using the FPS locker program you used on the switch, if you go to advanced settings you can actually download a config file made specifically for totk which allows for a higher framerate, makes game speed not tied to framerate, allows for dynamic resolution, and also triple buffers it so it's smoother than stock. I would highly recommend checking if a game has a config available for download in the advanced settings of a game to make it the best possible experience.
And if you have enough soldering skills, you can replace the 2GB RAM modules for 4GB modules for 8GB. It probably won't benefit too much games but it can allow you to run Android or Linux with more headroom For instance, someone apparently installed Linux to their switch and ran the Yuzu emulator on it, with 10FPS average, so they emulated the switch on a switch.
The metal shields are RF shielding for regulatory compliance and better wireless performance, not for keeping people out (but i guess they work nicely for that too)
I thought they were there to prevent the data lines from picking up RF like an antenna, which can happen with cellular and WiFi at certain trace lengths.
@@Psychx_ my understanding is it is the other way, to stop the high frequency switching going in with data lines interfering with nearby RF devices. I'm not an expert and could be wrong LOL
I found your channel last night with the first switch mod. Showed my 10yr old son and we’ve now seen all of your tech related builds and still watching. He had to go to bed, but loves this stuff and I love how your content is inspiring him. Great work. Lost my mom to brain cancer almost a year ago just after she bought me the OLED TOTK model. I often worry about my joy cons going out since they’re kinda special to me being my last bday gift from her. I’m now hopeful and less worried since repairing them doesn’t seem to be too difficult. Great channel. I even watch the adds in hopes of it helping you grow. Thanks again.
I'm sorry to hear that a bout your mom.... I'm replying to say I've known 3 other people that got brain cancer and passed as well in the last 3 years. I also heard about more people that I don't know. What is going on?! This scares me.
I’m so sorry for your loss 🌸 But I’m happy you were able to have a nice moment sharing a moment with your son! About the joycons, there are videos for replacing batteries and joysticks with drift free Hall effect ones. Depending on your son’s age, maybe it could be a little project together to fix up some 2nd hand joycons as practice and add a custom shell 😊
I appreciate the support and the kind words Paul! Sorry for your loss too, I lost my mom not long ago too and I know how tough it can be around mothers day. Keep your head up and stay strong! All the best man
I fking cried after reading this, y does life always do horrible shit to seemingly the last bit of good people left :( best wishes for you and your family (idk if i used the right “your” I’m not the brightest bulb in the home depot)
ifixit kits are pretty much standard operating procedure if you want to be a DIY on small electronics. When I worked at a repair shop that largely dealt with smartphones, tablets, and PCs, it made life much easier to have familiarity with a set of these tools. I bought my own personal one after I left and love when I have an excuse to use it.
I got one kit gifted to me years ago and its been a life saver in a whole bunch of random applications. It's the best gift I've ever gotten in my life.
We bought a kit to use at work and I loved it so much, I actually bought my own kit to have at home. It's been one of the best things I've ever purchased, as I use it for everything, from getting into and repairing video game consoles, to using it in place of a paperclip (for resetting electronics etc.), to using it in place of things like allen keys that are too small and awkward to use. There's probably cheaper toolkits out there, but these are great, and apparently if anything breaks I can just request a new one and they'll send it out. I haven't tried that out yet, but one day I might need to, as the SIM eject / paperclip replace tool gets a lot of use.
Just an important piece of information. If you spray matte paint that heavy it wont be matte. The directions say on the can to lay down light coats, not spray half the can in one wet coat......
gloss looks better anyway for this application. matches the shiny aluminum back and other slightly shiny parts. even the wood appears a bit shiny. so matte would've been the outlier
2:12 The metal covers are not a security measure. They are to block RF emissions from the CPU and RAM and other high-speed chips. The RF shields on the Switch are actually a lot easier to remove since they are just clipped on; some other RF shields are soldered directly to the board and can be somewhat difficult to remove without damaging other components.
He's a modder. I haven't met someone who mods consoles or games who wasn't a gigaChad. The whole community and the fans surrounding it, I love the modding scene so much.
As an industrial designer, I'm an opinionated bastard, so while watching your videos, I'm always thinking, "I would've done this!" or "Why did he do it like that?" However, your work and, by extension, your videos are excellent! I'm impressed by your upbeat attitude, great humility, and superb design skills! I'm especially a fan of your postmortem analysis. Few people admit to their shortcomings and what they could have done better, and even fewer designers do that. So, I salute your objective perspective on your work and your ability to share your work's "imperfections" with us. Keep up the good work!
There are more things you can do on top of this, if you're OK with replacing motherboard-level components, editing some Atmosphere and switchroot firmware sourcecode, repartitioning and reballing: people have succeeded at upgrading the Switch's internal memory chip, bringing us the only Switch consoles with 256GB of internal memory that are known to exist. Even the onboard DRAM can be upgraded. The DRAM upgrades are especially notable because higher-specced RAM chips can be of both higher capacity and higher clock speeds. The Switch being bottlenecked by its slow DRAM, it really, REALLY benefits from faster memory. The Switch firmware doesn't really take advantage of more than the stock 4 gigs of RAM, for obvious reasons, but Linux and Android can benefit from higher capacity RAM as well. Yes, it's possible to install Linux and Android on a modded Switch too, extending the catalog of software you can run.
It would be if not for the fact that the DRAM ID and capacity is burned into the fuses in retail. So a custom firmware is required for changing DRAM. Only after that can Horizon OS acknowledge the new memory. Still, no retail Switch software will allocate more physical memory than what a retail Switch has, so the extra memory can only really be leveraged by homebrew.
@@3lH4ck3rC0mf0r7 yeah fair point, you at least need to use custom software once in order to burn that fuse, but that's it (oh and also it's obviously not a reversible process)
Careful about posting things related to modchips and Nintendo... they have a tendency to put strikes on channels. Also should be noted to always test diode values before assembly, it's possible to send voltage directly to the APU/NAND.
You inspired Me to use k5 pro on my old phone and it made the temps drop by 10 degrees.I also replaced a thermal pad in my old netbook with k5 pro and it made a very significant difference.Thanks for telling about k5 pro.
