I'm happy to report that I got my anker card reader this week, and today being my first day off was fixing time. Through a couple tribulations of shortening my wiring, changing SD adaptor, a different usb port, and usb extension, (something fixed it), I was able to read and then restore my original sysnand. Powers up and sounds good, but the top screen isn't working. Back to the work bench. The N3DS motherboard has many ribbon connectors that need to be removed to access back and remove. 3 larger ones that are all tight in the top corner on both sides of the MB for the top screen, sound, etc. I redid all the connections and it still wouldn't work. Took it all apart again and seen that one of the cables that twists the most in the corner can be reversed in the connector, so I think I have it solved because the connectors have logic (white with black locking tab / black with white locking tab / contacts on ribbon up/down) and it matches. Power on, new problem! Seems like some type of short, blue light, pause, speaker crackle, hard shutdown. Thinking this failure is because of reverse ribbon cable when top screen is booting?, I remove MB and try in reverse again. Same problem! Several more attempts at removing MB (and hard mod for elimination and ease of install and removal of MB), then eliminating cables, top screen all cables, and each connector at a time to see how they affected booting. Finally got to a tiny 4 contact ribbon that seemed a little looser than the rest in their connectors. Through a couple boots of applying/releasing pressure on connector, it was solved! No top screen so I go back to the reverse and everything is working! Redo non essential cables (analog might be the worst, so thankfully it wasn't needed during all the troubleshooting) and test unit. All good again, but 4 pin connector needs repair/mod. Install a pretty epoxy repair and test, works better, but prone to shock, so no good. Remove epoxy, and install a rudimentary, but effective foam pad that will apply pressure against plastic backing cover. I am happy now that everything should work great again. I will wait until tomorrow when I receive my new wera screwdrivers to reassemble the N3DS. My flat driver I was using is old and tired, so i'll wait for the proper philips 00. It was most difficult doing all this testing and troubleshooting having to hold the battery by hand on the power contacts, including reading and writing the nand. When I reassemble tomorrow I will attempt the A9LH again. I see that a few things have changed.
Although I feel sure I followed every step, logic points at user error since I know the guide is solid. I had done my O3DS earlier in the day and it worked fine. I then started at my 2DS and it was going great too, when I decided to start my N3DS 45 min into the 2DS job. Since my N3DS was lagging my 2DS install, it is mostly likely that I made a mistake going back and forth between the two jobs. The lesson here and many other times in life is, one job at a time.
O3DS and 2DS turned out great (N3DS will be) and A9LH is the ultimate hack IMO. Reminds of the old PSP days with recovery menu. Although the N3DS needed all that extra work, it was great fun. I miss/love the hard mods and it only feels right for me to see the insides of all my game systems. I have more fun doing all this "work" than I do playing the games....
Time to find out if my sd card reader is compatible...
