So a bit of backstory into my answer. I've bought 5 busted Nintendo 3DS XLs with various problems. Three of the systems booted up fine while two were affected by the BSoD (black screen of death). The typical look of the BSoD is the blue power light, no amber wifi light and both screens staying black. Basically it appears that the system is hanging on boot up.
While attempting to repair a special edition Year of Luigi 3DS XL, I noticed that the touch screen was acting funny and decided to replace it with one of the assemblies from 1 of 2 BSoD XLs. I pulled the full assembly (touch screen & lower LCD) out of the Luigi console and swapped it with the assembly from the red BSoD XL. When I put the Luigi XL back together, I started it up and it began to hang at startup, acting like a typical BSoD. Thinking that was odd, I put together the red BSoD XL back together with the assembly from Luigi XL. The red BSoD XL then booted up normally and I was able to use the system just fine. So by accident, I stumbled onto the answer of the BSoD issue (or at least 1 of several).
To confirm this, I took the other black BSoD XL (the 2nd one) and swapped that lower assembly with a working one. Just as I expected, swapping the lower assembly fixed the black BSoD XL and that booted up perfectly fine.
'''TL;DR'''
If you're suffering from the BSoD problems, check the following:
* WiFi card is seated correctly (most times this is the main cause)
* Check all of your ribbons/connections so that they're seated correctly
* Finally, if none of the above have worked then you're going to replace your lower LCD to fix this problem. Follow this guide to get your system back up and running: [guide|25071] I would suggest not detaching the ribbons from the upper section though, skipping that part will save you a big headache on reassembly. Just be gentle, take your time and be patient. You don't want to cause more damage to your system.
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The cause of the lower LCD becoming faulty is not clear but some reasons come to mind:
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* The LCD has overheated and caused a short in the ribbon
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* A fall & impact has caused:
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** A tear in the ribbon that is not visible without dismantling the assembly
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** Unnoticeable damage to the LCD somewhere in the display
So a bit of backstory into my answer. I've bought 5 busted Nintendo 3DS XLs with various problems. Three of the systems booted up fine while two were affected by the BSoD (black screen of death). The typical look of the BSoD is the blue power light, no amber wifi light and both screens staying black. Basically it appears that the system is hanging on boot up.
While attempting to repair a special edition Year of Luigi 3DS XL, I noticed that the touch screen was acting funny and decided to replace it with one of the assemblies from 1 of 2 BSoD XLs. I pulled the full assembly (touch screen & lower LCD) out of the Luigi console and swapped it with the assembly from the red BSoD XL. When I put the Luigi XL back together, I started it up and it began to hang at startup, acting like a typical BSoD. Thinking that was odd, I put together the red BSoD XL back together with the assembly from Luigi XL. The red BSoD XL then booted up normally and I was able to use the system just fine. So by accident, I stumbled onto the answer of the BSoD issue (or at least 1 of several).
To confirm this, I took the other black BSoD XL (the 2nd one) and swapped that lower assembly with a working one. Just as I expected, swapping the lower assembly fixed the black BSoD XL and that booted up perfectly fine.
'''TL;DR'''
If you're suffering from the BSoD problems, check the following:
* WiFi card is seated correctly (most times this is the main cause)
* Check all of your ribbons/connections so that they're seated correctly
* Finally, if none of the above have worked then you're going to replace your lower LCD to fix this problem. Follow this guide to get your system back up and running: [guide|25071] I would suggest not detaching the ribbons from the upper section though, skipping that part will save you a big headache on reassembly. Just be gentle, take your time and be patient. You don't want to cause more damage to your system.