23:47 fun fact: the PS portal is a cheap android tablet running a special launcher, so in theory you could also install android on the switch and install the PS portal launcher
Hello cool dock, 1 note, your fans are backwards. The switch intakes from the bottom and ejects up top. The fans are sucking in that configuration thus not letting air in
very interesting mod for the Switch. Taki Udon did a similar video with the stock OLED system with modding the chip and converting to Linux and actually found that after overclocking the system and hacking it, it was able to play Switch games in 4K under Emulation, which in his own words, is just nuts to even begin to think of. I wondered how much better efficiency and performance THIS mod would be when emulating systems, not only just playing Switch games natively. Great video, Zac, such a cool thing to discover the potential of the actual hardware and how advance it can get after opening it up.
I believe they are running it under emu to specifically take advantage of overclock speeds. Otherwise the game would have to be patched/optimized to. Corrrection: you can run games at 60 fps w an OC... but only on OLED models. (well only *safely* on OLED's)
@@JooshMaGoosh its not only oled it can be v2 as well lite doesnt have i high enough power limit and v1 suck but v2 are on par with oleds in overclocking
21:35 Part of the issue is that games like TotK need cheat codes to run. Sometimes, game speed is tied directly to FPS, so they games need more instruction on how to handle speed.
I just want to point out that the dock fans are backwards, the switch fan exaust is in the top of the switch and pulling air from the dock is only making a vacuum instead of ramming air into the system.
i was about to mention the same, if the fans were installed the opposite way the temps would decrease even more instead of preventing the switch from getting fresh air. The current layout just cools the Backplate of the switch and provides preheated air for the intake (but it`s more likely that the two fans create an underpressure and the internal fan is working against it ). Changing the direction also helps with convection cooling. Its possible that by using the right direction the temperature would easily decrease up to 10°C ! and that would allow an even more aggresive undervolting.
18:10 A better solution would be to use the signal from the green LED that lights up whenever switch is in the dock and is active. That way you can just leave it in the dock without the fans spinning.
18:28 - in my opinion, the fans need to be swapped to a push config instead of pull. The switch air intake is on the bottom and the exhaust is on the top. because the dock fans are pulling air away from the intake, you're possibly leaving a lot of performance on the table.
A note to any newcomers who wanted to mod a Nintendo Switch: Doing EmuNAND or EmuMMC will prevent your console from connecting to the Nintendo servers. Meaning that you cannot play those Switch titles online while in EmuNAND. The purpose for EmuNAND is to have a little playground on your Switch where you can mess around. But trying to disable those protection or recklessly installing things on your SysNAND will very likely to get your console permanently banned. So if you want to play mods online (mess around with your friends or have cool skins), do not install any NSPs or convert your carts to digital on SysNAND. You can have mods or whatever there but do it carefully. I have my V1 Switch modded for more than a year running on SysNAND and I'm not banned. Been playing Splatoon 3 or Pokemon online with mods and I'm perfectly alright.
Acording to the manual on GitHub, these are safe values! Mariko variant (HAC-001-01, HDH-001, HEG-001) CPU / GPU Overclock (Safe: 1963 / 998 MHz) Unsafe Due to the limit of board power draw or power IC Unlockable frequencies up to 2295 / 1267 MHz DRAM Overclock (Safe: 1996.8 MHz)
if you have a backup of your EMMC, you can run your switch with unsafe clock just fine... I run my modded switch oled at these freq: CPU: 2397 mhz ( undervolted) GPU: 1267 Mhz also undervolted Ram: 2.5Ghz, im looking to oc it to 3.0Ghz in the feature but for now its enough
One thing to note is that there is infact mods for games that allow for higher FPS to work correctly, some games have static FPS mods which makes the game run slower when it drops FPS and other games like TOTK have DFPS mods (UltraCam) which allows the game to run properly at any FPS at any time without slowing down.
I think Zac is way ahead actually. Build quality and materials and experience seem better. Project scale smaller, but with more depth. Both are great, don't get me wrong.
Just a word on why the fans may be really loud for you is that the dock uses USB-PD 15v. The charger will first supply 5v as 'pilot signal' and then switch to 15v when the dock starts to operate. The 5v fans will then also be supplied with 15v and spin quite loudly as you can imagine 😅
You complained about ToTk running duoble speed when unlocking the framerate while missing the option to fix this with simple patch within the same menu.
2:16 That's not really accurate in this case, if it was for security they would be FULLY soldered to the PCB and require some real desoldering or hotair rework to remove, not a little needle prying. These are used as both heat-spreaders and RF shields for emissions compliance. Also a an issue with the batteries you chose! Those are 3.85v/4.4v chemistry cells, they are being charged by a 3.7/4.2v circuit. So there is a certain capacity overhead lost and you won't be getting the quoted mAh at all! If the cell/charger swap was in the other direction, you'd probably have far unhappier cells though! (or fire if they lacked proper protections)
there is a LOT of incorrect information in this video. 1) Those "metal lids" aren't there to keep you out (and they pop off quite easily without using the needle) They are often put in place to protect the IC's from EM interference, and for thermal reasons. 2) Thermal putty/pads on the actual heat pipe so close the CPU like that will actually DETRIMENTALLY affect it's performance. The goal is to get the heat AWAY from the CPU, and by doing that, you're causing the vapor inside the heatpipe to partially dump it's thermal load too soon (too far from the cooling fins) that the heat actually runs right back up the pipe to the CPU. *slow golf clap* 3) That "cheap plastic" you mention for the old backplate, is more likely than not, a thermoset thermally conductive plastic (Quite commonly used in these types of applications) And work for what they do. (That's why there are some silly people thinking there is "glitter" in the plastic lol) 4) The "new" switch backplate you have is NOT milled from a solid block of aluminum. It's extruded aluminum/magnesium allow, that has has small parts of it either laser cut, or milled as a finishing process. 5) "The larger intakes on the backplate help increase airflow" YIKES my guy.... So what you've effectively done with these larger intakes, is actually LIMIT the efficiency of the heat exchange. Yes, you will be able to pull in a "wider path" of air, but not "more" air. and infact, this design will cause recirculation, pulling hot air from within the chassis out the opening, and back through the fan. You've also effective halved the pressure of, and there fore the speed of the air moving. Good job. I would also like to note, that all of the supposed thermal upgrades you are making have literally no basis in factual data. You are simulteniously spreading the heat throughout the chassis, effectively elevating the internal temperature of the ENTIRE device, while at the same time hampering the effectiveness of the CPU thermal solution. What you've done is legitimately more harm to the device than help. On top
Let's also not forget the online ban fear-mongering, you only get banned from online for cheating or installing games illegitimately (forwarders included, anything that's a custom title to the home menu). He isn't doing any of that (at least he shouldn't be) so he does not need to worry about being banned.
