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Sunday, May 29, 2022

Nintendo Switch Game Card Reader Repair


Today we are going to teardown a Nintendo Switch and replace the Game Card reader. This guide has lots of great pictures, but if you would like to watch the video version, head to the bottom of this post. 

This project came about after my kids OG Nintendo Switch decided to no longer read game cards.  

Now, we have very few games that are of a physical nature, as most of what we have are digital downloads. That being said, they really enjoy a Switch VR game, and it is only available via the physical card, so we have to get this fixed. 



I contacted Nintendo support to see what options were at my disposal, and after a few troubleshooting questions they determined I needed to send the unit into one of their repair centers.  


That didn’t sound like something I wanted to waste the time or money on. 

Now some people have reported a way to bypass this issue by plugging headphones into the 3.5mm port right after inserting the game card. This supposedly works as the audio port and game card reader share the same circuit board, and in theory more power is pulled to that board when doing this.  This didn’t work for me, so I broke out the flashlight to see if we could identify the issue. 


Sure enough, some of the internal pins look to be bent, which I assume is from a kid inserting a game card backwards.  I tried to bend them back, but couldn’t get it to sit properly in the original position, so I went ahead and ordered a new replacement to install.  



There are a few of these floating around, and I put the link to the one I used in the video description, they run about $30 bucks.   

Replacement Card Reader - https://amzn.to/38RvnKP

Disassembly of the Switch is fairly easy, but you do need one of these triangular heads to remove the screws. In addition to the triangle bit, you will need a standard Philips head. 


There are a lot of screws so make sure you have something to keep track of these tiny things. 

First power down the Switch completely, and remove the Game Card and MicroSD card if they are still present. Note that on the sides of the Switch, you don’t have to remove all the screws, just the one in the middle of each side. 

After going around and removing the screws we can take the back panel off and then remove this metal plate which is also a heat sink. Before removing the plate, detach the MicroSD card reader. This will now allow us to remove the heat sink.  


After a few more screws we are able to remove the card reader PCB.  Here we have 2 small ribbon cables that we have to pop off. Be careful not to damage anything as the connectors are pretty fragile. One is a press fit, the other has a hinged securing mechanism. 


With the old reader removed, we can see again where those pins are bent.  If you want to try and bend them back, it will be easier to do so with the reader removed from the Switch, otherwise, grab the replacement and retrace our steps to assemble the Switch. 


Now before I put the entire back plate back on, lets first test the card reader.  Luckily for me, It works!  Not we can finish putting it back together.  Now My kiddos are happy that they can use the few card based games we have again.

Well, that’s its, only takes about 5-10min to do this, and as long as you keep track of all the screws, it’s a very easy fix. 

Thanks for stopping by. If you would like to watch the video for this repair, hit the link below. 

https://youtu.be/_MDU_OsRlH8




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