Nintendo Switch Freezes, Locks Up, or Will Not Power Off

You were playing silently and peacefully and then suddenly your heart stops. Your screen froze, right? Well, you are not alone. Many gamers around the world are facing the same issue and no one knows how to solve it.

What happens is that the screen will usually become dead. The screen either has some dead zones, or goes completely black, and the touch screen doesn't react to your taps. This is usually a software related issue.

It appears as though you're stuck here until the point when the Switch makes sense of how to unstick itself, however there are really three distinctive approaches to manage a "bricked" Switch.

Dock & Undock Your Switch
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The first solution to this annoying and scary problem is to do the docking and undocking of your Nintendo switch. Yes, you have read it right. I am talking about putting the Nintendo switch in to the dock and then after a few seconds, take it back. This may seem a normal thing and you may wonder how this resolve a problem can like frozen screen. But it does work. What actually happens is that when you shoot your game from the handheld screen to the television and then slide it back to the dock, it interrupts everything going on in the console. And this may make the screen work again.

Power Switch Reboot
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The second method is very easy and straightforward. Here you will need the help of the power button. Now at first, pressing the power button may not resolve the issue as it will take more than that. If it was that simple, you would not be browsing the internet for the solution, right? So what you need to do here is to simply press and hold that power catch for 15 seconds. At the 15 second mark, the screen will go dull for a minute and after that, you will see the Nintendo logo. You'll see the Switch logo next, similar to a typical boot process.

Leave it to Nintendo
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Now if the above explained methods do not work for you, then I strongly recommend that you contact Nintendo to send your Switch for repair. Your switch may not simply be frozen, but rather, it may have a dead blue/black screen. If this is the case, don’t panic. Let Nintendo figure out the issue for you. Hopefully, you will get your Nintendo Switch back as good as new in no time.