Original Xbox w/ Mod chip: Disk drive and power button don't work

I picked up an original Xbox with a mod chip installed into it (an Xecutor one from the looks of it, don't know the specific type) and after cleaning the console I plugged it in, mod chip disabled, and without pressing the power button it booted up like normal. So after messing about with the console and mod I was relatively pleased, that is until I realized that the power button doesn't work. Even if I try to shut it down from the EvolutionX OS it starts up again. In fact the only way I can turn off the darn thing is to unplug the power cord. Then I found out that the eject button now works as a reset switch, meaning that I can't open the disk drive to play games, if the drive even works at all.

[GALLERY=media, 2040]xbox-with-mod chip by IndigoIllusive posted Feb 1, 2017 at 3:20 PM[/GALLERY]

I'm wondering if this is due to the mod chip not being installed properly, I didn't notice when I was cleaning up the console if that was the case, or some other malfunction with the hardware. I also wanna know if this is something that I could fix, or if it would be better to just get another Xbox. This one was about $20 from a thrift store, and there was at least one other I saw in the store the other day so I'm not too anxious about having to buy another if that's my only other option.

Here's some video footage I took to help demonstrate the issue:


I'd greatly appreciate some help on this. Thanks.

 

this is very fixable, what causes this is the leaky clock cap usually, but ive seen it on systems with no clock cap failure, the traces for those buttons are run on the bottom of the board at the very very edge, for some reason it doesnt take barely any corrosion at all to break them, your odd results with the buttons is the exact behavior ive experienced when this is an issue.

http://fillwithcoolblogname.blogspot.com/2011/02/1st-gen-xbox-trace-corrosion-repair.html this is the site i pulled my data from to make repairs, its pretty straight forward, you can either attempt to find the break, or you can bypass the traces completely directly to the chip, which is what i prefer to do because ive had the traces break again on a repaired console on the section of trace i left...

and since this is something that can be caused by the clock cap leaking, if you have a 1.0-1.5, make sure youve removed the clock cap and cleaned up the mess it assuredly left.

Edit: Just realized i wasnt specific about how to make the repair, the pictures on that website show the plug for the button panel, with the signals being routed on the top side of the motherboard from the plug to 2 resistors(red and blue in the pics), then passing to the bottom of the board through 2 vias and into the trouble area, (these are marked with purple and teal). what you want to do is to solder a wire to the purple/teal side of the resistors, and run it to the correct pin on the chip, and solder it to the pin.... these are small soldering points, so a bit of experience soldering tiny stuff would help.

 

You could have bad traces not related to the clock cap. I had them on my 1.3, clock cap wasn't leaking.

 

Well, I'm about to make the repair, but I'm still not sure about where to solder the ends of the wire from the resistors. I'm seeing three points on the left edge of the board along some traces and I've read through some tutorials that do it this way, but your instruction makes it seem like I should solder the ends to pins on a chip, something that none of the tutorials I read mentioned. I would like some clarification please.

 

So the traces start at the resistors, go a few millimeters, then go under the board through some vias, run along the edge of the board to some other vias, and go back on top under/around the chip, the entire traces under the board are where the corrosion takes place, so i like to bypass the entirety of the traces underneath, heres how i connect them... obviously i dont run the wires completely straight like my example but it should provide you a decent roadmap, i like to avoid the areas for the extra ram in case i ever do that mod too to the box im working on, but all of your work should be on the top of the board, your looking at the bottom in your picture

 

Well, the voltage meter was getting a decent consistency, so I wanna say I did okay considering this was my first real soldering job. What do you think? Or should I try again?

 

those are some mighty big solder blobs and a lot of excess exposed wire that might be pushed down to touch something, make SURE you only have connectivity with the right places.... and possibly toss a dot of hot glue at the long exposed sections of wire above the solder blobs to make sure they dont accidentally get pressed down on top of another component during assembly.... then test it out...

 

both the wires on the chip look like they need some work, get them up higher and make sure the solder blob isnt touching the nearby legs!

 

Okay. I re soldered one of the wires on the chip, it was touching a nearby leg and that wasn't too hard to correct, then I hot glued them down as well as on the soldered bits themselves. After a slight reassembly and testing, I have some good news and some bad news.

Good news: The buttons have been fixed, the disk drive actually works and the power cable doesn't have to be taken out everytime I want to turn off the system.

Bad news: Although everything else seems to run fine, I must've nicked something either during the fix or reassembly because the video appears to be glitchy. Not massively so, but there are now these dots, kinda like dead pixels, in the video that pop in and out all over, making everything seem grainy and weird. Well...crap.

I don't think fixing electronics is something I'll want to put on my resume anytime soon.

