Switch hardware woes

[Sarcasmorator]

Anyone had a Switch burn out on them? Ours made the classic "bad electronics" smell today. It appears to be working OK, but I assume it's on the fritz in some manner. Wondering how much Nintendo charges to fix, and if anyone's had theirs work afterward. First such issue I'm aware of, the kids were playing The Long Dark for a while, and last night I got the blinking green light on the dock and the system wouldn't turn on until I did a power-button hard reset, but again, it seemed to work fine afterward.

 

[Becksworth]

If it's giving off a smell but still working, maybe parts are overheating? Can you hear the fan running still? Might just be accumulated dirt/grime/animal fur impeding it.

 

[Sarcasmorator]

It turns out our son spat into the fan yesterday, enough to dribble out through the bottom (which explains the charging issue). Hopefully it'll dry out and resolve itself.

 

[muteKi]

Any excuse to repost this

 

[Kirin]

So I've had a switch for a while but started using it a lot more recently. And I've started noticing, from time to time, the response from the controllers just gets sluggish/unreliable for a while. Like I'm playing BotW and it'll just miss some quick button presses, or lag them a bit, or even delay button *releases*, making the camera and movement do wonky things. The problem usually goes away again by itself after a little while. The controllers and base should have plenty of charge, and aren't more than like 15 feet apart. I'm trying to remember whether I've seen it happen in handheld mode too but I'm not sure. Obviously it's working *most* of the time or things would be unplayable, but it's happened often enough now to be concerning. Is there some kind of known issue I should look out for?

 

[Phantoon]

If it's joycons it may be bad connection. The range on them isn't spectacular.

 

[Becksworth]

Is it a launch Switch, because the joycons that came with those had especially weak signals if I recall.

 

[Sarcasmorator]

The charging port still smells funky after a couple days, so something got burned good in there. I guess I need to just back up the data and then see how long it lasts, or send it in. It works, but afaik electronics don't just "get better" from something that generates that particular odor, seems like it must be on borrowed time.

 

[Kirin]

If it's joycons it may be bad connection. The range on them isn't spectacular.

Is it a launch Switch, because the joycons that came with those had especially weak signals if I recall.

Yes, these are original joycons I'm talking about. The Switch wasn't launch though, I think I got it about when Pokemon Let's Go was out, which would be a bit over a year and a half in - not sure whether that's long enough for any joycon revision to have kicked in. It does feel like a shaky connection issue, but it's a bit odd because when I'm using console mode the Switch and joycons are pretty much always in the same place and it only happens occasionally.

 

[Phantoon]

I found it happens when my hands hold them a certain way and I'm far enough from the console. Apparently I'm a natural Faraday cage

 

[Kirin]

It also occurs to me that when I'm using them on the couch at home, they're often docked in a charging grip - and I'm not sure right now if it's the official one or 3rd-party, it came with my partner and I'd have to check when I'm home. Not sure if that has any known issues associated with it.