Last May I bought a used 3DS from a friend for pretty cheap - he thought that it was broken as it would not charge/turn on and decided to buy a new one. I immediately purchased a Nyko powerpak+ charger (with charging dock) as I assumed he simply had a bad battery. This worked, and I found I was able to charge the Nyko batter but ONLY through the dock (which bypasses the 3DS entirely), and not the regular charging port. Since then, I've tried two other battery packs, as well as multiple AC adapters just to make sure it was actually an internal problem with the 3DS.
The strange thing is that when I try to charge the 3DS through the port, the orange indicator light still comes on, but still no charge. The blinking charging icon also comes on (at the top right of the 3DS touch pad). Additionally, I've tried playing while plugged in and the 3DS has died on me, so I cannot even plug it in for a power source.
I would really like to be able to charge through the regular port as I cannot charge and play at the same time with the dock, so any suggestions would be useful. I also took a look at the motherboard itself and didn't see any obvious loose solders around the port area. I have access to a multimeter if doing some continuity tests between the pins/battery would shed some light on the problem as well... Anyways, it doesn't seem like this is too common of a problem as I haven't been able to find much about the web, so I may end up having to send it in for repairs.
Thanks in advance!