EDIT: Alright, I don't wanna beat myself up too much. Considering I had no formal training and only practiced just hours before the actual job, it wasn't too bad. I did get the whole kinks patched up which was my entire goal. The weird video glitch isn't that noticeable anyway, the actual "dead pixels" are really tiny, and while playing a game it doesn't get in the way at all, so I can kinda live with that. At least until I either fix it or get another console.

I wanted to get a picture, but it doesn't come out well on my tablet or phone cameras, they just can't pick this kinda thing up I don't think. They are visible to the naked eye though, you'll just have to take my word on that one.

 

ok, well, that could be a few things, but the first thing i would try is moving the wires to another area of the board, you may be inadvertently adding noise to the video with them.... a way to test this would be to boot the system with everything hooked up but out of the way so you can move the wires, move them around a bit and see if it causes artifacts on the screen... if so, then you know thats your problem, there is also the possibility you dropped a solder blob on the board from the tip of the iron and its arcing something, look carefully at the board in any areas where you held the soldering iron over it, there is also the chance that this is the AV cable/port, as ive seen them get old and worn and do something similar to what youre describing, try wiggling it to see if it changes, probably do this first before the wires inside... im just brain dumping possibilities and this one should be first but came out second...

all in all though, id call it a success for a first ever fix job by a noob, you achived the results you were looking for and got some good practice!

 

and just another note, i have no formal training either, i started with a TERRIBLE self install of a psx modchip in the late 90s, glad no pictures exist of that butchered thing, it worked though... but basically have been soldering on a weekly basis since then as a hobby, both automotive and gaming stuff, practice makes perfect! also, good tools help, if you start doing it more and more dont be afraid to pay for things like PCB clamps, good irons, magnifying glasses, etc... also, practice on less mission critical stuff, i.e. build your own simple devices, a recent one i enjoyed was building one of the SNES to Genesis controller adapters from Raphnet
http://www.raphnet.net/electronique/snes2md/index_en.php
its a good project because its self contained, failure wouldnt rob you of anything but the time, and the time was still good because of the practice, and depending on how serious you take it, it can teach you about how a lot of things work, like how data signals work from the snes controller, how multiplexing works from the genesis controllers (and what the genesis expects to receive) and also some AVR programming if you bother to look at the source and/or want to customize your setup, like changing the auto selected button layout to suit your needs!

if you have a genesis i highly recommend trying this one, and once you get it working, it has the benefit of you can now use a Snes 8bitdo controller/receiver to have a nice wireless controller setup for your genesis (helpful hint: if you have a sega master system, build 2, it works on that too!)

im terrible at AVR programming and im using it to teach myself as im trying to convert Raphs source to output correctly for PC engine so i can have a nice wireless controller for that too!

youll need a programmer to program the chip, i recommend a TL866, lots of bang for buck with that one, but not the best thing on the market, just very affordable for what it can do!

 

Well, I was messing with wires and then I noticed that one of those little things (I don't know what they actually are) near the bottom of the board was apparently smashed at some point.
I'm not sure if that's a factor in why there's noise in the video output, but I just thought you should know about it.

(It's the bit next to the 60)

I've been messing with the wires a bit and I've noticed no change yet, but I'm gonna keep finagling with it 'til I see what's up.

Thank you so much for the words of encouragement by the way, it really means a lot.

EDIT: And in messing with the wires, the solder on the resistors came off. However, the console still works normally, so I'm conflicted on actually re soldering them. I mean, it might be wise to do that, but if the fix still worked, I dunno...

EDIT 2: Screw it I just resoldered the points and moved the wires in different places.

 

did you try to wiggle the AV cable? also, its possible that one of the wires was not needed as it may have been the other line that was bad, but since they both tend to rot, its better to do both, also i dont see what youre talking about being smashed, but most of whats right there near the extra ram pads is not required and unless shorted, shouldnt cause any problems.

 

Tried wiggling the cable and end socket but sadly no dice. But like I said, I'm just happy that the power and eject function correctly and I can live with the minor noise and stuff.

 

well that sucks, im a perfectionist though... im tempted to see if i have a spare mobo that i can flash the nand on and send you that doesnt have interference/noise issues and doesnt have the power/eject issue...

 

Funny you say that, because I just tried the eject button and now it doesn't work, after I just re did the solder job. Chalk up a point to me!
If you do have a spare board and wanna send it over, that would actually be really nice. If not I could find one online and try to get the modchip on that.

 

ill look tmrw, i cant today, no guarantees though, i usually keep spares to steal parts from, im not sure i have one thats still 100%

 

Possible bad wire ribbon only?

 

I appreciate the gesture nonetheless.

That I wouldn't know much about. Amusingly though, I just looked up, "original xbox bad wire ribbon" and this thread is the second search result.

 

no go on the spare board, sorry