switch is in shutdown state. It will boot the switch up be it in rcm if you autorcm or boot ofw. Provided there is power provided of course.

I might have a possible explanation though, if your cable is already providing power before your switch is even shutdown. Then after it shutdown and with a cable plug in, IT WILL NOT POWER BACK UP THE SWITCH. Hence no RCM.
Only after you shutdown the switch and plug in a cable then it will power up not before

But since you booted with ofw without hekate, you already burnt your fuses. Do not attempt to downgrade else normal boot up with soft brick your device ( still recoverable though i think )

 

[BakaBehindKeyboard]

which it didn't happened before the post. As in when I plugged in, nothing. It was only right before I posted that when I plugged in (because normal boot up would not happen), then it happened.

Now i'm completely baffled.

The Switch has always turned on the second you plug it in (or dock it obviously). Either in OFW or CFW. That's just how it works.