Hardware N 3DS XL repair questions

[Blaze163]

Lali ho!

My poor old New 3DS XL has seen far better days. The back panel is cracked, battery is possibly fried, and now the shoulder triggers aren't working properly. So here's my questions; how easy is it for a tech illiterate idiot like me to replace the parts to make this thing work properly? I would take it in for repairs but the only store near me that does them is CeX. They quoted me about £195 for the repairs. They sell brand new systems for less. Money's tight. So it's either I do it myself or give up and sell the damn thing.

If I choose to sell it and thus erase my bank details so the new owner can't abuse them, is there a way of keeping the games active on the machine and just adding their own payment method? That way I can add the many MANY installed games to the listing to bump up the price. I don't use it much so I'm not up on the details. Got a bunch of actual game cards too but the majority of my library is digital.

 

[IC_]

All those parts should be pretty easy to replace if you can get the right replacement parts. For the battery you just need to unscrew the bottom back panel, for the buttons you need to remove the bottom back panel and replacing the buttons with the cables is a bit tricky but it can be done, and I'm pretty sure the top back panel (if you're talking about the top one) can be replaced by only unscrewing a few screws around the top screen.

 

[KleinesSinchen]

Please show us pictures if possible.

Shoulder buttons are not a big deal on any 3DS model (on 2DS it's much harder). Battery was even intended to be user replaceable. ifixit.com has some excellent guides for Nintendo consoles.

£195 for the repair sounds like rip-off. I can get the upper screen replaced for about €60 or €70 by an independent repair shop – including the part (LCD). It would be a lot cheaper to get another console and do a system transfer (and you could sell the damaged system afterwards). This way you could keep your games (digital and physical).


Good luck and have fun!

 

[emcintosh]

If you do try to repair it yourself, please be very careful of the ribbon cable sockets - some of them release the cable when the clip is lifted (and pulling on the cable too hard will damage it), but in others the clip will break if lifted, and the correct method of releasing the cable is to gently pull the end of the cable parallel to the board.