The fact that you spent the time to actually write this is absolutely hilarious to me, like he never said that the stuff he does is 100% right or that he does everything correctly, he just does his best.
youtube will NOT stop recommending this video to me and im so tired of seeing it in my recommendeds that i watched it out of hatred and spite good video!
@@tobyzilla Oh I know and believe that also Just said it cause Nintendo is notorious for throwing around lawsuits and copyright claims for videos like this.
@@tobyzilla I don't think that's technically true. Under DMCA it would be considered a circumvention of copy protection, which is illegal. That's what the whole "right to repair" campaign is focused on.
I have to live vicariously through people like you because in my wildest dreams I couldn't have a fraction of the equipment of knowledge you possess to make this possible.
Those batteries man....The willingness of Chinese companies to knowingly sell broken, sub par or outright fake products never ceases to amaze me. There's some good documentaries on TH-cam about it. Their business practices boggle the mind.
@Drjacques aw mate, it was about 6 months ago! It was on TH-cam though. Lemme see if I added it a playlist. If memory serves it was quite professionally done, not just some guy in his bedroom quoting reddit comments as gospel truth. Was certainly an eye opener... Damn it! Now _I_ wanna see it again!
I saw your video on FB and came here to look it up on TH-cam. Wonderful work. I'm not a fan of portable consoles, but I'd definitely buy one made like yours. 💙
I'm not sure if you've seen them, but the dock looks like it would be perfect for pika screws. They're designed to be shown off on the front of pieces, and with a countersink, it looks like they would sit flush.
There are special chargers for "naked" Li-Ion and Li-Po cells. Costs around 40 bucks and lets you define the total amount of energy the charger should dump into the cells, the cutoff voltage, etc. It'll then increase/decrease charging current according to some curve that matches the cell chemistry, avoids overcharging, can balance a pack consisting of multiple cells, cycle the battery, aswell as do a discharge tests to determine the real capacity. I'd highly recommend getting one of these! Mine is a combo device that can charge everyhing [Li-Ion, Li-Po, LiFePO4, NiCd, NiMH, Lead-Acid, custom profile (i.e. for a capacitor bank)], which is very, very useful.
9:28 you could have hooked up the cells to a lipo charger intended for hobby RC (like cars or drones) Also having a capacity drift like this can be somewhat dangerous, but im assuming the bms is also a cell balancer board
Still don't know how you don't have millions of subscribers! Another great video. Love everything you do on this channel, keep up the fantastic work my friend.
For the future, if you want to solder battery tabs, get a spot welder. These welders heat up a very small point almost instantly, minimizing any heat getting into the battery cell.
A lot of companies do not need to excel, due to a lot of consumers not being fussy, and/or being gullible. Underdelivering also allows you to release a better version with little effort, one that not overly bright consumers will buy as an upgrade. Apple does very well using this method.
1) those shields on the board are for additional RF protection 2) an even better solution for the batteries is to dissect some super-slim battery packs.
Here's a link to the one I used: www.aliexpress.com/item/1005005921862305.html?spm=a2g0o.productlist.main.25.5776Y585Y58522&algo_pvid=07596a2d-bca3-4d2b-8b49-ee6143d99ddc&algo_exp_id=07596a2d-bca3-4d2b-8b49-ee6143d99ddc-12&pdp_npi=4%40dis%21CAD%21102.18%2171.53%21%21%21527.50%21369.25%21%4021032e4e17153694880876710e54a6%2112000034862335448%21sea%21CA%213285784061%21&curPageLogUid=Ls3eoEH3Klyt&utparam-url=scene%3Asearch%7Cquery_from%3A
Next step is forgo the switch from factor, and console this make it only a set top system, keep the wake with controller, Beef up the cooling system, bypass the battery as much as possible it's a clear point of failure,. get rid of the screen, it's going to be always on the TV so no need for the screen. and push it as far as you can. upgrade the system ram. and incorporate as much storage as possible in the way of a microSD array board.
We technically already did know the limits of the switch thanks to the Nvidia shield which didn't limit memory and clock speeds like the switch does in both docked and handheld mode. Honestly the biggest issue is memory bandwidth on the switch as games like Tears of the Kingdom show that CPU and GPU increases don't help decrease frame rate drops. It's cool to see that Nintendo could have improved clocks to increase power while keeping the same battery life as the V1 switch. The Switch V2, OLED, and Lite all support HDMI 2.0 meaning that they technically support 4K@60hz thanks to the new Mariko chip. Plus the new dock for the OLED also supports HDMI 2.0 out too. Although this still puts the switch behind any modern smartphone in terms of specs for the past 5-6 years. One android handheld, the Ayn Odin 2, really show how much further ahead current ARM chips are in both GPU and CPU speeds.
You'd actually be surprised besides the CPU being weaker the GPU is still quite competitive with modern flagship soc especially since it's not really meant for phones being adapted from its desktop variants.
@@Moxzot The GPU really isn't all that competitive as shown with the Nvidia shield. The Switch can barely run the more intensive mobile games that have come out. Tests with games like Genshin Impact and Honkai Star Rail show pretty poor performance even at the lowest setting
@@teddys2895 That's just silicon lottery with overclocking. The Shield can do exactly that just like the Switch since it's the same chip. Of course, Mariko models can clock higher and we know the Shield has it thanks to HDMI 2.0 being supported on all Mariko variations
Dude the fans on the dock will mess up the switch and make it hotter as they are backwards 😂 air enters the bottom and out the top so you are taking the air away it needs to breathe
To be honest if you only up the ram clock speeds you should get better and more stable FPS throughout the whole thing 1800mhz works as well for the Launch switch as well.
Took apart a OLED to put a custom backplate on. Getting the thing open and taken apart was very difficult, very impressive work done here today for sure.
