In recent months some Switch owners (notably with relatively new OLED models) have been highlighting issues with their system’s battery. An example of the problem would be the battery draining rapidly overnight when the console’s in sleep mode, or potentially having less stamina than normal during gameplay.
Nintendo’s official customer service department has now shared a set of steps (in Japanese), which are rather basic but worth following if your battery is draining unexpectedly. Below are the translated steps.
- Go to ‘System Settings’, ‘Sleep Mode’ and set ‘Auto-Sleep (Playing on Console Screen)’ to ‘Never’.
- Have the Switch undocked in portable mode, with no AC power connected.
- Start a game and leave it untouched, for example on a Title Screen.
- Leave the Switch alone with the screen on.
- Wait until the battery runs out (the screen will go black as the system shuts down).
- When the battery has run out, plug your Switch in to charge and leave it for at least 4 hours.
If using the latest model, and to avoid potential OLED burn-in, we’d add advice to follow these steps when your battery level is already relatively low, so it’s not on a title screen for too long before the battery dies.
Fully discharging a battery before doing a recharge is pretty standard advice for draining issues, but it’s certainly worth a try if you’ve been affected by the problem.
[source support.nintendo.co.jp, via news.denfaminicogamer.jp]