My 3DS hasn't worked for 5 years, it has black screens and a permanent blue light

[robust crystal]

(it won't boot into GM9 or Luma, or safe mode. I also don't have a NAND backup) 😬😬
I was 12 years old when I started setting up the hack. I've lost contact with the guy who activated it for me from the beginning. At first, everything was fine; I installed the games, themes, etc. One day, a theme had a bug: the screens would go black, and the 3D light and the blue power light would come on. I deleted the theme, but the bug persisted. I watched tutorials but didn't pay much attention; I just wanted to fix it however I could, and I think I installed boot9strap over arm9loaderhax. Could that have been the problem?

LOL, and to top it all off, after looking for so many options, I broke the SD card slot!😭 I bought another one online two years later, and it arrived half broken. I mean, I was incredibly lucky back then 💜. I fixed it with a nail file because the flex cable was completely broken. I filed it down well, connecting the contacts, and it worked. Now I just need it to turn on. If anyone knows how to fix this, please help me. Thank you!!

[hazy sage]

if you can't get it to boot into anything, you may be able to use an ntrboot-compatible flashcart to boot into GodMode9

this requires a compatible DS flashcart with ntrboot set up, either buying one pre-flashed, or using another DS / DSi / 3DS to write to one

however... a console generally does not do this because of a bad theme

do you remember everything else that happened or what you did after installing the bad theme?

[robust crystal]

Yes, I installed a PKSM, and that's when the problem started; the screens would turn off and only the menu music would play. When I deleted it, it was fixed.

Then it failed again, and I didn't know what to do anymore. Among the options I chose, I installed boot9strap, and it stopped turning on 😭😭

[robust crystal]

Okkk, and do you have a reliable tutorial for doing it?

[hazy sage]

hold on, what happens if you turn it on without an SD card inserted?

boot9strap does not delete itself, so unless you attempted to follow an uninstall guide, it should still be there

[robust crystal]

When I took out the SD card, the blue light would turn on and off.

[robust crystal]

Yes, I didn't delete it. According to someone else, I installed it over another hack, I don't know.

And how can I uninstall it?

[hazy sage]

so this means it’s not finding boot.firm on an SD card

[hazy sage]

don’t, at best it does nothing, at worst it will make a bad situation worse

do you have other SD cards to try? make sure they’re formatted fat32, put boot.firm on them and try to boot the 3DS with it

[robust crystal]

I happened to see it in a tutorial, I updated the file yesterday, and nothing changed.

[robust crystal]

Okay, I'll try it and let you know.

[robust crystal]

I already did that and it didn't work.

Is there another option?

[robust crystal]

I checked the card, could it be that I'm missing a file?

[hazy sage]

i see boot.firm

[hazy sage]

try this https://wiki.hacks.guide/wiki/3DS:Hardware_test

[robust crystal]

It didn't do anything, it must be a problem with some cable?

because the blue light stays on when I start it.

[hazy sage]

you might want to ask in Nintendo Homebrew if you think it could be a hardware issue, especially if you had issues with the SD card slot

https://discord.gg/MWxPgEp