@@Haffelsthat's the point... He said "all I did was take the backplate off an OLED switch and it was difficult, so this DIY switch OLED pro is incredible"
"goosebumps from the squirts" is definitely not a phrase I ever expected to hear - ever. Especially from this channel! Lol - love the vid, is a great share - thanks!
I think you are one of the best people to deal with this kind of topics you could do as the next console a 3ds or 2ds XL I ask you because I think that with your skills you would be able to exhume a console that deserves it a lot
the cages aren't actually to keep people out, it's usually to protect sensitive components from things like static discharge and unwanted signal noise, the pegs of the frame you're cutting are connected to ground on the pcb.
When my original Switch was getting older i took it apart and added new nicer thermal paste and it ran so much better If you're looking for a very easy upgrade I can't recommend it enough
you can run zelda totk 60 fps without 2x speed by downloading and applying a 60 fps patch. it will run just fine like the normal 30fps does, played through all of zelda botw on my modded switch at 60 fps no issues.
nice work! Phone batteries are usually charged to 4.35 to 4.4V. By charging them only to 4.2V you are leaving some capacity on the table. So maybe your batteries are not as bad as you thought.
all right its time to subscribe, you make all these interesting upgrades on the popular products. its very entertaining to me even thou I don't own any of these.
I have a few solutions for your fan woes. You could add in a esp8266 or arduino with WiFi to control the fans. There is probably a way to share your system temps or fan speeds over your WiFi. And the reason why the fans are loud is because their speed is typically controlled by PWM. So constant power means constant speed. You could code in the pwm logic into the esp8266. Alternatively, there is probably somewhere on the dock board where you can tap into the usb data lines, and then have the fans come on only when it recognizes a usb handshake with the switch (it probably doesn’t do a handshake unless the switch is turned on). Final last challenge, can probably communicate with the switch using usb serial and get the temps from a running service on the switch
using the FPS locker program you used on the switch, if you go to advanced settings you can actually download a config file made specifically for totk which allows for a higher framerate, makes game speed not tied to framerate, allows for dynamic resolution, and also triple buffers it so it's smoother than stock. I would highly recommend checking if a game has a config available for download in the advanced settings of a game to make it the best possible experience.
And if you have enough soldering skills, you can replace the 2GB RAM modules for 4GB modules for 8GB.
It probably won't benefit too much games but it can allow you to run Android or Linux with more headroom
For instance, someone apparently installed Linux to their switch and ran the Yuzu emulator on it, with 10FPS average, so they emulated the switch on a switch.
@@ThatOneWeeb420You can upgrade the Switch RAM???
That's amazing.
I did that. However, it says that there is no config file found. You’ve got any Tipps?
@@PSYCHOV3N0M Apparently, not for the faint of heart.
I have 2 dead switch boards I can practice on tho lol
@@PSYCHOV3N0M You could say you can Switch out the RAM.
The metal shields are RF shielding for regulatory compliance and better wireless performance, not for keeping people out (but i guess they work nicely for that too)
if they really wanted to keep people out they would’ve soldered the shields down
@@brandon_nope Like the C64 :D
I thought they were there to prevent the data lines from picking up RF like an antenna, which can happen with cellular and WiFi at certain trace lengths.
@@Psychx_ my understanding is it is the other way, to stop the high frequency switching going in with data lines interfering with nearby RF devices. I'm not an expert and could be wrong LOL
@@kelvin1316 It does makes sense both ways around.
oh my god he didn't blank his serial.. he's so banned 😭
Trust me man, nobody who has a modded switch is gonna be playing online anyways
@@sarcasticmcspastic yeah i don't even ever had online
@@sarcasticmcspastic yea but it's still a limiting factor considering playing online is so fun for some games
@@sarcasticmcspastic I still use my sysnand from time to time to play online mariokart, smash, and pokemon with my friends a lot.
He made 2 emunands for some reason too lol
I found your channel last night with the first switch mod. Showed my 10yr old son and we’ve now seen all of your tech related builds and still watching. He had to go to bed, but loves this stuff and I love how your content is inspiring him. Great work. Lost my mom to brain cancer almost a year ago just after she bought me the OLED TOTK model. I often worry about my joy cons going out since they’re kinda special to me being my last bday gift from her. I’m now hopeful and less worried since repairing them doesn’t seem to be too difficult. Great channel. I even watch the adds in hopes of it helping you grow. Thanks again.
I'm sorry to hear that a bout your mom.... I'm replying to say I've known 3 other people that got brain cancer and passed as well in the last 3 years. I also heard about more people that I don't know. What is going on?! This scares me.
I’m so sorry for your loss 🌸
But I’m happy you were able to have a nice moment sharing a moment with your son!
About the joycons, there are videos for replacing batteries and joysticks with drift free Hall effect ones.
Depending on your son’s age, maybe it could be a little project together to fix up some 2nd hand joycons as practice and add a custom shell 😊
I appreciate the support and the kind words Paul! Sorry for your loss too, I lost my mom not long ago too and I know how tough it can be around mothers day. Keep your head up and stay strong! All the best man
@@Andronicus87 No need to worry. Alkaline diet is the cure. Cancer (over-acidized cells) cannot survive in an alkaline environment.
I fking cried after reading this, y does life always do horrible shit to seemingly the last bit of good people left :( best wishes for you and your family (idk if i used the right “your” I’m not the brightest bulb in the home depot)
ifixit kits are pretty much standard operating procedure if you want to be a DIY on small electronics. When I worked at a repair shop that largely dealt with smartphones, tablets, and PCs, it made life much easier to have familiarity with a set of these tools. I bought my own personal one after I left and love when I have an excuse to use it.
I got one kit gifted to me years ago and its been a life saver in a whole bunch of random applications. It's the best gift I've ever gotten in my life.
i fix it kits are overpriced i bought one from amazon
better tool kits out there that last longer than these though.
i fix it is overpriced
We bought a kit to use at work and I loved it so much, I actually bought my own kit to have at home. It's been one of the best things I've ever purchased, as I use it for everything, from getting into and repairing video game consoles, to using it in place of a paperclip (for resetting electronics etc.), to using it in place of things like allen keys that are too small and awkward to use.
