I was doing a shell swap on my Switch OLED last Saturday in my garage. Everything was going smooth until I put it back together and it wouldn't power on. No lights, no nothing. My heart DROPPED. Turns out I forgot to disconnect the battery ribbon cable before unplugging the fan header. It shorted something on the board. I let it sit for 2 hours unplugged, checked all my ribbon cables, and somehow it booted back up. Anyone else ever get that sick feeling when a console goes dark on you?
I used to think the same. Built a PC 6 years ago with zero lights. Then I redid my setup last spring in Phoenix and added some software controlled LED strips inside. Turns out having that little bit of light helps me see when I'm swapping out a drive or checking a cable late at night without turning on the overhead light. Simple thing but actually useful. Has anyone else found a practical use for something they thought was just flashy?
I was using this cheap Arctic Silver stuff on everything cause thats what I had laying around. My PS5 was hitting 80c on the regular and I just thought that was normal. Then my buddy came over with his modded PS5 and his temps were like 20 degrees lower. He asked what paste I used and laughed at me. Apparently the stock Sony paste is way thicker and you need something with higher viscosity for the direct die contact. I switched to Honeywell PTM7950 last week and my temps dropped to 62c under load. Has anyone else made this mistake or am I the only dummy who didnt know? What paste do you guys use for PS5?
Some dude in a Facebook group kept insisting that replacing the liquid metal on the PS5 APU with standard thermal paste was a better idea because it wouldn't dry out. I figured what the hell, I had some Arctic MX-4 laying around, tried it last month. Played Spider-Man 2 for about 20 minutes and the console shut off from overheating. The paste couldn't keep up with the heat output at all, temps shot up to like 85C before it crashed. Had to carefully clean all that gunk off the heatsink and reapply the liquid metal. Cost me $12 for a new syringe of Conductonaut and an extra hour of work. Anyone else tried something that sounded smart but totally backfired on a mod?
Some dude on here said I'd brick my Switch if I didn't use flux on those tiny solder points for the picofly install. I figured I'd been soldering for years without it, so I skipped it. After two hours of bridged joints and lifted pads on the capacitor near the CPU, I finally gave in. Grabbed some cheap flux paste from Amazon, redid the whole thing in 20 minutes flat. Anyone else stubbornly skip steps and regret it?
The coolant dripped for three hours before I noticed. Has anyone tried one of those smaller AIO kits for handhelds or should I just stick with a heat sink upgrade next time?
So I was modding my old PS4 to add a bigger SSD and a fan control board. Everything was going smooth until I powered it on and got nothing but a black screen. Turns out I had a cold solder joint on the fan controller wire. It took me about 2 hours of checking connections with my multimeter to find it. The fix was just reheating that one spot and adding a tiny bit more flux. Felt pretty dumb but also relieved it wasn't a dead board. Has anyone else spent way too long chasing a simple solder mistake?
I always did a pea sized dot in the middle. Figured that was standard. Then watched a guy do an even spread on a PS3 Cell processor. Put a thin layer across the whole chip. My temps dropped 12 degrees on the first boot after. Makes me wonder how many consoles I cooked early. Anyone else have a method they later found out was backwards?
I swapped the shell on my Switch Lite last Tuesday and some random user named u/CoolModder99 said to spread the thermal paste instead of the pea method. I was skeptical because I've always done the pea method on PC builds. Figured I'd give it a try since I had the heat sink off anyway. Booted up Zelda and my temps dropped by about 4 degrees Celsius under load. Now I'm wondering if I've been doing it wrong on every console mod I've ever done. Anybody else get better results spreading paste on these small chips?
Ngl I was digging through some old boxes last night and found my first mod chip for the original Xbox. That thing was huge compared to what we have now. Back in 2002 I spent like 3 hours trying to solder 24 wires onto those tiny points on the motherboard. One slip and the whole trace lifts off. Now you can softmod a Switch with just a paperclip and a microsd card. It's wild how far we've come in 20 years. Anyone still hold onto those old chunky modchips for nostalgia?
Turns out I was only covering about 40% of the die with that single pea-sized dot, so my temps were running 10 degrees hotter than they should have been after every repaste. Has anyone else discovered their thermal paste application was trash after seeing someone else's photo?
I was proud of the internal LED strip install but he pointed out the exposed solder joints were touching the metal shield. Has anyone else had a friend call them out on something that ended up saving them from a short or worse?
I was stuck deciding between an Atomic Purple style clear shell and a wood grain look for my Switch mod. Went with the wood grain because it seemed more unique and I'm glad I did, it looks great with the dark joycons I already had. But man, the install took me almost 4 hours because those ribbon cables are super fragile and I snapped one latch off. Anyone else struggle more than expected with their first shell swap?
I tried changing the thermal paste and cleaning the fan three times but nothing worked until I flipped the power supply unit upside down like a random YouTube comment said and now it runs silent with no crashes, has anyone else had to rearrange their internals to fix overheating?
I just finished a repair on a friend's Series X where the previous modder used cheap thermal pads that crumbled into dust after 3 months, causing the whole system to overheat and shut down mid-game. Anyone else seen those clear squishy pads from Amazon fail like this?
I figured I'd save $8 by buying a no-name thermal paste off Amazon for my PS5 fan mod. After three weeks my system was hitting 70 degrees under load and I had to redo the whole thing with Arctic MX-4 for $12. Anyone else burned by bargain thermal compounds?
My temps shot up to 85C under load after I followed his advice, and I had to tear the whole thing apart again to clean off the caked-on residue from the factory paste - has anyone else run into bad modding advice that just ruined your build? lmao
I bought one of those expensive digital solder stations thinking it would make swapping thumbsticks on my DualSense easy, but the tips it came with were way too big for those tiny SMD components. Ended up burning two controller boards before I realized I needed a cheap $30 station with finer tips from a local electronics shop. Anybody found a good brand that actually works for console controller work without breaking the bank?
Was in a shop in Portland last fall picking up a used joycon shell. The dude behind the counter saw me buying a $5 tube of thermal paste and just stopped me cold. He said he fixed three Switches that week where that exact stuff dried out after 6 months and caused overheating. He showed me photos of the crusty residue on a heat sink, looked like old glue. I swapped to Arctic MX-4 for like $8 more and never looked back. Any of you run into paste that just fails fast on a hot mod like a GPU swap?
I put a cheaper heat sink on my PS5 SSD swap last month and after a 2 hour gaming session my temps hit 80 C. A buddy on here told me to swap to the Sabrent one with the aluminum fins and now I barely hit 60 C. Anyone else find that heat sinks make or break a console mod like this?
I used to spend 3 hours carefully watching YouTube tutorials for each shell swap, but last month I just winged it on an old Switch Lite and it took 45 minutes tops. Anyone else find that these mods are way easier than the guides make them seem?
I was trying to do a clear shell swap on my Switch Lite last weekend and after reassembly the right trigger just stopped working. Turned out the ZR ribbon cable wasn't seated all the way in the latch and I must have spent like 2 hours just reseating it over and over before it finally clicked. Has anyone else had a tiny connector like that eat up a whole afternoon?
I always did the pea-sized dot in the middle on my PS5 APU but watched a teardown where a guy spread it evenly with a spatula. Which method holds up better under heavy load?
I started doing shell swaps and fan upgrades for friends back in 2020, just a hobby thing out of my garage in Portland. Last week I shipped out my 200th unit, a custom purple Switch Lite with a Hall effect joystick mod. Did anyone else get surprised by how fast their side gig took off?