Homebrew Misc Random crashes playing. Can I confirm if it is a hardware issue?

[Skygabe]

I bought a modified N3DS XL in August 2023. In October I changed the 64 gb SD card to a 128 gb and updated Luma. In December the N3DS had a problem on boot, the blue light came on quickly and then turned off. I updated Luma, tried some guides I found here and in the 3DS hack community, and finally got it working again.

I ended up not having much time to play until March of this year, where it had several problems when booting. I noticed that when I formatted the SD card and put the content back on it, the N3DS could reach Luma bootloader screen but only once, I didn't understand why.

When I had time again I tried to understand the problem and discovered that the boot file was corrupt using a test and an error guide. I remade the N3DS CFW with boot9strap and Luma following the 3ds hacks guide. Since then, playing some games, the N3DS crashes and does not turn back on, showing a red light in the notification or showing crashes at boot. Usually I format the SD card and it works again or I wait a few days and turn it on and it's normal again. I have already checked the SD, tried the triple format method and have already used 3 different SD in it. I believe it is a hardware problem but I don't even know where to start, I used 3ds_hw_test to check the RAM and only once did it show a result with an error, all the others showed 0 errors.

Do I have to accept that the 3DS is dying and I don't have much to do? It usually crashes when I play Luigi's mansion dark moon, playing NDS games on twilight doesn't usually have any crashes. Is there anything I can do?
Many of the crashes do not show an error screen but the last one that showed was a Data Abort - Translation - Section in the LM3DS process.

 

[ack]

sounds like an intermittent hardware fault, try running the hardware test while the console's warm and see if the error recurs. (heat it gently with a hair dryer or something, just get it warm- don't get it hot enough that it's uncomfortable to touch, we don't want anything melting.) If the error does reoccur, you most likely have a cracked solder joint on the ram, this can be fixed with a reflow. If not, it's likely that the problem's in the ram chip, and you'll need a new one.

 

[Skygabe]

sounds like an intermittent hardware fault, try running the hardware test while the console's warm and see if the error recurs. (heat it gently with a hair dryer or something, just get it warm- don't get it hot enough that it's uncomfortable to touch, we don't want anything melting.) If the error does reoccur, you most likely have a cracked solder joint on the ram, this can be fixed with a reflow. If not, it's likely that the problem's in the ram chip, and you'll need a new one.

Thanks for the help, yesterday the console wouldn't turn on with the SD card, it had a black screen and blue light. I could only access the Home menu, luma and gm9 with the card reader empty. Today it was back to normal and I was able to do the tests, 0 errors in both cases. When I heated it up it made the test take longer, I don't know if it's a symptom. Tried to backup my saves and got a crash on checkpoint "Page-Section".

I have no way of getting another ram chip for it without buying another 3DS. I'll try to find someone specialized to provide technical assistance to the 3DS and evaluate the soldering or change the chip.

 

[ack]

Thanks for the help, yesterday the console wouldn't turn on with the SD card, it had a black screen and blue light. I could only access the Home menu, luma and gm9 with the card reader empty. Today it was back to normal and I was able to do the tests, 0 errors in both cases. When I heated it up it made the test take longer, I don't know if it's a symptom. Tried to backup my saves and got a crash on checkpoint "Page-Section".

I have no way of getting another ram chip for it without buying another 3DS. I'll try to find someone specialized to provide technical assistance to the 3DS and evaluate the soldering or change the chip.

https://www.alibaba.com/product-det...261dca2c41539462b027e078c3e4y.jpg_200x200.jpg here's some new ones that you can buy in quantities as low as 5, there aren't any pictures but the seller seems like an oldhead so I would guess they're not going to scam you.

 

[Skygabe]

I finally had time to write here, the problem is definitely a faulty solder joint. I have a small, low-power hairdryer. I noticed that after testing with the 3DS warmed up, my problems with random crashes were over.

I decided to warm up the 3DS a little more than I did in the tests because I had no experience and didn't want to damage the device and now it's ok. I haven't had any other crashes other than a few using the checkpoint to restore my save files.

Thanks so much for all the help @ack . I looked for help on discord and reddit as well as here and you were very helpful and ended up helping me a lot to understand and solve the problem.