There's probably cheaper toolkits out there, but these are great, and apparently if anything breaks I can just request a new one and they'll send it out. I haven't tried that out yet, but one day I might need to, as the SIM eject / paperclip replace tool gets a lot of use.
Just an important piece of information. If you spray matte paint that heavy it wont be matte. The directions say on the can to lay down light coats, not spray half the can in one wet coat......
gloss looks better anyway for this application. matches the shiny aluminum back and other slightly shiny parts. even the wood appears a bit shiny. so matte would've been the outlier
had already given up on the vid, but had to go back to see this part when you wrote this 😅
And in around 12 hours, Nintendo announced the Switch successor in fear of you
And 12 days into the future I post this comment 😊
@@handlemoniumI shit my panrs
👖
PFFFT
😂😂
2:12 The metal covers are not a security measure. They are to block RF emissions from the CPU and RAM and other high-speed chips.
The RF shields on the Switch are actually a lot easier to remove since they are just clipped on; some other RF shields are soldered directly to the board and can be somewhat difficult to remove without damaging other components.
I like that he doesn’t act all high and might and admits mistakes and areas he lacks knowledge in, he appears more human and like-able
plot twist: he's an AI avatar 😁
he almost appears like a real human!
I agree! While people like @NetworkChuck make pretty good tutorials, their demeanor about what they talk about is pretty low. Almost non humanistic!
He's a modder. I haven't met someone who mods consoles or games who wasn't a gigaChad. The whole community and the fans surrounding it, I love the modding scene so much.
😂
As an industrial designer, I'm an opinionated bastard, so while watching your videos, I'm always thinking, "I would've done this!" or "Why did he do it like that?"
However, your work and, by extension, your videos are excellent! I'm impressed by your upbeat attitude, great humility, and superb design skills!
I'm especially a fan of your postmortem analysis. Few people admit to their shortcomings and what they could have done better, and even fewer designers do that. So, I salute your objective perspective on your work and your ability to share your work's "imperfections" with us. Keep up the good work!
There are more things you can do on top of this, if you're OK with replacing motherboard-level components, editing some Atmosphere and switchroot firmware sourcecode, repartitioning and reballing: people have succeeded at upgrading the Switch's internal memory chip, bringing us the only Switch consoles with 256GB of internal memory that are known to exist. Even the onboard DRAM can be upgraded. The DRAM upgrades are especially notable because higher-specced RAM chips can be of both higher capacity and higher clock speeds. The Switch being bottlenecked by its slow DRAM, it really, REALLY benefits from faster memory. The Switch firmware doesn't really take advantage of more than the stock 4 gigs of RAM, for obvious reasons, but Linux and Android can benefit from higher capacity RAM as well.
Yes, it's possible to install Linux and Android on a modded Switch too, extending the catalog of software you can run.
Fun fact, even the official filmware should be able to detect 8 gigs of ram. Reportedly switch dev kits were supplied with the 8 gig
It would be if not for the fact that the DRAM ID and capacity is burned into the fuses in retail. So a custom firmware is required for changing DRAM.
Only after that can Horizon OS acknowledge the new memory. Still, no retail Switch software will allocate more physical memory than what a retail Switch has, so the extra memory can only really be leveraged by homebrew.
Android and Linux needs 0 tweaks to account for more RAM. AMS does indeed. But HOS can account for it without mods if you burn the fuse.
@@SkanderAliz Which you can't on a retail console, as far as I'm aware.
@@3lH4ck3rC0mf0r7 yeah fair point, you at least need to use custom software once in order to burn that fuse, but that's it (oh and also it's obviously not a reversible process)
The fact that he is so educated on almost everything but is completely unaware of ToTK 60 fps patches was so frustrating
yeah, thats what i was thinking when watching the video, he did everything else pretty great though!
To be fair, it just shows how much info we actually have in the world... he knows stuff you don't, you know stuff he doesn't....
Since when has totk run 60fps? I was playing it the other night and its definitely still locked at 30fps
@@pool_noodle420 i said patches also
@@pool_noodle420read the comment dude…60 fps PATCH
Despite all the challenges, I appreciate your upbeat tone instead of catastrophizing like a lot of YTbers may
2:17 No, those are the RF shields. You'll find them in phones too.
Careful about posting things related to modchips and Nintendo... they have a tendency to put strikes on channels.
Also should be noted to always test diode values before assembly, it's possible to send voltage directly to the APU/NAND.
I think that's why modding wasn't mentioned in the video metadata, but they could still get at the video based on the custom thumbnail.
I did a screenshot in case Nintendo take it down
Yeah, those Nintendo Ninjas are no joke.
F### Nintendo. They did this to themselves
I think its okay if he didnt sell this, f nintendo 😂
You inspired Me to use k5 pro on my old phone and it made the temps drop by 10 degrees.I also replaced a thermal pad in my old netbook with k5 pro and it made a very significant difference.Thanks for telling about k5 pro.
23:47 fun fact: the PS portal is a cheap android tablet running a special launcher, so in theory you could also install android on the switch and install the PS portal launcher
Hello cool dock, 1 note, your fans are backwards. The switch intakes from the bottom and ejects up top. The fans are sucking in that configuration thus not letting air in
very interesting mod for the Switch. Taki Udon did a similar video with the stock OLED system with modding the chip and converting to Linux and actually found that after overclocking the system and hacking it, it was able to play Switch games in 4K under Emulation, which in his own words, is just nuts to even begin to think of. I wondered how much better efficiency and performance THIS mod would be when emulating systems, not only just playing Switch games natively.
Great video, Zac, such a cool thing to discover the potential of the actual hardware and how advance it can get after opening it up.
I believe they are running it under emu to specifically take advantage of overclock speeds. Otherwise the game would have to be patched/optimized to.
Corrrection: you can run games at 60 fps w an OC... but only on OLED models. (well only *safely* on OLED's)
@@JooshMaGoosh its not only oled it can be v2 as well lite doesnt have i high enough power limit and v1 suck but v2 are on par with oleds in overclocking
@@JooshMaGoosh nope all mariko swithes could do 60fps. V2, oled and lite.
