Hardware No Home menu on old 3DS

[Nalter]

A friend of mine gave me an old non-XL 3DS with a problem. I tried everything that came to my mind to fix it, but nothing worked, so here's the deal:
The Home menu doesn't show up at all when the console is turned on, the screens remain black. All the other modules seem to be working: the console's 3D indicator lights up, it catches StreetPass hits and so on. Trying to launch in a recovery mode (turning on with A+L+R+Up held) leads to the same result, and inserting/removing SD card has no effect as well.
The only screen that does show up is the standby mode screen: pressing the power button while it's turned on displays a screen telling something like what the system can do in standby mode and the turn off button on the touch screen. Pressing Home button on this screen displays the "Home menu" text on the touch screen that freezes and doesn't do a thing.
Unfortunately, I don't know the software version on the console and the exact reason, the owner just told this: some DS game card was inserted in the console while it was closed, and when it was opened after this, the problem already was there.
So what seems to be the problem, is there something with the hardware or the Home menu is just broken and is there a way to fix this? Thanks in advance.

 

[Zan']

A friend of mine gave me an old non-XL 3DS with a problem. I tried everything that came to my mind to fix it, but nothing worked, so here's the deal:
The Home menu doesn't show up at all when the console is turned on, the screens remain black. All the other modules seem to be working: the console's 3D indicator lights up, it catches StreetPass hits and so on. Trying to launch in a recovery mode (turning on with A+L+R+Up held) leads to the same result, and inserting/removing SD card has no effect as well.
The only screen that does show up is the standby mode screen: pressing the power button while it's turned on displays a screen telling something like what the system can do in standby mode and the turn off button on the touch screen. Pressing Home button on this screen displays the "Home menu" text on the touch screen that freezes and doesn't do a thing.
Unfortunately, I don't know the software version on the console and the exact reason, the owner just told this: some DS game card was inserted in the console while it was closed, and when it was opened after this, the problem already was there.
So what seems to be the problem, is there something with the hardware or the Home menu is just broken and is there a way to fix this? Thanks in advance.

This doesn't actually make any sense.
It would if he played around with the title.
Recovery mode is as far as I know not part of the home menu title.
However sleep screen is. And if your home menu was missing or actually broken you would be bricked. The 3d indicator wouldn't show and you wouldn't be able to get the sleep screen.

So there are changes made or this is impossible to get. Since the screen init seems to be working (since sleep shows up) it's not that. And you can't do infinite changes to the menu without bricking.

Do you have any cfw or anything installed?
If so I can possibly walk you through getting it to work again. If not try to blind-run the way into some application. (Like browser or something)
The homemenu loads the sleep so it should possibly load everything else.

It may be stuck in the transition screen (the black into homemenu fade) if that doesn't work.

 

[Nalter]

This doesn't actually make any sense.
It would if he played around with the title.
Recovery mode is as far as I know not part of the home menu title.
However sleep screen is. And if your home menu was missing or actually broken you would be bricked. The 3d indicator wouldn't show and you wouldn't be able to get the sleep screen.

So there are changes made or this is impossible to get. Since the screen init seems to be working (since sleep shows up) it's not that. And you can't do infinite changes to the menu without bricking.

Do you have any cfw or anything installed?
If so I can possibly walk you through getting it to work again. If not try to blind-run the way into some application. (Like browser or something)
The homemenu loads the sleep so it should possibly load everything else.

It may be stuck in the transition screen (the black into homemenu fade) if that doesn't work.

I don't have CFW installed, unfortunately.
And trying to launch any application doesn't work as well. There are even no sounds, the only sounds it plays are the ones in the sleep screen (like when you touch the power off button on touch screen or press Home). So it really is stuck, I guess...

 

[Zan']

I don't have CFW installed, unfortunately.
And trying to launch any application doesn't work as well. There are even no sounds, the only sounds it plays are the ones in the sleep screen (like when you touch the power off button on touch screen or press Home). So it really is stuck, I guess...

I do still believe someone messed with it.
Because this shouldn't happen by itself. Screen seems to work homemenu exists and runs. (Loads sleep)
But it's weird your recovery doesn't launch either.

I don't even know how it could happen otherwise, but DS cards seem to have weird access to the 3DS stuff.

I am not deep into it enough to understand how the Arm9 processing could have "killed" your functions.

Are you sure it's not a hardware Problem?
Try sending it in.

 

[Swiftloke]

If someone REALLY wanted to and you were on 10.3, I bet they could've used ntrcardhax to break your 3ds.

 

[DjoeN]

Maybe he pulled the gamecart out while it updated.
Or turned it off while it was updting from gamecart

 

[Swiftloke]

Any idea what DS cart it was?

 

[Nalter]

Any idea what DS cart it was?

I can't say for sure, but the owner says it likely was "The Little Mermaid" for DS.

I do still believe someone messed with it.
Because this shouldn't happen by itself. Screen seems to work homemenu exists and runs. (Loads sleep)
But it's weird your recovery doesn't launch either.

I don't even know how it could happen otherwise, but DS cards seem to have weird access to the 3DS stuff.

I am not deep into it enough to understand how the Arm9 processing could have "killed" your functions.

Are you sure it's not a hardware Problem?
Try sending it in.

You mean, send it to another thread or what?

 

[Zan']

Maybe he pulled the gamecart out while it updated.
Or turned it off while it was updting from gamecart

That should result in an actual brick if it messed up, but the menu basically loads.

--------------------- MERGED ---------------------------

I can't say for sure, but the owner says it likely was "The Little Mermaid" for DS.



You mean, send it to another thread or what?

I mean send it in for repairing.
Nintendo is likely able to fix it. And since you don't run cfw you don't lose anything either.

 

[Nalter]

That should result in an actual brick if it messed up, but the menu basically loads.

--------------------- MERGED ---------------------------


I mean send it in for repairing.
Nintendo is likely able to fix it. And since you don't run cfw you don't lose anything either.

Okay then, I'll give it a try. Thanks for feedback, everyone.

 

[Zan']

Okay then, I'll give it a try. Thanks for feedback, everyone.

Maybe anyone has Ideas.
But I am out of Ideas right now. Without any kind of access to anything (no cfw. Not working menu) and without really knowing what's up I really don't have any ideas anymore.
I mean broken menuhax setup would be possible but you said it doesn't change anything if the SD card is removed on boot. And that wouldn't explain the recovery mode failure.

Do you know if your friend tried to install anything? (I can't believe it just was like this after sleep mode with a ds game. Never heard of that)

If it really just suddenly appeared without any "Manipulations" something is wrong with the hardware.