Hacking Hardware Need Help Troubleshooting N3ds XL

[artsandcraft]

I bought a N3ds XL off ebay recently, with what I thought was just cosmetic damage. When it got here there was pretty obvious fall damage and the R button was jammed down, and what looked like some condensation in front of the inner camera. Was able to contact the seller and get a partial refund, and decided to move forward with adding CFW and trying to repair the physical issues later.

Installing CFW went well, up until the point where I was supposed to setup Luma to CTRNAND, because with the R button jammed down, I wasn't able to input the key combo to unlock SysNAND. I had ordered a replacement set of shoulder buttons and figured I would be able to finish things up when I fixed it.

Yesterday, I went in to try and fix the R button and camera issues, ended up disconnecting the hinge cables to the motherboard when I didn't really need to (just needed open the top facing to clean out the inner camera protector). Was a pain to get them back in, and when I fully reassembled (with SD card inserted), I would get a brief blue light, then it would turn off again. After going in a few more times, I managed to better seat the camera cable and now get the pop noise when trying to turn on.

I've been trying to find a closeup of how the speaker cable should look, but I haven't been able to find one. Is mine missing a contact/is one of the contacts on it damaged? And does the pop noise ever happen with CFW gone wrong, and if so, how would I check that?

 

[KleinesSinchen]

pop noise ever happen with CFW gone wrong

No. This noise is always "important hardware component not found" (usually LCD backlight or loudspeaker/volume/3D control cable)
B9S lets the blue LED fade off when boot.firm isn't found – hardware problems usually turn the LED off instantly.

Very unfortunate since latest Luma3DS copies itself to CTRNAND automatically, so a basic fail safe mechanism is already given when starting from SD once, so strictly speaking it wasn't urgent to get the (R) button functional.
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Spoiler: Huge embedded pictures from ifixit.com

There is not much to say here. Triple verify all cables are fully inserted and not the wrong way (sometimes it is possible to fit in one upside down).

ended up disconnecting the hinge cables to the motherboard when I didn't really need to (just needed open the top facing to clean out the inner camera protector).

Arghh. These things are really a pain. I've had my fair share of trouble with those pesky cables.

 

[artsandcraft]

Alright, thanks for the info, at least I know I can leave the SD alone now. I'm gonna take a break from it and give it another attempt later, but I have a feeling I damaged a cable in some way.