21:35
Part of the issue is that games like TotK need cheat codes to run. Sometimes, game speed is tied directly to FPS, so they games need more instruction on how to handle speed.
which is where the humble gaming PC enters the chat.
totk can be played all day at 4k/60, and it's beautiful to boot.
I just want to point out that the dock fans are backwards, the switch fan exaust is in the top of the switch and pulling air from the dock is only making a vacuum instead of ramming air into the system.
i was about to mention the same, if the fans were installed the opposite way the temps would decrease even more instead of preventing the switch from getting fresh air.
The current layout just cools the Backplate of the switch and provides preheated air for the intake (but it`s more likely that the two fans create an underpressure and the internal fan is working against it ). Changing the direction also helps with convection cooling.
Its possible that by using the right direction the temperature would easily decrease up to 10°C ! and that would allow an even more aggresive undervolting.
18:10 A better solution would be to use the signal from the green LED that lights up whenever switch is in the dock and is active. That way you can just leave it in the dock without the fans spinning.
18:28 - in my opinion, the fans need to be swapped to a push config instead of pull. The switch air intake is on the bottom and the exhaust is on the top. because the dock fans are pulling air away from the intake, you're possibly leaving a lot of performance on the table.
A note to any newcomers who wanted to mod a Nintendo Switch:
Doing EmuNAND or EmuMMC will prevent your console from connecting to the Nintendo servers. Meaning that you cannot play those Switch titles online while in EmuNAND. The purpose for EmuNAND is to have a little playground on your Switch where you can mess around. But trying to disable those protection or recklessly installing things on your SysNAND will very likely to get your console permanently banned.
So if you want to play mods online (mess around with your friends or have cool skins), do not install any NSPs or convert your carts to digital on SysNAND. You can have mods or whatever there but do it carefully. I have my V1 Switch modded for more than a year running on SysNAND and I'm not banned. Been playing Splatoon 3 or Pokemon online with mods and I'm perfectly alright.
Acording to the manual on GitHub, these are safe values!
Mariko variant (HAC-001-01, HDH-001, HEG-001)
CPU / GPU Overclock (Safe: 1963 / 998 MHz)
Unsafe
Due to the limit of board power draw or power IC
Unlockable frequencies up to 2295 / 1267 MHz
DRAM Overclock (Safe: 1996.8 MHz)
if you have a backup of your EMMC, you can run your switch with unsafe clock just fine... I run my modded switch oled at these freq:
CPU: 2397 mhz ( undervolted)
GPU: 1267 Mhz also undervolted
Ram: 2.5Ghz, im looking to oc it to 3.0Ghz in the feature but for now its enough
4IFIR is probably the best cfw to use to overclock the switch safely
Be careful Nintendo is spreading ninjas
Provided he’s not monetizing or promoting ROM piracy he should be fine. He owns the games and the design of the dock is his own original.
lol ninjas🥷
He have custom home defense system
💀🫣
One thing to note is that there is infact mods for games that allow for higher FPS to work correctly, some games have static FPS mods which makes the game run slower when it drops FPS and other games like TOTK have DFPS mods (UltraCam) which allows the game to run properly at any FPS at any time without slowing down.
Love these console builds, Zac! You're well on your way to DIY Perks status 😀
Thanks Brad! Appreciate it man, but let's be real I've still got a long way to go before I catch up to Mr Perks 😂
I think Zac is way ahead actually. Build quality and materials and experience seem better.
Project scale smaller, but with more depth.
Both are great, don't get me wrong.
Your builds always turn out fantastically. Would love to see these come out in bulk for wide distribution.
Just a word on why the fans may be really loud for you is that the dock uses USB-PD 15v. The charger will first supply 5v as 'pilot signal' and then switch to 15v when the dock starts to operate. The 5v fans will then also be supplied with 15v and spin quite loudly as you can imagine 😅
You wired two batteries of differing capacities in parallel? That seems totally safe.
I would have been more satisfied with "I Did What NintenDIDN'T"
Because "Genesis Does what NintenDON'T"
🤓
@@arubberroomwithratsdon’t be that way
@@isaiahreinmiller9311 womp womp
@@arubberroomwithrats what’s wild
@@isaiahreinmiller9311 womp womp
You complained about ToTk running duoble speed when unlocking the framerate while missing the option to fix this with simple patch within the same menu.
2:16 That's not really accurate in this case, if it was for security they would be FULLY soldered to the PCB and require some real desoldering or hotair rework to remove, not a little needle prying. These are used as both heat-spreaders and RF shields for emissions compliance.
Also a an issue with the batteries you chose! Those are 3.85v/4.4v chemistry cells, they are being charged by a 3.7/4.2v circuit. So there is a certain capacity overhead lost and you won't be getting the quoted mAh at all! If the cell/charger swap was in the other direction, you'd probably have far unhappier cells though! (or fire if they lacked proper protections)
Thanks for the lovely subtitles dude 🙂 and beautiful work on this project!
there is a LOT of incorrect information in this video.
1) Those "metal lids" aren't there to keep you out (and they pop off quite easily without using the needle) They are often put in place to protect the IC's from EM interference, and for thermal reasons.
2) Thermal putty/pads on the actual heat pipe so close the CPU like that will actually DETRIMENTALLY affect it's performance. The goal is to get the heat AWAY from the CPU, and by doing that, you're causing the vapor inside the heatpipe to partially dump it's thermal load too soon (too far from the cooling fins) that the heat actually runs right back up the pipe to the CPU. *slow golf clap*
3) That "cheap plastic" you mention for the old backplate, is more likely than not, a thermoset thermally conductive plastic (Quite commonly used in these types of applications) And work for what they do. (That's why there are some silly people thinking there is "glitter" in the plastic lol)
4) The "new" switch backplate you have is NOT milled from a solid block of aluminum. It's extruded aluminum/magnesium allow, that has has small parts of it either laser cut, or milled as a finishing process.
5) "The larger intakes on the backplate help increase airflow" YIKES my guy.... So what you've effectively done with these larger intakes, is actually LIMIT the efficiency of the heat exchange. Yes, you will be able to pull in a "wider path" of air, but not "more" air. and infact, this design will cause recirculation, pulling hot air from within the chassis out the opening, and back through the fan. You've also effective halved the pressure of, and there fore the speed of the air moving. Good job.
