Hacking Hardware Picofly - a HWFLY switch modchip

[detilmalala]

hi guys, i made a mistake scraping the clk point on an oled, and it continuously touches the ground around it, is there any way to fix it or is the board missing?

 

[LogicalMadness]

It's funny that you mention that since the reason I killed the previous two V2 switches was because of my RST point since that was the only variable between V1 patched and V2 MARIKO since MARIKO has a transistor next to the point and I believe the heat killed it somehow.

I changed my installation layout to mostly use the eMMc points and I've seen incredible reliability using those, but this latest one just farted for no apparent reason.

I wished I had trouble installing it so that way I could just blame myself for a crappy installation but I made sure it was donde properly. Double/triple checked everything under the microscope during/after I was working but the BSOD was like a slap to the face :s

I just want to know how to avoid it as I'm having to replace every single board I kill and I'm running out of replacements :s

psst... https://gbatemp.net/threads/picofly-a-hwfly-switch-modchip.622701/post-10161904

 

[QuiTim]

hi guys, i made a mistake scraping the clk point on an oled, and it continuously touches the ground around it, is there any way to fix it or is the board missing?

Do you have a picture?

 

[rr8400]

Does your switch lite has picofly install?

Yes. I don't remember the firmware that I had at the picofly chip but I THINK it was 2.64... something like that

 

[tsukimaru]

Sigh, read the thread and you'll understand why some of us seem jaded \snarky\sarcastic. You're asking for free help and also start it with an oxymoron. It is LITERALLY impossible to make a "flawless install" and have something go wrong after. Yet people keep saying something to that effect, repeatedly.

Doublecheck that your emmc connector and socket aren't damaged. Taking the emmc off can break the solder connections on its, uh, connector XD, and since you had it off, maybe there's something in the motherboards socket.

Let's see pics of the whole APU.

A lot of your wires look to have too long of a tinned end, use flush cutters to cut to a better length AFTER tinning the ends. Helps to be sure you're not shorting to something else.

I don't solder to the emmc, so I'm not sure but your 5th pic looks like the most-right-wire looks maybe shorted.

In a later pic you show a MOSFET and it looked like maybe Gate is shorted to Drain.

woops, I completely missed the reply. In regards of the sarcasm stuff I'm not used to the notifications of GBATemp and I missinterpreted that comment as a reply to my direct comment, my bad I'm still learning my "foruming".

As for the lenght, I agree. I can try to make them a little more flush on the board. I'll definitely take that advice

As for shorts, I usually run continuity mode to the next-most points to confirm if they're shorting or not, but I couldn't pinpoint anything at the moment I performed the check... maybe it happend after I closed it if at all?

In regards to the mosfet I think that's due to the angle I took the photo. They're actually not touching, let me post another picture rq.

 

[bilalhassan341]

Yes. I don't remember the firmware that I had at the picofly chip but I THINK it was 2.64... something like that

Did you use the memory card slot shield leg to ground the pico fly in your install?. If not try to format the memory card with adapter by pluging in computer and format it to fat32. If still doesn't work buy a new one and check it. Also follow a QuiTim advise below.

 

[QuiTim]

woops, I completely missed the reply. In regards of the sarcasm stuff I'm not used to the notifications of GBATemp and I missinterpreted that comment as a reply to my direct comment, my bad I'm still learning my "foruming".

As for the lenght, I agree. I can try to make them a little more flush on the board. I'll definitely take that advice

As for shorts, I usually run continuity mode to the next-most points to confirm if they're shorting or not, but I couldn't pinpoint anything at the moment I performed the check... maybe it happend after I closed it if at all?

In regards to the mosfet I think that's due to the angle I took the photo. They're actually not touching, let me post another picture rq.View attachment 372279

You should aim to solder those wires in a straight line so they have better contact and minimize the risk of them getting loose or shorting something.
Also the gate wire is very exposed and may have at some point touched the drain line.
Now considering that Pico injects voltage through this line to open the mosfet if there was a short some of that current may have found it's way to APU or maybe on the opposite, some of the voltage from drain might have gone to gate and kept it open and god knows what happens then.
Anyway, it's just a theory since you are trying to figure out what happened anyway.

 

[detilmalala]

Do you have a picture?

I think I solved it, but when testing, the chip gives a long light, a short one, and a long one. I can't find that error code

 

[bilalhassan341]

It's funny that you mention that since the reason I killed the previous two V2 switches was because of my RST point since that was the only variable between V1 patched and V2 MARIKO since MARIKO has a transistor next to the point and I believe the heat killed it somehow.

