Hacking blue light flashes on then off (second hand 3ds)

[sammydroid]

Hi guys,

I know this has already been asked many times before but i thought i would try and get some answers anyway

So i recently saw an ad on ebay for a 'new' 3ds xl for £40 that was advertised as having the problem in the title. Having done CFW on my own O3ds xl and discovering that this could simply be a case of needing to put the luma boot.firm onto a micro sd card i decided to go ahead and buy it.

Having got it now i discovered it doesnt have its original sd card so dont have any idea what firmware its on or what luma version its on (if any). ive tried every luma version from 7.0.5 to 10.1 to no avail. Ive also tried the L+R+A+UP method to get into recovery but that doesnt work either. Im also using the sd card from my o3ds xl (having backed up and deleted the CFW files for that one before using it for this) so i know the card is working perfectly fine

Im now at my wits end as to what to do, ive never had any experience with bad CFW upto this point and so im asking the gbatemp community for help before i go down the new motherboard route (ive seen these for around £35 to £40 so given i only paid £40 in the first place would still make it quite cheap)

would there be any workaround whatsoever if i dont have any sort of nand backup? (god knows if the seller has either)

 

[Quantumcat]

Have you tried the GodMode9 firm file renamed to boot.firm and the bin file renamed to arm9loaderhax.bin?

 

[sammydroid]

Have you tried the GodMode9 firm file renamed to boot.firm and the bin file renamed to arm9loaderhax.bin?

just tried the godmode9 file changed to boot.firm but it still wont boot. which bin file are you referring to when you were saying about changing it to arm9loaderhax.bin?

 

[Lacius]

just tried the godmode9 file changed to boot.firm but it still wont boot. which bin file are you referring to when you were saying about changing it to arm9loaderhax.bin?

The 3DS might have A9LH installed instead of B9S. When you used Luma3DS v7.0.5, did you keep it named as arm9loaderhax.bin?

If Luma3DS won't boot with with v7.0.5, v7.1, or v9.1 (v10.0.x has a bug with some system versions), then you might need to use a compatible DS flashcart to run ntrboot, (re)install B9S, and perform a CTRTransfer.

 

[sammydroid]

The 3DS might have A9LH installed instead of B9S. When you used Luma3DS v7.0.5, did you keep it named as arm9loaderhax.bin?

If Luma3DS won't boot with with v7.0.5, v7.1, or v9.1 (v10.0.x has a bug with some system versions), then you might need to use a compatible DS flashcart to run ntrboot and perform a CTRTransfer.

i think so yes, is that to be renamed to something else?

 

[Lacius]

i think so yes, is that to be renamed to something else?

No, it needs to stay arm9loaderhax.bin.

What happens when you hold Select when powering on the system with each of the above three versions of Luma3DS? If the problem persists, you likely need to use ntrboot as I described above.

Edit: It's a longshot and probably won't work, but what happens if you download GodMode9 v1.2.8, rename GodMode9.bin as arm9loaderhax.bin, put it onto the root of your SD, and boot the 3DS?

 

[sammydroid]

still no luck with the lumas, even when pressing select. and the godmode9.bin trick also didnt result in a boot

if i go down the flashcart route, which one would i need for that? i used to have an r4 card with the '3ds' logo on it that i played my ds games off, not sure what i did with it but im sure its knocking about somewhere. would that one do it?

 

[Lacius]

still no luck with the lumas, even when pressing select. and the godmode9.bin trick also didnt result in a boot

if i go down the flashcart route, which one would i need for that? i used to have an r4 card with the '3ds' logo on it that i played my ds games off, not sure what i did with it but im sure its knocking about somewhere. would that one do it?

Depending on the flashcart, it could work. You want something from this list:
https://3ds.hacks.guide/ntrboot

If the flashcart you have is incompatible with ntrboot, the cheapest one on the list is $9.99 (the R4iSDHC GOLD Pro 20XX).

 

[sammydroid]

but wouldnt the ntrboot require me to be able to at least get to the home menu go on the cart and run the .nds file? or would it just boot it straightaway on power up?

