Flaky Xbox - what's the cause?

I wouldn't worry too much about getting another one with the same problem. Whilst it's possible, it's not probable. I've had at least a dozen xboxes come and go over the years and have only come across this once myself.

 

I've had 5 different consoles so far and despite a 1.1 that's in China getting modded by Trusty right now having a leaking clock cap it still was running fine and had no signs of corrosion. All the others seemed to be fine and had no leaking clock caps. I have 3 more on the way and one is a debug unit. Saw pictures of the board and it looks almost brand spanking new. Chances of getting another console with trace corrosion are pretty low unless you get the ones that are labeled as "in need of repair". The 1.1 console I got for $19 shipped was labeled that due to a sticky DVD drive tray. That was an easy fix.

 

Fibre Glass pencil, not sandpaper.

 

Well I'm def. Going to snip the clock cap out regardless on the replacement.

 

Be careful with the clock cap on a soft mod by the way.

 

Why is that?

 

If you screw it up you will get an error 16. Here's what error 16 is:

 

So you're saying the concern is if I were to screw up the softmod? I'm confused because I rarely leave the Xbox plugged in all the time. Often it's unplugged for days, weeks, like most of my older systems. And the clock comes up as 2001 when you start it up.

 

Well. That's because the clock cap is drained and can't keep the RTC (Real Time Clock) going. This is only a problem when the HDD has been wiped and the clock capacitor goes empty. The clock can't find the last set time from the dash and has been reset because the power to it got interrupted. Thus you get error 16.

This is only an issue if you wipe the drive, power the console down for too long (or right away if the cap is gone or completely dead), and then restart it.

 

Well I don't "intend" on wiping the drive! After swapping HDD's, I'll keep the old one aside anyway.

 

The clock check is part of the XBOX bios, so even if you have the original drive it will still ask for a clock setting and possibly go on a clock check loop without a cap.

 

Yikes, how is that prevented? By replacing the cap with another? I'll leave the thing on there, but if it's already leaking....

 

Correct.

 

So this is annoying... I got another Xbox (V1.6 I think), and it's working fine. Upgraded to 500GB HDD. Well the chassis was really beat up on it, so I swapped it with mine (V1.3), with the only electronic component that I didn't swap being the front power/eject assembly, DVD drive (mine was still working) and the fan. Swapped the motherboards, controller ports, and power supply. I've left my old one plugged in, and it's not had any issues. So I'm like what the hell?!?! All I did besides swapping parts was to clean off some dirt, and mine had very little. I'm also wondering if those marks on the bottom of the board, which I thought were bad traces/corrosion, could possibly have been marks of wear from where the board rests on the plastic pegs from the chassis. Very aggravating.

 

You shouldn't swap motherboards in other cases unless you remove the shielding or tin standoff points. You'll kill the motherboard, or damage it...

 

Really, how? I always thought (in principle) it would be the same as swapping a PC motherboard into another case?

 

Well there was one screw column on the 1.3 which wasn't there on the 1.6. I shaved it down though.

 

i have one with same symptoms , are these made in aka bad batch run? or just the plant that produced these. my clock cap wasnt leaking but i do have corrosion on my traces.also the metal shielding underneath?

 

The shielding is horrible, nearly all my systems have the rust. It is possible to remove this by sanding away the rust, with sand paper or steel wool. Then lathering the shielding with any type of oil... (not cooking oil ) and it shouldn't come back again.

Corrosion on the motherboard can happen even without a leaking capacitor, it's how they were made. Luckily none of my systems have the issue, the amount of XBOXes I've seen that have this issue are the ones left in bad storage with lots of humidity.