I changed my installation layout to mostly use the eMMc points and I've seen incredible reliability using those, but this latest one just farted for no apparent reason.

I wished I had trouble installing it so that way I could just blame myself for a crappy installation but I made sure it was donde properly. Double/triple checked everything under the microscope during/after I was working but the BSOD was like a slap to the face :s

I just want to know how to avoid it as I'm having to replace every single board I kill and I'm running out of replacements :s

I also used the RST point near the transistor. But my switch is working fine. or Should I switch it to the emmc rst one?

 

[QuiTim]

Hi. I bought an Lexar SD card and my Switch Lite does not recognize it. My V1 and OLED both recognize but the lite doesn't. Is this something to do with the modchip? (And yes, it does reads my SanDisk SD so I have no clue of what the problem could be).

If it recognizes one card then the problem should not be with the card reader.
It might be the case that you are missing the exfat drivers but i dont think that it should matter in this stage.
Also, the number of fake Lexar cards is the highest in the market, so you might just have a bad card

 

[bilalhassan341]

I think I solved it, but when testing, the chip gives a long light, a short one, and a long one. I can't find that error code

Error: =*= CPU never reach BCT check, should not happen

 

[QuiTim]

I think I solved it, but when testing, the chip gives a long light, a short one, and a long one. I can't find that error code

Long-short-long
=*= CPU never reach BCT check, should not happen

 

[dicamarques]

If you brave enough just remove that bellow cap.. and then clean the trace, it should be easier.
After that if you cannot solder it back then just leave it and see what happens, the switch itself will still turned on without that cap.
And for 3.3v point you can switch/use the one on the back of emmc module.

which cap? the one on the 3.3v rail or the other one?

 

[raksmey1231]

=*=* eMMC write failure - write failed,
is this Samsung emmc on switch Oled support picofly ?

 

[QuiTim]

=*=* eMMC write failure - write failed,
is this Samsung emmc on switch Oled support picofly ?

Seems to me like two separate =*, so it's probably a bad dat0 connection.
Cut the dat0 cable and measure the diode value (red on dat0 wire, black on ground/shield)

 

[LogicalMadness]

You should aim to solder those wires in a straight line so they have better contact and minimize the risk of them getting loose or shorting something.
Also the gate wire is very exposed and may have at some point touched the drain line.
Now considering that Pico injects voltage through this line to open the mosfet if there was a short some of that current may have found it's way to APU or maybe on the opposite, some of the voltage from drain might have gone to gate and kept it open and god knows what happens then.
Anyway, it's just a theory since you are trying to figure out what happened anyway.

Beat me to it

 

[QuiTim]

Beat me to it

Great minds think alike

 

[detilmalala]

Long-short-long
=*= CPU never reach BCT check, should not happen

It happens that I cut the clk track, and I turned it on and it gave the error =*=, now I rebuilt the track and the chip does not give an error, but when it stops glitching, the console does not give an image, maybe it died

 

[QuiTim]

It happens that I cut the clk track, and I turned it on and it gave the error =*=, now I rebuilt the track and the chip does not give an error, but when it stops glitching, the console does not give an image, maybe it died

This is just an idea since i'm not 100% sure but I think that with clk line gone, there was no syncronisation between APU and Emmc so it might have lead to emmc corruption when trying to write to it.
Even if this is the case, I have no idea on how to proceed but maybe @rehius could give us some input on the inner workings when he is available.
*Edit
In the meantime, i'm dying to see a photo of the work on that damaged point/trace

 

[tsukimaru]

I also used the RST point near the transistor. But my switch is working fine. or Should I switch it to the emmc rst one?

Nah, you should be fine if you found no problems. I just changed my layour preference since it was consistently causing me trouble

Post automatically merged: May 18, 2023

You should aim to solder those wires in a straight line so they have better contact and minimize the risk of them getting loose or shorting something.
Also the gate wire is very exposed and may have at some point touched the drain line.
Now considering that Pico injects voltage through this line to open the mosfet if there was a short some of that current may have found it's way to APU or maybe on the opposite, some of the voltage from drain might have gone to gate and kept it open and god knows what happens then.
Anyway, it's just a theory since you are trying to figure out what happened anyway.

Indeed, I see no other variable that might make sense but I'll definitely make sure to improve my tin lenght or at least insulate before firing the switch up, but all signs point to a short in the mosfet to be the most likely culprit.

I installed a PicoFly on a Lite today and it worked first try so yeah, it could've been it.