Hardware [Help needed] o3DS broken?

[Verack]

To make a long story short, I had a rather bizarre incident occur yesterday. I purchased my o3DS some time ago, and over the past few months, the L button (and occasionally the R button) have not responded. I took the suggestion from a few people to blow into them to fix them, and sure enough, it would solve the problem for a while. However, it would happen time and time again, thus requiring me to blow into them to fix them.

Yesterday, both screens on my 3DS went black while playing a game. Now it didn't crash, because the sound, buttons, and touch screen touching all functioned perfectly. I did the obvious thing and rebooted the system, and the screens stayed black, but still with sound, 3D slider lighting up, buttons/touching working, and backlight (basically everything BUT the screens). I ran through the routine checkup such as removing and reinserting the battery, and for whatever mysterious reason, that (sort of) fixed it.

The screens came back on, but then they instantly went off again the moment I blew on the L button. Even stranger, blowing into the cartridge slot fixed the screens, and they haven't had an issue so far since this. So basically, what the heck is going on here? Is there any way I can fix this strange problem and fix my L/R buttons?

TL;DR: L/R buttons being fickle, blowing on them fixes them. Somehow blowing on buttons made screen go back (but everything else including the backlight worked fine). Removing/reinserting the battery and blowing into the cartridge slot fixed this, somehow. No problems after doing this, but I want to ensure it never happens again and I want to fix the L/R buttons permanently.

 

[Deleted-236924]

I recommend against blowing into the buttons because it does more damage than it fixes.
In the grand scheme of things blowing into them does very little to fix them, but you are actually blowing moisturized air into the system which may cause oxidation, or if there's junk inside that's being moved around by you blowing into it, that could make other things stop working.

https://www.ifixit.com/Teardown/Nintendo+3DS+Teardown/5029

Use this guide to open up the system.

From there, you have two options.

First, you might be able to do as this guide says to open up the buttons themselves and clean them up. I haven't actually opened up my own 3DS and haven't been able to really examine the L/R buttons on the 3DS, but they seem to be really similar to the ones on the DS Lite, so you may be able to open them up the same way as you would for a DS Lite following that guide, then put everything back together.

Otherwise, you could buy replacements completely.

 

[Verack]

Thanks for the tips and directions. I may just shoot for replacing the shoulder buttons due to the relatively low cost. I'll probably open it up and give it a good air blasting with some canned air and see how that goes first though.

Still though, I am genuinely curious as to what the heck happened to the screens. Is it possible that a ribbon cable has come lose (but not completely unattached) somehow? I've never dropped the system even once, and it stays inside of a pouch/case at all times when not in use. Either way, I've been using it today and so far no signs of the screens having any issue.

 

[wormdood]

Take Your system and put it in a plastic bag full of uncooked rice for 2 days this will dry it out and don't blow in it anymore get a can of compressed air

 

[falken]

Take Your system and put it in a plastic bag full of uncooked rice for 2 days this will dry it out and don't blow in it anymore get a can of compressed air

Rice does squat. https://www.gazelle.com/thehorn/2014/05/06/gazelles-guide-water-damage-truth-rice-galaxy-everything

Him blowing on it would hardly get it wet either. The contacts just need cleaned and that's relatively quick to do.

 

[wormdood]

Rice does squat. https://www.gazelle.com/thehorn/2014/05/06/gazelles-guide-water-damage-truth-rice-galaxy-everything

Him blowing on it would hardly get it wet either. The contacts just need cleaned and that's relatively quick to do.

. . . besides silica gel and rice everything else they tested can become lodged in your system also oatmeal (witch has the previously mentioned problem) and rice are the only common household items tested

one more thing they did not say rice does not work they simply said these other things were more absorbent