Some 3DS Units Plagued By "Black Screen of Death"

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vansau

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May 25, 2010
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Some 3DS Units Plagued By "Black Screen of Death"



Some European gamers are experiencing a pretty irritating problem that is rendering some 3DS units inoperable.

New technology launches are often plagued with glitches, and it seems that Nintendo's 3DS is no exception. While the console hasn't had any major problems, it turns out that some European gamers have started to experience an issue known as "the black screen of death."

Essentially, the screen pictured here is randomly popping up for some gamers when they use their 3DSen. It's happening pretty randomly, too, as this seems to be able to happen at just about any time, including playing a single-player game, playing online, and viewing a menu.

Here's the list of games that the issue has been reported on so far:

? Tom Clancy's Ghost Recon: Shadow Wars
? Pilotwings Resort
? Super Monkey Ball 3D
? Super Street Fighter IV 3D
? Lego Star Wars III: The Clone Wars

Apparently the issue is also happening with certain Mii applications. According to Geek, some users have fixed the issue by reformatting the SD card to FAT-32. Alternately, some players have been able to just reset the device and get back to playing games. Some consoles, though, have just been turned into inoperable bricks and are being returned to retailers.

It seems safe to assume that it won't take Nintendo much time to identify the issue and roll out an update. Thankfully, the issue only seems to be affecting a small number of units, though it's a little weird that this issue has only popped up during the European launch (it hasn't been reported in Japan or North America).

Source: Geek

<a href=http://www.neogaf.com/forum/showthread.php?t=425084&page=27>Image Source

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Worgen

Follower of the Glorious Sun Butt.
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Whatever, just wash your hands.
errors on a nintendo system? thats weird, of all the console makers nintendo has always been noted for having the most reliable hardware
 

Cpt Corallis

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Apr 14, 2009
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The report I read on the problem also had a guy who had suffered it because he was trying to connect to SSF online on a weak Wi-Fi connection. He solved it by moving closer to the router. Just throwing this out there in case anyone is suffering from a similar problem.
 

Tartarga

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Jun 4, 2008
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Sometimes I don't think the world will be happy until we've experienced every kind of *insert color here* of death. Considering how hyped this thing was I probably should have expected something like this. Still, i'm glad I didn't buy one yet.
 

Tiswas

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Jun 9, 2010
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looks like Nintendo got the same lot who made the 360 to make their 3DS.

One person said they got it while trying to muck around with hacking the thing. But they reset and it was fine.
 

Onyx Oblivion

Borderlands Addict. Again.
Sep 9, 2008
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Worgen said:
errors on a nintendo system? thats weird, of all the console makers nintendo has always been noted for having the most reliable hardware
Shit.

My original Game Boy will still play games...No fancy trick required. Batteries + Game = GO!

I thought that Nintendo's biggest issue ever was the fucking cracks in the DS Lite, to my knowledge. And that's not hardware, that's design flaw.

Oh well. I'm not getting one from awhile, so hopefully the issue will be fixed.
 

KeyMaster45

Gone Gonzo
Jun 16, 2008
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It's always best to wait for any new console to be on the market for a few months. One because launch lineups usually kinda suck and two because most major bugs get worked out within half a year. (red ring of death excluded)

I was pretty impressed by the 3DS I tried out at Best Buy last week,(was rather shocked the 3D was actually good) but I'm going to wait until the first party games start coming out from Nintendo in June/July to consider buying one.

Onyx Oblivion said:
My original Game Boy will still play games...No fancy trick required. Batteries + Game = GO!
Fun fact, if you last played your Original Gameboy back around the time the GBA came out odds are the batteries in it corroded and rendered the system inoperable. In my defense I always intended to finish that last level in Kirby's dreamland, I just got distracted by the GBA remake of Kirby's Adventure...and the original DS with Mario 64...and Professor Layton...and the Poke-E-mans.
 

Canadamus Prime

Robot in Disguise
Jun 17, 2009
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Worgen said:
errors on a nintendo system? thats weird, of all the console makers nintendo has always been noted for having the most reliable hardware
Not always. Does anyone else remember the original NES? Ooooh pretty colours...

Still Nintendo is usually pretty good about fixing these sorts of issues.
 

Worgen

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Whatever, just wash your hands.
canadamus_prime said:
Worgen said:
errors on a nintendo system? thats weird, of all the console makers nintendo has always been noted for having the most reliable hardware
Not always. Does anyone else remember the original NES? Ooooh pretty colours...

Still Nintendo is usually pretty good about fixing these sorts of issues.
my nes still works, not well but it does, I cant imagine a 360 being operational at all after 20 years, hell alot of them broke after just 2 or 3. And thats why they extended the warrenty for the red ring of death
 

TimeLord

For the Emperor!
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Aug 15, 2008
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*looks at brand new UK 3DS in his hand*

*put's it down and never touches it again*

If I don't use it, it can't break >.<

OT: Well fuck, that's just dandy Nintendo. You loose 50 credibility points and are grounded until further notice!
 

Anton P. Nym

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Sep 18, 2007
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http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Complex_systems

Boiled down; the more bits you cram into a device, the more weird and interesting ways that device can go unexpectedly wrong as those bits interact... and that expressly includes transistors on chips and lines of code in games.

Welcome, Nintendo, to the desert of the real current-gen gaming.

-- Steve
 

Canadamus Prime

Robot in Disguise
Jun 17, 2009
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Anton P. Nym said:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Complex_systems

Boiled down; the more bits you cram into a device, the more weird and interesting ways that device can go unexpectedly wrong as those bits interact... and that expressly includes transistors on chips and lines of code in games.

Welcome, Nintendo, to the desert of the real current-gen gaming.

-- Steve
Or to put it another way,
Murphy's Laws of Computing said:
"A complex system that doesn't work invariably evolved from a simpler system that worked fine."
 

gigastar

Insert one-liner here.
Sep 13, 2010
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And thats why one doesnt just charge out to get the latest hardware. They get other people to do it first then laugh as they get all the hardware problems.

BSoD eh, I know [http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/HeroicBSOD] ive seen that [http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/VillainousBSOD] somewhere [http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/BSODSong] before [http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/UnmentionableBSOD]...