Weird one, but there's always that feeling that it's my mistake. It's just too suspicious.

So the matter is one of those cheap game consoles you see on AliExpress. This one could do PS1 emulation as well, so sounds cool.

Welp, first a software issue. It wouldn't boot. I contacted the seller, he said it worked, and has been laying unused for 2 years, and that I can find guides on how to fix it myself.
OK, the software is booting from SD card and happens to be Linux based. In fact, it's just EmuELEC with "Kinhank" skin. Checking the hashes on there, I found SquashFS file to be corrupted. I tried Manjaro ARM unsuccessfully, and then went back to EmuELEC, also copying the required device tree blob image which happened to survive.

Software fixed. Mostly. I don't know if the ROMs are OK. By the way, there's also a random .exe with trash icon that gets 29 detections on VirusTotal.
But anyway, this would still fly with me.

Issue 2, the controllers don't work. Just some cheap ones with 2.4GHz dongles. I found others with same issue based on status LEDs, and the solutions are none. I tried them with my PC, I tried them with the original software just replacing the SquashFS, I tried in another room just in case it's RFI, I tried connecting one of the controllers to 3V PSU. Nothing.

So I once again wrote to the seller.
But now I feel bad. How the fuck does just everything break?