Found a N3DS XL in debug mode?

[tabaglio]

Greetings everyone, first post here, but long time lurker.
Quick background on this: A few years ago at a fleamakret I bought a big box of malfunctioning/broken/for parts 2DS/3DS hardware. This was probably from a closing repair shop.
During the years I repaired/fixed most of them (usually suffered of trivial issues, worst being a few shot fuses). From time to time, I still pick a a remnant from the box and have a go at it...

But today I found a weird one: It's a N3DS XL. Out of the box it behaves as follows
- Once powered on, the blue led comes on and remains on
- No image on the screens
- No audio
- You can power it down just fine by pressing the power button again.

I opened it up, unplugged the camera flat cable, and was greeted with this:

I did a quick search around and it seems some kind of dev firmware...
I found no way to progress from this screen. Both the "run DevMenu" and "run System Settings" return an error c8804478.

I suspect someone might have played around with this unit before sending it in for repairs, maybe installing (or failing to install) some dev firmware variant.

Any advice on what I could do (if it is even possible) to restore this? Worst case I'll recycle case and LCDs and swap the motherboard and camera module, but I'd really like to save it if possible.

EDIT: Seems this is the "Test Menu" described in the 3DBrew wiki, but no info on how to get out of it, sadly.

 

[SylverReZ]

Possibly you have a SNAKE development unit. Do you have pictures of the back?

 

[tabaglio]

I can take a pic when I get home, if you're still interested... but this, like many other units in that box, lacks the bottom protective cover, so there isn't much to see.
There are no special markings, and the serial begins with QEH.

Also, I'm not seeing any special color configuration for this unit, or anything that makes it stand out from the outside...

 

[Ryccardo]

no info on how to get out of it, sadly.

Use Config to change the default title which you can't run without DevMenu or - possibly - a true flashcard

Try the most common button combos for CFW configuration? For the most part, retail to dev "conversions" were first made possible when Luma added the Unitinfo patch, maybe you can turn it off from there and/or run GM9 to investigate

If not you can still run GM9 via ntrboot

As for how it got in that condition - DevMenu has an "uninstall all non-critical titles" hidden feature, which includes the system titles DevMenu and Config (if you had an official developer system, bought new, you probably also have an official flashcard with which you can run standalone copy of DevMenu), but it should NOT remove the regular settings

 

[tabaglio]

Use Config to change the default title which you can't run without DevMenu or - possibly - a true flashcard

Try the most common button combos for CFW configuration? For the most part, retail to dev "conversions" were first made possible when Luma added the Unitinfo patch, maybe you can turn it off from there and/or run GM9 to investigate

If not you can still run GM9 via ntrboot

As for how it got in that condition - DevMenu has an "uninstall all non-critical titles" hidden feature, which includes the system titles DevMenu and Config (if you had an official developer system, bought new, you probably also have an official flashcard with which you can run standalone copy of DevMenu), but it should NOT remove the regular settings

Well, I was just preparing a flashcart to do some ntrbooting... so I started gm9.

This is what I got (i used the standard retail ntrboot exploit, the dev one did not seem to work, but gm9 is the ''dev'' version).
It looks quite weird to me.

EDIT: Seriously considering doing a nand backup and trying a ctrtransfer and see what happens...

 

[Ryccardo]

Title list - what's there looks correct, though of course a lot is missing too
System info - Do you have anything in 1:/rw/sys/ and 2:/sys/log/, which is where the missing information would come from?

My approach would be: full backup of the "known" starting point, ctrtransfer, and recreating the SecureInfo_A and related files if missing (of course, unless you use one from another console, this will be a CFW-only system), if that fails see Lazarus3DS for how to almost completely rebuild the NAND from nothing

BTW before doing that, a possible way to see if it's dev or retail would be to try running a physical game? Though the serial number, assuming it's correct (anyone can replace a case/sticker and no SecureInfo_A to check), says retail

 

[ghjfdtg]

This looks to me like a completely beat up retail N3DS XL. Someone attempted to install dev firmware and messed it up. As long as you can boot GodMode9 you will be able to recover it.

 

[tabaglio]

This looks to me like a completely beat up retail N3DS XL. Someone attempted to install dev firmware and messed it up. As long as you can boot GodMode9 you will be able to recover it.

Indeed, I think that it's probably it.

I made a NAND backup with gm9, and I did a ctrtransfer. I can now get it to boot up to the language selection screen. Music plays, but I can't do anything else.
Actually, the touchscreen calibration in GM9 is also not working, so I suspect this unit has both a dead camera module and touchscreen. Still, seems that at least now it boots something recognizable

Post automatically merged: Oct 29, 2023

Yep, hairline crack in the touchscreen flat cable...

Post automatically merged: Oct 29, 2023

Well, seems there is still some things to be done even after the touchscreen fix.

• GM9 is not creating the essential.exefs file
• the system gives an error when trying to update

Hmm, maybe trying lazarus3d would be worth it

Post automatically merged: Oct 29, 2023

Hmmm, seems I hit a roadblock with lazarus.
The github page mentions the need for `sighax_hdr.bin`, but I have no idea where to get it.
The rest of the files I was able to generate with the prep script and a donor N3DS...

Anyone willing to help?

EDIT: No need, I followed this guide found on the post here "CTRTransfer Keeps Messing Up", post #27, using a donor N2DS XL from the same box, and now the N3DS XL seems to work just fine. I just need to source a new top camera and I can give it away, thanks for all the ideas!