Topic: New Nintendo 3DS Probably Dying.

I've been playing my 3Ds a lot lately, trying to finish up my backlog of games.. and it's been acting up as of late. I didn't do anything to actually damage it, so it should be fine, except.. it's not. The system, every time I turn it on, won't load. It just stays on a black screen for a solid 2-4 minutes, then goes to the home menu where it freezes, showing nothing more than the game card that's currently in the system. Not even the eshop or other things, and it won't even bother opening the themes in the background. All my digital games are gone too. The system then says "SD card not found", and when I hit a, it freezes for a bit again before letting me just pick the only option which is the game card itself.

When loading up a game, it also takes forever just to load it up, always taking 2-3 minutes to do so. The game itself ran fine however.. and I tried hitting the home button, but it crashed, with me having to turn the system off outright.

I don't know why this is happening frankly, especially since I didn't drop the system or anything, and it was fine just a few days ago. I had the system for years, but always made sure to take care of it. It's been doing this every single time I turn it on, and I'm scared that if I lose this console, I won't be able to play any of my games anymore..

@VoidofLight Maybe you already looked around, but I'd look around nintendo support for "black screen" or "won't load", or whatever terms might fit your 3DS's scenario. If their troubleshooting doesnt solve anything, it may point to a hardware issue. At the moment, I can't help think maybe your micro sd card may be failing. My micro sd card failed in my phone last summer. It struggled to complete certain things, or froze. You can see the files on the card, but it no longer worked reliably. I'd never seen a micro sd card fail before last summer. That's a just a wild guess, though.

I'd try booting it up without a the micro sd, and without a cartridge. Or restarting. You may have tried that already. No need to reply if you're already doing these things..

@WoomyNNYes I'll try removing the SD card and game card. I already tried rebooting the system multiple times though, and got the same result.

@VoidofLight I'd try that with the 3ds plugged in, too. In case it's battery related, although, I don't think that's the issue based on what you've described.

@WoomyNNYes A similar thing happened with the microSD card that I used on my phone, as well. I had a ton of photos on it, which got to the point where the microSD card would take an incredibly long time to load all its contents. It happened on my phone and my laptop via the microSD adapter, plus I recall the built-in photos app crashing.

So yes, @VoidofLight let us know how it goes when you tried turning on your 3DS without the microSD card. I tried looking it up on Nintendo's support site and this was the closest thing I got. Shipping your 3DS to repairs is an option for sure, but unfortunately, they no longer offer repairs for certain models (namely the original 3DS, original 3DS XL, and regular New 3DS).

@MarioLover92 Ah alright. I'll try it in a bit, and tell you how it goes. It might be a while until I report back, since I don't currently have a screwdriver on me to open the system up.

@VoidofLight All righty, that'll give your 3DS a breather then. If that doesn't work, I'd give Nintendo a call or live chat with them, then tell them your current situation. Best of luck!

@MarioLover92 alright! Thanks!