So back in 2016, I realized that the face buttons - particularly the A button - were becoming less and less responsive. So I decided to take my 3ds apart.
This was purchased as a GameStop refurbish, but it's pretty clear that someone somewhere skipped out on a major step. One of the running issues with my 3ds was that it wouldn't always charge even when plugged in - you'd have to jiggle the port to get it seated properly. That should have been warning sign #1 that things on the inside weren't right.
So I start taking it apart following this guide from ifixit, and I get things moving... everything's moving more-or-less correctly... and then the motherboard refuses to come out at step 13 despite me removing all the screws. Very much a WTF moment. So I try to find where it's catching and... the power port is stuck? What? The power port shouldn't be stuck to the casing...
Turns out, the refurbisher glued the power port onto the casing in addition to (or possibly in place of) properly soldering it to the motherboard. Which now I can't fix that without resoldering it.
BUT WAIT, THERE'S MORE!
As I was working, I knocked the SD card slot out of its proper location, so I'm fairly certain I'll have to fully remove, reseat, and resolder THAT before I can do anything else with it, and I was running a9lh which means I need either to recreate my a9lh SD card afterwards or else unhax my system (which this would have been an issue up until the recent-ish release of NTRBootHax). I'm also fairly certain I should do this for the game card slot as well since I bent it out of shape trying to pry the motherboard out once I got the screws out.
In short - know your refurbisher. If they use glue as a securing agent, they should probably warn you.
This was purchased as a GameStop refurbish, but it's pretty clear that someone somewhere skipped out on a major step. One of the running issues with my 3ds was that it wouldn't always charge even when plugged in - you'd have to jiggle the port to get it seated properly. That should have been warning sign #1 that things on the inside weren't right.
So I start taking it apart following this guide from ifixit, and I get things moving... everything's moving more-or-less correctly... and then the motherboard refuses to come out at step 13 despite me removing all the screws. Very much a WTF moment. So I try to find where it's catching and... the power port is stuck? What? The power port shouldn't be stuck to the casing...
Turns out, the refurbisher glued the power port onto the casing in addition to (or possibly in place of) properly soldering it to the motherboard. Which now I can't fix that without resoldering it.
BUT WAIT, THERE'S MORE!
As I was working, I knocked the SD card slot out of its proper location, so I'm fairly certain I'll have to fully remove, reseat, and resolder THAT before I can do anything else with it, and I was running a9lh which means I need either to recreate my a9lh SD card afterwards or else unhax my system (which this would have been an issue up until the recent-ish release of NTRBootHax). I'm also fairly certain I should do this for the game card slot as well since I bent it out of shape trying to pry the motherboard out once I got the screws out.
In short - know your refurbisher. If they use glue as a securing agent, they should probably warn you.
