BSOD N3dsxl

ponitheponi · Aug 11, 2022

Hello,

I recently purchased a used Nintendo console from Ebay- a New Nintendo 3DS XL (Special edition Pikachu) and the listing mentioned it had the problem where you turn it on and the blue light remains, but nothing else happens. I took this bc I figured I could repair it and then have a cool gaming rig for 3DS titles. However, the potential culprits for this range widely-

I've tried removing the battery and reinserting it, works rarely
I've tried letting the battery die, didn't work
I've tried disabling the wifi, issue persisted
I've tried backing up the data on the SD card and formatting it to FAT32, no luck.
I've set the 3D slider to max, didn't work.
I've tried unplugging the cables and re-plugging it in, still happens.

One of my friends suggested that it may be modded, which would explain why safe mode and the... format mode(?) both at least work but then have a chance at freezing during those screens, but booting it up while holding select or start didn't give me any indication that it was modded.

What else could I try? I'm still sort of a newbie at soldering, but I've done a few case swaps on older Nintendo consoles, so I'm sort of comfortable with part replacements if needed.

Kwyjor · Aug 11, 2022

ponitheponi said:
which would explain why safe mode and the... format mode(?) both at least work

I don't know what you mean by "format mode (?)", so maybe you could go into some detail there?

If CFW has been installed, then the places to start would be https://3ds.guide/checking-for-cfw and https://3ds.guide/restoring-updating-cfw . Using a blank, formatted SD card will not help matters if the necessary files on the SD card are required.

Also note that in some cases, an SD card may have extra partitions that will cause problems in a 3DS even if it appears to be formatted as FAT32.

I've never heard of any problems like this being solved with soldering. In extreme cases an ntrboot flashcart is usually the most important tool.

ponitheponi · Aug 11, 2022

"I don't know what you mean by "format mode (?)", so maybe you could go into some detail there?"

I mean the mode where you boot up by holding L + R + Down + B. That and the L+R+Up+A methods seem to reliably boot up albeit sometimes freeze midway through.

I appreciate the links, I'll let you know what happens once I've done further investigation/testing.

Kwyjor · Aug 11, 2022

ponitheponi said:
I mean the mode where you boot up by holding L + R + Down + B.

If anyone else reading this is wondering, https://tcrf.net/Nintendo_3DS#Hidden_Key_Combinations says that's for deleting Home Menu management information. (It doesn't come up very often.)

CoolMe · Aug 11, 2022

BSOD is always bad news for 3dses, not sure why you thought you could repair it without doing any research about the matter..
First thing I would try is ntrboot as suggested above. There you do ctrtransfer if the system operates otherwise it could be a hardware issue, like the mobo or it was a bad soldering attempt by the previous user.. And there's nothing you can do about either..

ponitheponi · Aug 11, 2022

CoolMe said:
BSOD is always bad news for 3dses, not sure why you thought you could repair it without doing any research about the matter..

I had a job where I was a hardware repair technician, and at times you never really knew what the problem was going to be with some devices. I figured I could apply that same technique towards my hobby of fixing things, with researching as I get the problems instead of researching ahead. It probably would've been better to do research beforehand, but in my defense, many people have had this problem and claimed to have fixed it.

So the guides linked earlier revealed that it was NOT modded, so I went ahead and went through the process of modding it anyways via the links Kwyjor posted. I'm not sure if that'll fix problems, but I'm hoping that any software issues will at least have some potential ease with a fresh whole mod system set up on it.

CoolMe · Aug 11, 2022

ponitheponi said:
I had a job where I was a hardware repair technician, and at times you never really knew what the problem was going to be with some devices. I figured I could apply that same technique towards my hobby of fixing things, with researching as I get the problems instead of researching ahead. It probably would've been better to do research beforehand, but in my defense, many people have had this problem and claimed to have fixed it.

So the guides linked earlier revealed that it was NOT modded, so I went ahead and went through the process of modding it anyways via the links Kwyjor posted. I'm not sure if that'll fix problems, but I'm hoping that any software issues will at least have some potential ease with a fresh whole mod system set up on it.

