A dubious Switch modchip install

published March 13, 2026

I finished the Switch modchip installation at the end of January, but I guess I'll tell the story of how it went before I update this page with other stuff. It went alright?

I collected all the materials and went through the literally painful process of disassembling the Switch, which involved slowly wrenching two of the soft, easily stripped tri-wing screws away from the backplate before being forced to pry open and destroy it. My right thumb had a blister from trying to remove those devil screws.

In the end, I did a respectable solder job, but I decided it was slightly ugly- one of the joints (top of SP1) was pointy and I had to clip it flat. So I tried to reflow that joint!

The solder stuck to the other side.

I panicked and tried to swipe a gap between the two capicitor pads and ... in the end, it was hot enough to have two of the SP1 caps come off the APU.

After I cleaned up the mess, I was rather upset at the fact that I had turned a working solder job into a disaster. I would have to purchase and install new capacitors and that could take weeks, the Switch would have to stay disassembled while I wait for parts, I don't have the requisite skills, super stressful.

Then I read on Reddit that some people had one or two caps missing and it worked perfectly fine. I tested continuity and SOMEHOW the solder was making solid, seperated connections to the bare pads. So screw it. I'll just reassemble the console.

And it worked. It still works.

I don't know how good this is long-term but I don't care anymore. Now I can develop and run homebrew for this thing! Yay!