I would also like to note, that all of the supposed thermal upgrades you are making have literally no basis in factual data. You are simulteniously spreading the heat throughout the chassis, effectively elevating the internal temperature of the ENTIRE device, while at the same time hampering the effectiveness of the CPU thermal solution. What you've done is legitimately more harm to the device than help.
On top
Let's also not forget the online ban fear-mongering, you only get banned from online for cheating or installing games illegitimately (forwarders included, anything that's a custom title to the home menu). He isn't doing any of that (at least he shouldn't be) so he does not need to worry about being banned.
The fact that you spent the time to actually write this is absolutely hilarious to me, like he never said that the stuff he does is 100% right or that he does everything correctly, he just does his best.
Why so passive aggressive?
He's youtuber, obviously there's a lot of misinformation. Kids watches this kind of video so who cares? Nobody it's going to search it anyways
@@hamburger2430 baby pp
youtube will NOT stop recommending this video to me and im so tired of seeing it in my recommendeds that i watched it out of hatred and spite
good video!
you literally have every machine and so smart at using them😮
And this kids is how you get on Nintendo's blacklist
*Which is worth it anyways*
Yup lawyers incoming.
@KernalPanics but the consumer has the right to open up their consoles to that being modding or preventive matiacnece
@@tobyzilla Oh I know and believe that also Just said it cause Nintendo is notorious for throwing around lawsuits and copyright claims for videos like this.
@@tobyzilla I don't think that's technically true. Under DMCA it would be considered a circumvention of copy protection, which is illegal. That's what the whole "right to repair" campaign is focused on.
@@CrazyRiverOtter Security for consumer products being IP is so bullshit
I have to live vicariously through people like you because in my wildest dreams I couldn't have a fraction of the equipment of knowledge you possess to make this possible.
I was so satisfied that you didn't just throw in the air the old shell like 99% of TH-camrs.
Nintendo won't be happy after seeing this
Those batteries man....The willingness of Chinese companies to knowingly sell broken, sub par or outright fake products never ceases to amaze me. There's some good documentaries on TH-cam about it. Their business practices boggle the mind.
can you post here the link or the name and platform where I can see it?
@Drjacques aw mate, it was about 6 months ago! It was on TH-cam though. Lemme see if I added it a playlist. If memory serves it was quite professionally done, not just some guy in his bedroom quoting reddit comments as gospel truth. Was certainly an eye opener...
Damn it! Now _I_ wanna see it again!
I saw your video on FB and came here to look it up on TH-cam. Wonderful work. I'm not a fan of portable consoles, but I'd definitely buy one made like yours. 💙
Good job! Undervolting the Switch OLED, you had a good bin.
I'm not sure if you've seen them, but the dock looks like it would be perfect for pika screws. They're designed to be shown off on the front of pieces, and with a countersink, it looks like they would sit flush.
You deep dived in and showed off a lot of cool stuff. Good job with this one!
There are special chargers for "naked" Li-Ion and Li-Po cells. Costs around 40 bucks and lets you define the total amount of energy the charger should dump into the cells, the cutoff voltage, etc. It'll then increase/decrease charging current according to some curve that matches the cell chemistry, avoids overcharging, can balance a pack consisting of multiple cells, cycle the battery, aswell as do a discharge tests to determine the real capacity. I'd highly recommend getting one of these! Mine is a combo device that can charge everyhing [Li-Ion, Li-Po, LiFePO4, NiCd, NiMH, Lead-Acid, custom profile (i.e. for a capacitor bank)], which is very, very useful.
9:28 you could have hooked up the cells to a lipo charger intended for hobby RC (like cars or drones)
Also having a capacity drift like this can be somewhat dangerous, but im assuming the bms is also a cell balancer board
Still don't know how you don't have millions of subscribers! Another great video. Love everything you do on this channel, keep up the fantastic work my friend.
I’m glad I found your channel, I was wondering why I was having problems with soldering a few tabs the other day.🙃
For the future, if you want to solder battery tabs, get a spot welder. These welders heat up a very small point almost instantly, minimizing any heat getting into the battery cell.
Very, very impressive, you obviously worked very hard on this project!
This channel is far too criminally underrated, this is such a sick mod that I would be absolutely terrified to attempt lol! Love the content man!
A lot of companies do not need to excel, due to a lot of consumers not being fussy, and/or being gullible. Underdelivering also allows you to release a better version with little effort, one that not overly bright consumers will buy as an upgrade. Apple does very well using this method.
1) those shields on the board are for additional RF protection
2) an even better solution for the batteries is to dissect some super-slim battery packs.
Awesome video! :D
Can you give us the link to where you bought the aluminium backplate for the Switch OLED?
I'm pretty sure it was from boxypixel, they make metal shells for all different handhelds
@@Albert-ru7ob I may be mistaken, but at least right now they only seem to sell metal backplates for the normal Switch, not the OLED model.
@@rayxcer1592 Oh yeah you're right, now I've got not idea where he got it
Here's a link to the one I used: www.aliexpress.com/item/1005005921862305.html?spm=a2g0o.productlist.main.25.5776Y585Y58522&algo_pvid=07596a2d-bca3-4d2b-8b49-ee6143d99ddc&algo_exp_id=07596a2d-bca3-4d2b-8b49-ee6143d99ddc-12&pdp_npi=4%40dis%21CAD%21102.18%2171.53%21%21%21527.50%21369.25%21%4021032e4e17153694880876710e54a6%2112000034862335448%21sea%21CA%213285784061%21&curPageLogUid=Ls3eoEH3Klyt&utparam-url=scene%3Asearch%7Cquery_from%3A
@@ZacBuilds Thank you very much. And keep up the great work. 😃
2:15 the purpouse of those covers isnt nessecarly to keep you out, but rather to help A) spread heat and B) mitigate RF interference.
Ofcourse you beat Nintendo to it.. That's your thing!
as someone who has played around with things like this not to this extent it is really impressive how much effort you put in
2:07 Gamer neck
Holy shit, I was expecting the Switch to be the most impressive part, but that dock is just gorgeous.
Looks amazing, have you tried the fans the other direction so the blow air at the switch aiding the built in fan
I thought I was the only one who noticed that
Pointing fans at fans is only beneficial if they don't create turbulence. What you're describing will likely make cooling worse.