So did you get to access the home menu at all? If so, that's definitely a good sign.. If any of the links above made the system boot then it's modded, otherwise it wouldn't do anything..
And you need to install cfw from scratch, which you can't do if you can't even get to the home menu. Other than using an ntrboot flashcart..

ponitheponi · Aug 11, 2022

CoolMe said:
So did you get to access the home menu at all?

Yep, I do have access to the home menu. The black light/freezing is very intermittent, sometimes it happens, sometimes not and it boots up as normal. I was able to make my way into the home menu and do the hack via Pokemon Picross to get the mod installed, but I notice that the freeze/BSOD only happens if let alone for extended periods of time. If I'm able to get into the system, it usually works on subsequent tries. After some time left alone, that's when it starts deciding not to work.

Kwyjor · Aug 12, 2022

ponitheponi said:
So the guides linked earlier revealed that it was NOT modded, so I went ahead and went through the process of modding it anyways via the links Kwyjor posted.

Oh. I should have asked for clarification on what you meant by "works rarely". Installing CFW can add additional failure modes, including ones similar to what you describe.

... But, on the other hand, if you already checked all the cables, I wouldn't think there would be too many other things you could do.

As a last resort, I suppose you could try setting up an emuNAND, but that is venturing into some highly experimental territory.

ponitheponi · Aug 12, 2022

After going through the modding process, it's occasionally giving me the "cable disconnected/can't find file" boot error of turning on then turning off with a red light. Sometimes it'll boot up just fine. I'm trying a different SD card to see if that'll help anything, since I'm guessing that it might be bad (although it did pass when I ran H2testw on it)

Kwyjor · Aug 12, 2022

ponitheponi said:
I'm trying a different SD card to see if that'll help anything, since I'm guessing that it might be bad (although it did pass when I ran H2testw on it)

Well, that's just it – a 3DS does not normally need an SD card at all when booting up. An SD card is sometimes necessary when CFW is set up improperly.

I suppose it's conceivable that the SD card (or the SD card slot) might be in some intermediate failure state that is causing problems when the 3DS is trying to access it.

ponitheponi · Aug 12, 2022

Kwyjor said:
Well, that's just it – a 3DS does not normally need an SD card at all when booting up.

At this point, I'm just throwing spaghetti at the wall and seeing what sticks, lol

CoolMe · Aug 12, 2022

Sd card or sd card reader problems wouldn't give BSOD from what i've experienced. It's something else.. I would recommend doing a CTRTransfer, if it doesn't work try ctrtransfer type d9 and check the system's nand..
If your nand is fine, i would suggest setting up emunand or rednand, it's easy to set up as you can do just through GodMode9. Not sure if it could fix it, but it's definitely worth a try if all the somehow fails..

ponitheponi · Aug 12, 2022

CoolMe said:
I would recommend doing a CTRTransfer, if it doesn't work try ctrtransfer type d9 and check the system's nand.

Alright, that'll be my next steps. I managed to get it working enough to get GodMode9 running and get a NAND backup, so I'll be looking into the CTRTransfer and I'll report back with what I find.

ponitheponi · Aug 12, 2022

So I've been getting a variety of errors, ranging from [[Arm11 Core 3 prefetch aborts]] and [[Arm11 Core 1 data abort]] to
Unable to mount CTRNAND or load CTRNAND firm]]. But mostly I've also been seeing the notification LED flash red when trying to boot up and it powering down. Ruling out the SD card means there's something wrong with the boot.firm on the internal memory. I think that's my next lead, does that sound right? And if so, how would I go about fixing the boot.firm on the 3DS?

I've also saved the dumps if that helps.

CoolMe · Aug 12, 2022

ponitheponi said:
So I've been getting a variety of errors, ranging from [[Arm11 Core 3 prefetch aborts]] and [[Arm11 Core 1 data abort]] to
Unable to mount CTRNAND or load CTRNAND firm]]. But mostly I've also been seeing the notification LED flash red when trying to boot up and it powering down. Ruling out the SD card means there's something wrong with the boot.firm on the internal memory. I think that's my next lead, does that sound right? And if so, how would I go about fixing the boot.firm on the 3DS?

I've also saved the dumps if that helps.

