I'll briefly explain the problem. Just tried botting up the Opera Browser on my DS several times. It often gets past the password part but almost immediately after, hangs with a high pitched squeal emitting from the speakers. This occured 75% of the time of about 20 attempts, other times it just couldn't find the Slot-2 card. I tried again to use Slot-2 this time with a GBA rom. Both with the Cyclo's beta GBA support and using GBAExploader. The rom was able to write to the slot-2 card in NOR and PSRAM modes but upon loading, I get past the Gameboy intro screen and then I get a repeating squealing sound.

I tested all of this again, same hardware on my girlfriend's DS and it worked flawlessly. So, yeah, I'm guessing the DS Slot-2 is very much screwed.

So, basically, what I guess I'm asking is does anyone know of a probable cause? Cleaning the contacts would be a good idea I imagine. So far it's only been blown more times than John Holmes. Trying to avoid opening it up for the time being. Sadly, it's no longer under warranty either. It's like, 2 years old now I think.

The only thing that's aesthetically wrong with the DS that I can see is right at the bottom just below the touch screen where the case joins, there's a very slight gap which isn't normally there. It's probably related but it's so minor, I wouldn't normally consider it a problem.

I wish this wasn't the only thing that's broken lately. My PC's dying. The gremlins are moving in. Really bad timing as well as all my funds are tied up in moving home at the end of the month. :'(

Here's my hardware:

DS Lite Black
CycloDS + 1.5B1 firmware.
EZFlash 3-in-1
Sandisk Class 4 Micro SDHC card.

Pretty sure nothing but the DS is even remotely likely to be the cause. Thanks in advance for any hardware afficionados to shed a bit of light on the matter.