 

[Lacius]

but wouldnt the ntrboot require me to be able to at least get to the home menu go on the cart and run the .nds file? or would it just boot it straightaway on power up?

No.

1. If you have a DS flashcart that doesn't have ntrboot installed to it, you will need something like a working 3DS with CFW to install ntrboot to the flashcart, but you don't need the broken 3DS working.
2. If you get a DS flashcart that already has ntrboot installed to it, you don't need a working 3DS.

Once you have a DS flashcart with ntrboot installed to it, you will coldboot into ntrboot, and it will run on the 3DS before anything else. This is why you can use it to (re)install B9S on a broken system, and then you can perform a CTRTransfer. The ntrboot method should be able to solve just about any software brick.

Alternatively, you can perform the CTRTransfer first.

 

[sammydroid]

finally found my old r4i 3ds flashcart only to find that despite being compatible to the point that it let me dump the flash (using my old CFW 3ds as the source) it wouldnt let me inject to it (grrrrr). so ive bought an ace3ds plus card on ebay for less than a fiver so i'll post again once its arrived

thanks so much though for all the advice so far guys, good to know theres plenty of people out there with the knowledge to potentially bring stuff back to working condition

 

[sammydroid]

right guys

got the flashcart today and injected the ntrboot firmware onto it but its still not booting the console. still flashing power light on then off

not even sure where to go from here

 

[Quantumcat]

right guys

got the flashcart today and injected the ntrboot firmware onto it but its still not booting the console. still flashing power light on then off

not even sure where to go from here

Are you holding the buttons and putting it in sleep mode?

 

[osm70]

right guys

got the flashcart today and injected the ntrboot firmware onto it but its still not booting the console. still flashing power light on then off

not even sure where to go from here

Place a boot.firm file to the root of your SD card. Insert the flashcard and your SD card into the 3DS you want to fix. Power it off. Put a magnet on the 3DS and hold these buttons for a few seconds:

START + SELECT + X + POWER

The firm file should run.

 

[sammydroid]

so i followed the ntrboot guide on 3ds.guide and ive now got to the point where the blue light is finally staying on but when i let go of the buttons nothing happens and it just powers down again. which boot.firm should i be running?

im using a magnet to get it to boot, but nothings showing up on screen

 

[duwen]

Are there any tell-tale signs that the system has been opened? I know that incorrectly seated ribbon cables, or similar hardware faults, can cause the system to power down within seconds of the boot sequence.

 

[sammydroid]

well i knew that was one of the possible issues when it powers up and then down again, but i thought it would 'pop' from the speakers if that was the case?

 

[duwen]

depends - if the ribbon cable in question is one of those situated in the top screen then power might not be getting to the speakers.

 

[sammydroid]

the thing is, if i keep the button sequence held down, the power light stays on for the full duration that im holding them

 

[KleinesSinchen]

Stupid situation when there are so many possible causes of error.

well i knew that was one of the possible issues when it powers up and then down again, but i thought it would 'pop' from the speakers if that was the case?

Most of the time yes. I have a damaged O3DSXL (demoted to a test device) – it does not always “pop” when turning off due to hardware issue.

I was able to reproduce this on my test console: Without any boot.firm it stays on after ntrboot as long as I hold the buttons down and the LED fades off when releasing them. The fading off is another indicator. When turning off unexpectedly (with or without popping noise) the blue LED normally goes dark almost immediately.



In case you are successful at ntrboot the most helpful boot.firm would be GodMode9 because it allows you to view the content of the NAND, can chainload any other firm and perform CTRTransfer if needed.

Keep in mind that the 3DS will turn off if boot.firm is neither found on the SD nor on CTRNAND. Ntrboot does not change this. If possible check on another 2|3DS system if the boot.firm can successfully be loaded to rule SD issues out as good as possible.

One really bad possibility is a non-working SD reader. If your N3DSXL has B9S, no failsafe boot.firm on the NAND and a defective SD reader it will not start (unless you replace the reader).


Again: It is really a stupid thing. Problems can be everywhere.