Since you have the boot.firm on your sd card the system will read that when the sd card is inserted. So it wouldn't matter if the one on ctrnand is corrupted or outdated. Here's the guide if you want to update it, scroll down to CTRNAND Luma3DS.
I would perform ctrtransfer in GodMode9, if it gets interrupted in any way in GM9 then it's a hardware issue..

ponitheponi · Aug 12, 2022

CoolMe said:
I would perform ctrtransfer in GodMode9, if it gets interrupted in any way in GM9 then it's a hardware issue..

Good news there, I did the CTRTransfer and it went through without any issues.

CoolMe said:
Since you have the boot.firm on your sd card the system will read that when the sd card is inserted.

And that's what I thought as well, but the guide was saying that red notification light + power on into power off meant that there was an issue with both the SD card boot.firm file and the boot.firm file on the 3DS itself. I'm not sure how I could've got a bad boot.firm file if I got it straight from the Luma download via the 3DS hacks guide, so I'm trying to see what else it could be.

ponitheponi · Aug 12, 2022

So this might've been a giveaway on what's wrong with it, but a cold bootup process usually results in the errors- be it a corrupted/missing boot.firm or the crashing with Arm11 Core issues. After enough tries, it'll start up just fine. It'll boot into whatever menu, it'll play games without crashing, it'll do basically anything a modded 3DS would do. I can even turn it off and turn it back on and it'll act like everything is right in the world. Thinking about that and all the efforts I went through with installing hacks and dealing with just a frozen startup leads me to thinking that the issue is LIKELY component-related with the motherboard the likely culprit. Something isn't flowing right on it until there's been enough power circulating through it, then once it's done, it's working great.

Am I out of my gourd for thinking this/ a crazy person for not mentioning it sooner? Or does it sound reasonable that the motherboard isn't functioning right into thinking there's no boot.firm files anywhere?

CoolMe · Aug 12, 2022

ponitheponi said:
So this might've been a giveaway on what's wrong with it, but a cold bootup process usually results in the errors- be it a corrupted/missing boot.firm or the crashing with Arm11 Core issues. After enough tries, it'll start up just fine. It'll boot into whatever menu, it'll play games without crashing, it'll do basically anything a modded 3DS would do. I can even turn it off and turn it back on and it'll act like everything is right in the world. Thinking about that and all the efforts I went through with installing hacks and dealing with just a frozen startup leads me to thinking that the issue is LIKELY component-related with the motherboard the likely culprit. Something isn't flowing right on it until there's been enough power circulating through it, then once it's done, it's working great.

Am I out of my gourd for thinking this/ a crazy person for not mentioning it sooner? Or does it sound reasonable that the motherboard isn't functioning right into thinking there's no boot.firm files anywhere?

I'm not sure what you're saying.. Is the system working after the ctrtransfer? Or you mean it behaves just erratically Arm11.. Etc. Despite everything is set up just fine, which might mean that it's a hardware issue and not software? Yes, possibly..

ponitheponi · Aug 13, 2022

I don't think I properly explained it:

The 3DS I bought from ebay appeared to have no indication of it being hacked whatsoever, with it freezing during bootup and stuck with a blue light on but no other responses. I've noticed that this behavior stops after trying to turn it on several times, whether it be through the safe mode menu or any other means. Once it stops, it works fully- I can turn it off and turn it back on without issue as many times as I please, I can play downloaded games or games off a cartridge, or do anything else someone would do with a 3DS. So whenever I would try something to see if that fixes the error, I would wait until enough time had passed that the errors would happen again, and try it then.

After I modded it with the guides provided (to which I thank and appreciate you guys for aiding me), the errors still happen in the same pattern- after several fail boots, it eventually works and performs as a normal 3DS would. This time, the boots were telling of a corrupted boot.firm. After taking the multiple steps to troubleshoot and ensure that the boot.firm file WAS working the way it should, it eventually led me to the conclusion that there's something on the motherboard itself that's not functioning properly and not reading the boot.firm until several boot attempts would make it work. I've ordered a new motherboard since that's probably the only thing I could think of to make sure that the boot.firm files were being read properly the first time, since nothing else to my knowledge would really interact with it.

BSOD N3dsxl

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