u/Few-Locksmith2075

https://preview.redd.it/ztyb10m20r4h1.png?width=1210&format=png&auto=webp&s=13dff603ab0750ccaa56a346a7c54e3c4fd1896e

Look at where the black arrow is pointing. That gap looks strange to me for some reason.

https://preview.redd.it/29xsk54pl54h1.jpg?width=3024&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=61aa01fd38aa1aa089d3f57e0b9ec2e0c6b635ec

TL;DR: My 3DS's broken digitizer got replaced with an almost pristine digitizer from a Japanese 3DS, but tiny dead zones appeared a few weeks after the replacement. The digitizer could be damaged, but the dead zones are so small and plentiful that there could just be foreign material trapped under the digitizer, which I hope is the case because cleaning it should resolve the problem.

This 3DS went through 2 replacement digitizers. It was given to me with an aftermarket one that kept skipping while dragging and I had to press down hard to get it to not skip (the instruction manual for the 3DS says you don't have to press hard). A giant dead zone eventually appeared on the left and it had to get replaced. I found a Japanese 3DS labeled "for parts" that I was able to test and its digitizer was very good; it didn't skip and the edges of the screen correctly responded (no dead zones). There was one flaw though: the entire bottom screen wiggled around in the housing. I took my American 3DS back to where I got it to have its broken digitizer replaced with the one from the Japanese one. A few days later, I got my American 3DS back with its new digitizer installed. It took much more effort to slide the bottom screen around, but the digitizer was still working perfectly until a few days ago when I took this picture. I ran my stylus down the very left of the screen and the black line didn't touch the edge. There were tiny dead zones on both sides of the screen.

I assume a giant dead zone means the digitizer is damaged and needs to be replaced, but this digitizer is suffering from very small dead zones. Apparently this could be caused by foreign material getting stuck under the digitizer rather than damage, which I hope is the case because the Japanese 3DS's digitizer was almost pristine and it might've been an OEM one because it worked so well. I assume the screen wiggling around caused foreign materials to get stuck underneath.

I know this is rushed but I was gonna use gba backup tool to do something with my gba games so i could play them on 3ds but there was something wrong with it because it didn't apply dldi patches and a long time ago i found the dldi patch that it needed so i used it on nesds and it worked but the dldi file i needed to patch it with was on a different drive so i got the same one from the internet but it had some differences so it didn't work so i got the dldi that worked with nesds from my hard drive and i put it on the microsd but when i put the r4 in my DS it didn't read no matter what I did.