I've been doing hardmods for over a year now. I must have done over 100 hardmods since last year. Yesterday, I failed to do a hardmod on a newly purchased 2DS, the electric blue model. It was purchased in Canada recently and shipped with 11.0.33u firmware. Even before I had problems with the accessing nand, I already noticed something weird about the unit. Usually, 3DS/2DS motherboards had labels on the terminals. This is how we identify DAT0, CMD and CLK. In this particular unit, there were no labels on the motherboard. During, nand access through a Windows laptop, it was able to detect the nand and was mounting as a removable flash drive. However, whenever I try to read nand, a cyclic redundancy error would occur at 0%. I have never experienced this. Usually, when there is an error with it would read to a partial percentage then give the error never consistently at 0%. I must have tried 5 times stopping only to prevent the bricking the device. To make sure my hardmod setup was good, I tested it on a 3DS XL and had perfect results. So, I redid the hardmod on the 2DS this time double checking the terminals. This is where I discovered that the CLK terminal was not working properly. It would sometimes read as an open circuit when tested against ground. Usually, there should be resistance between that two but never an open circuit. This is how I determine good connections on the motherboard. Not able to get a good connection to CLK and without any alternative terminals on the 2DS board I gave up on the hardmod. The problem with the CLK could either be designed by Nintendo or is simply a manufacturing error. However, after noticing those revisions on the motherboard it is possible that Nintendo is taking steps to prevent hardmods. I was always wondering why Nintendo kept those terminals accessible all these years. The only probable reason was insecurity with their design or manufacturing. Since the launch of the 3DS there have been reports of sudden bricks and BSODs. Those terminals were probably there to give Nintendo a way of recovering units sent back for repair.
Differences with previous motherboards:
1. The NAND chip was neither Samsung nor Toshiba. I couldn't identify it.
2. There were no labels on the the terminals.
3. CLK terminal was not working.
Differences with previous motherboards:
1. The NAND chip was neither Samsung nor Toshiba. I couldn't identify it.
2. There were no labels on the the terminals.
3. CLK terminal was not working.