I've had my 3DS since about late July 2011, and ever since then it's been working great. Since the last few days, however, the whole system seems like it's broken for good.
The first sign that something wasn't right was when the YouTube app was constantly crashing. I'd be watching a video when all of a sudden, the video would suddenly pause, and my 3DS would exit the application, saying somehing like this: "An error has occurred. Please restart the system and try again." I'd restart it, but on occasion it would still crash.
Later, however, the app stopped working entiely. Once I started YouTube, I'd be left with a blank white screen on the bottom screen that would just stay like that no matter how long I waited.
I decided that maybe if I deleted and then reinstalled YouTube, it would work again. I didn't delete YouTube yet because I wanted to see the reviews for YouTube on the eShop; if people were giving it a low amount of stars, then maybe other people were having the same problem as I did. When I went to the eShop, however, I never got to see the reviews because the eShop wouldn't load. I was stuck on the loading screen for about 5 minutes when I got a message that said there was an error, and I should try to load it again later. After waiting a while, restarting the system, and then launching the eShop again, still no luck.
The Internet Browser doesn't work either. Not even the Nintendo homepage that comes up when you start the browser comes up.
I then went to the system settings to check my Internet connection. It took a few minutes for it to confirm the connection, but it still worked, to my surprise.
3DS sound was next on the list to break down. 3DS sound has been working fine for me in the last few days, even though I've been having these Internet problems with the eShop, YouTube, and the Internet browser. Today, while I was listening to some music on it, I noticed that the songs started skipping like a broken record player. I turned off the system, took out the SD card (it appeared fine and normal to me), put it back in, turned the system back on, and when I started 3DS sound, the problem got worse. Now none of my playlists would even load on the intro screen.
The whole system is just extremely slow too. Pressing the home button takes a while to actually register on the system, and when it does finally register, I get stuck on the blank screen that just says 'HOME' on the bottom screen for over a minute. It sometimes takes a while to scroll through apps on the main menu, on occasion over 30 seconds to get to another game or app after pressing one of the arrow buttons or using the circle pad.
So, after reading this, how can I fix my 3DS? Can I fix it at home, do I need to have it repaired by tech support, or do I need to buy a new system?
Thanks in advance for any advice.