Flaky Xbox - what's the cause?

My original Xbox has been flaky for a few years, but I don't use it very much. I'd like to though. I took it apart yesterday, and had a good look at it. I did not see any corrosion or leaky caps, but it seems to have the symptoms of bad traces. Will turn itself on randomly, shuts off/reboots randomly, sometimes hitting eject turns it off, etc. Board is V1.3. Would I be able to see bad traces with the naked eye? Could it be a PSU problem instead? I want to do a softmod on it and replace the HDD, but not going to bother on this particular system if it needs a MBoard. Thanks for any help.

 

Bad power button PCB?

 

Your power button probably broke off or it's loose. Maybe there is a loose metal part between the case and the PCB.
Vibrations will cause it to activate. Therefore pressing eject also causes the power button to be pressed.

There is no such thing as "randomly turning on" with a faulty motherboard. There might be a problem with PSU power spikes though - But it's highly unlikely.

 

I have fixed a similar issue on several xbox. But usually they are constantly turning on and off. Indeed caused by bad traces on motherboard.
Maybe yours is not as advanced so i does it "randomly" instead of every 1-3 second?

I found the tutorial I used back then. Hope this can help you, sounds like you have very similar issue.
http://www.theisozone.com/tutorials/xbox/hardware-and-modding/trace-corrosion-repair/

 

It could be simply the PSU connector, Check for any broken joints.

 

Have a good look at the underside/front of the mother board with a magnifier, I am nearly certain your problem is corroding traces, when they corrode they build up resistance before they actually break, and the link that MaxWar posted will help you a lot.

 

Crap yes the traces in this area have that dark discoloring, which is the corrosion I suspect. How the heck does that happen? The clock cap isn't even leaking!



The system will randomly turn itself on, but not constantly. It could go 24 hours, it could go 24 minutes, after I shut it back off. I really wouldn't care about that, or even that the eject button can sometimes turn it off, or closing of the tray does. It's when it started rebooting/shutting off when I was playing a game that is unacceptable.

Unfortunately, I do not have the solder skills to fix this. I've asked a few knowledgeable guys in the past, but we always came to the conclusion that it made no $ sense to ship it across the country to be fixed, when used Xbox's cost $20-$40. I'll probably just get another one.

 

With the price of the xbox it would make no sense to ship this and get it fixed , it would be best to get another xbox and either sell this or Go buy a soldering iron and open up some old electronics and start practicing.

 

My concern on getting another used Xbox is that it will have the same problem, and I won't know immediately. That's why I haven't replaced this one. You have to figure most all of them have corrosion in that area from the clock caps.

 

I have never had one like this , usually "for me" it's the disc drive , so save the one you have. Buy a cheap soldering iron from Radio Shack , open up something with an old board and let the games begin. There are a lot of good people on this site with soldering skills that I am sure would give you some tips.

If you don't ever wish to solder then just go to goodwill and buy an Xbox.

 

This problem only affects some batches of Xbox, not all. Apparently due to a corrosive contamination from the factory. Unfortunately I know no way of identifying them.
It is not such a hard repair to do though with decent soldering skills and a minimum of material. You just find the bad trace, isolate both ends and solder a wire in between. Did this repair 2-3 times with perfect results.

 

For a cheap iron, some 30awg kynar wire, solder it's going to be $20.00 bucks but on the other hand the iron can be used to Tsop it as well and might start him on a whole new hobby.

When I soldered mine the pads were so small even using my magnifier lamp. I tinned the ends of the wire well, put a dab of flux on the pad, held the wire against the pad using some tape to hold it in place and just touched the iron tip to the end of the tinned wire touching the pad and voila it was done.

Since it's a V1.3 you probably need to clean the coating off the solder points with some acetone (nail polish remover) before soldering.

Use the tutorial that MaxWar posted, it's the one I followed to make sure you solder the wires to the right points. It's only four wires at the most.

You can get some 30awg wrapping wire, a 25watt pencil iron, 60/40 solder and some flux from Radio Shack.

 

^this.
I agree the difficulty here lies in the tininess of the solder spots, maybe not an ideal first job for someone who never soldered on motherboards, but on the other end shipping it for repair is gonna cost more than a new xbox. I used a magnifying glass to work this too.

 

I've tried soldering/desoldering before, I make a complete mess, it's not pretty. Even if I were to do this, the board could further corrode in other places, right?

 

The corrosion seems to be limited to that area, it is something in the industrial process that left a corrosive residue in that particular area. Or a problem in the washing of the board during manufacture. In any case I have not heard about traces just breaking like that in other areas. At least not without human intervention.

 

That sucks Greg, well if you're not comfortable with soldering I would suggest to use that $20 and find another XBOX.
Look at it this way also, the board is dead - use it to practise on and you never know you might fix it on the way. I ruined my Sega Saturn installing a modchip, practised on an XBOX for a while then BAM went back to the Saturn and got it up and running again! So don't doubt yourself over a few soldering jobs. It all takes practise and I have a shaky hand myself...

So people use sandpaper, grind the board down to the copper and at a few jumper wires. I'm not too sure how good that is or not but when repairing arcade boards that's what I've seen "modders/repairers" do.

 

Its not dead, it only needs a trace shorted. You are better off practicing on some truly dead PC board, might get lucky and maybe get one from local repair shops.

 

It's dead to someone who isn't very good at soldering though, it would be good for him to practise on the board so he'll know if he did good or not. Another thing is, it won't break the bank if he has to buy another complete XBOX.

 

Never seen those broken PCB traces on an Xbox.
I have always thought that if the PCB would break it would do so in the high density areas around the CPU for example.

I take back what I said. I guess you really learn something new every day.

 

Appreciate the advice. Not sure I have the motivation/time/energy to bother with fixing the board. I just have to wait for my USB adapter so I can "softmod" this one and get all my files off the hard drive. I have access to old Xbox's cheap at a local store, just wouldn't know the "true" motherboard condition of them without opening. I need to install a 250gb or 500gb HDD as well, so I may just get a system preloaded/modded and checked out from a site like gameovary.com.