I am not even 1% capable of doing this kind of thing, but I am glad there are people I can live vicariously through. Cool video, thanks!
Next step is forgo the switch from factor, and console this make it only a set top system, keep the wake with controller, Beef up the cooling system, bypass the battery as much as possible it's a clear point of failure,. get rid of the screen, it's going to be always on the TV so no need for the screen. and push it as far as you can. upgrade the system ram. and incorporate as much storage as possible in the way of a microSD array board.
You did great with this project Zac! Love to see your work.
We technically already did know the limits of the switch thanks to the Nvidia shield which didn't limit memory and clock speeds like the switch does in both docked and handheld mode. Honestly the biggest issue is memory bandwidth on the switch as games like Tears of the Kingdom show that CPU and GPU increases don't help decrease frame rate drops. It's cool to see that Nintendo could have improved clocks to increase power while keeping the same battery life as the V1 switch. The Switch V2, OLED, and Lite all support HDMI 2.0 meaning that they technically support 4K@60hz thanks to the new Mariko chip. Plus the new dock for the OLED also supports HDMI 2.0 out too.
Although this still puts the switch behind any modern smartphone in terms of specs for the past 5-6 years. One android handheld, the Ayn Odin 2, really show how much further ahead current ARM chips are in both GPU and CPU speeds.
You'd actually be surprised besides the CPU being weaker the GPU is still quite competitive with modern flagship soc especially since it's not really meant for phones being adapted from its desktop variants.
@@Moxzot The GPU really isn't all that competitive as shown with the Nvidia shield. The Switch can barely run the more intensive mobile games that have come out. Tests with games like Genshin Impact and Honkai Star Rail show pretty poor performance even at the lowest setting
@@Moxzot it's adapted from a 7 year old architecture, don't kid yourself.
the switch is better than the shiled 2601/1306/2900 is a really good switchs clocks
@@teddys2895 That's just silicon lottery with overclocking. The Shield can do exactly that just like the Switch since it's the same chip. Of course, Mariko models can clock higher and we know the Shield has it thanks to HDMI 2.0 being supported on all Mariko variations
Dude the fans on the dock will mess up the switch and make it hotter as they are backwards 😂 air enters the bottom and out the top so you are taking the air away it needs to breathe
Should call it the Proled
This video has given me the courage to upgrade my Nes and Snes, thanks for giving me good insight when it comes to upgrading.
I was here before the nintendo ninjas take the video down
To be honest if you only up the ram clock speeds you should get better and more stable FPS throughout the whole thing 1800mhz works as well for the Launch switch as well.
Bro I'd pay for that thing, it's a work of art.
I would too, $600a easy and more for a SD card full of emulators.
How to make a switch pro ❌
How to make a portable heater, grill and bomb all in one ✅
Took apart a OLED to put a custom backplate on. Getting the thing open and taken apart was very difficult, very impressive work done here today for sure.
toilet
@@Haffelsthat's the point... He said "all I did was take the backplate off an OLED switch and it was difficult, so this DIY switch OLED pro is incredible"
@@krisc1684 he edited the message
"goosebumps from the squirts" is definitely not a phrase I ever expected to hear - ever. Especially from this channel! Lol - love the vid, is a great share - thanks!
Nintendo would like to have a word with you
I think you are one of the best people to deal with this kind of topics you could do as the next console a 3ds or 2ds XL I ask you because I think that with your skills you would be able to exhume a console that deserves it a lot
You put the Fans from the wrong side
the cages aren't actually to keep people out, it's usually to protect sensitive components from things like static discharge and unwanted signal noise, the pegs of the frame you're cutting are connected to ground on the pcb.
you have to cycle (fully discharge anf fully charge) batterys with long shelflive in order to see true potential
Man that was impressvie, such a good modded build and video. I'm pleasantly surprised and satisfied by your work. Subscribed
Glad I saw this before the NINjas arrived.
When my original Switch was getting older i took it apart and added new nicer thermal paste and it ran so much better
If you're looking for a very easy upgrade I can't recommend it enough
22:43 "It'll do six hours all day long" ... you know a day is 24 hours long, right? :oD
Not everyone plays games all day long
5months passed and video is still up, considering it’s nintendo all over the video it’s nice that they didn’t take video down🥳
you can run zelda totk 60 fps without 2x speed by downloading and applying a 60 fps patch. it will run just fine like the normal 30fps does, played through all of zelda botw on my modded switch at 60 fps no issues.
nice work! Phone batteries are usually charged to 4.35 to 4.4V. By charging them only to 4.2V you are leaving some capacity on the table. So maybe your batteries are not as bad as you thought.
Its insane Nintendo dont let us have 60 fps when the hardware could do it.
Thats the only reason i dont own a switch.
Your setup is very impressive. Thank you for sharing the content. Im slowly getting some of the tools together to do some mods/repairs.
2:17 Please research before making silly claims. This is an RF shield. It helps them pass FCC regulatory tests.
all right its time to subscribe, you make all these interesting upgrades on the popular products. its very entertaining to me even thou I don't own any of these.
0:01 what's a nineno?
Jump
X
It's not nineno it's nitedento
Just brilliant. Well done bro❤
I stumbled upon this video randomly. Absolutely insane! Incredibly jealous of your ingenuity and build skills. You have a new subscriber!
1:22 In many games, the new Switches DO improve load times by temporarily boosting the clocks...
A fantastic mod! Probably the best Switch out there!
In your settings, you can turn off the user selection before loading up a game
I have a few solutions for your fan woes. You could add in a esp8266 or arduino with WiFi to control the fans. There is probably a way to share your system temps or fan speeds over your WiFi.
And the reason why the fans are loud is because their speed is typically controlled by PWM. So constant power means constant speed. You could code in the pwm logic into the esp8266.
Alternatively, there is probably somewhere on the dock board where you can tap into the usb data lines, and then have the fans come on only when it recognizes a usb handshake with the switch (it probably doesn’t do a handshake unless the switch is turned on).
Final last challenge, can probably communicate with the switch using usb serial and get the temps from a running service on the switch
You are creative and skilled in explaining everything with precision. Thank you very much. I wish you progress and prosperity❤❤❤❤❤❤❤❤❤❤