XBMC4Xbox

Hi, picked up an xbox for parts and thought I would see if I could revive it. It powers up green light then goes into red and green flashing light. I opened it up and it is pretty clean apart from it looks like it was either seating on something damp or had something spilled on it. There is some corrosion below the board and a little bit of corrosion on the board on the front left side under the dvd drive. The capacitors look fine, no leaks. Is there a list for fault finding and an order to workout the problem? Thanks

Do you get anything on your screen ? Error codes or anything .

hawsey wrote:Do you get anything on your screen ? Error codes or anything .

No, nothing. So from reading around is it most likely to be either the motherboard or hdd? Do you think there might be a short caused by the corrosion? Is it worth doing a continuity test in that area Thanks

So you have your lead plugged in and connected to the tv , switch on then green then flashing red green lights .

I am not a massive expert here but I think probably your board considering what you have said ; the first thing I would do regardless of whether you think it is leaking is to remove the clock capacitor ( videos on YouTube on how to do this ) assuming it is a 1 to 1.5 motherboard as 1.6 s don't have them .
If you are going to try fix it , I would wait until you get another reply or two then make your plan
I have a box with clock cap corrosion which just switches on as soon as its plugged in and was advised as you said , magnifying glass , check for continuity , short , dis etc and also clean the board , I just got as far as cleaning the board !!
Good luck
Anybody else jump in here feel free

all xbox consoles have clock caps on them it is just the 1.6 version ones seem to be of better quality, they are usually yellow and black on the 1.6 and are by the ide port.

First things first show us some pictures:-) of the motherboard dammage then we might be able to help more.

professor_jonny wrote:all xbox consoles have clock caps on them it is just the 1.6 version ones seem to be of better quality, they are usually yellow and black on the 1.6 and are by the ide port.

First things first show us some pictures:-) of the motherboard dammage then we might be able to help more.

Okay, it will take about a week for the pictures as I am now away for a week. It is a 1.6 and the cap looks fine. Thanks

Ging3rguy wrote:

professor_jonny wrote:all xbox consoles have clock caps on them it is just the 1.6 version ones seem to be of better quality, they are usually yellow and black on the 1.6 and are by the ide port.

First things first show us some pictures:-) of the motherboard dammage then we might be able to help more.

Okay, it will take about a week for the pictures as I am now away for a week. It is a 1.6 and the cap looks fine. Thanks

Okay, so I have uploaded pictures of the effected area, the underside of the board is a lot cleaner. I have cleaned off a lot of the oxidation.
It was pale blue and white furring. There are a few dark blue blobs, but I think they are off the old toothbrush I used for cleaning!!
http://s1379.photobucket.com/user/ging3rguy/library/

Could we get a closer pic of this please? Looks like it could be a trace pulled up.

asbo wrote:Could we get a closer pic of this please? Looks like it could be a trace pulled up.

Hi, I have uploaded a few more pics just to show the back of the board, which is very clean when you see the state of the inside of the case. It was dirt or some form of detritus on the trace. I am guessing the problem is the motherboard because there is no image on the screen. The corroded components are all down in the bottom right hand corner, if you were looking down on to the board. I found the original problem with the box, when I opened up the dvd rom there were 2 disk trapped inside! I guess it just got left somewhere damp after that. Thanks
http://s1379.photobucket.com/user/ging3 ... re%20Oxbox

Well I have been having a read on the internet and I think the problem may be the 2 mosfets in the picture above, the problems are you need to get them off the board to test them and it would cost more to replace them than to get another box

What is the led error code?

ie, flashes Green for 1/2 second 3 times, restarts & solid Green.

The above code is a bad eeprom flash, ie, it's corrupt or the wrong eeprom was flashed to the Xbox.
(you will get no video or audio with the above issues)

Rocky5 wrote:What is the led error code?

ie, flashes Green for 1/2 second 3 times, restarts & solid Green.

The above code is a bad eeprom flash, ie, it's corrupt or the wrong eeprom was flashed to the Xbox.
(you will get no video or audio with the above issues)

flashes Green for 1/2 second 3 times, restarts & green/red flashing. Which can mean a lot of different things?

Oh wow, that poor case!
Considering the state of it I'd be inclined to test the power supply, they usually seem to survive most things but you should probably rule it out.

asbo wrote:Oh wow, that poor case!
Considering the state of it I'd be inclined to test the power supply, they usually seem to survive most things but you should probably rule it out.

The fan kicks in and I did manage to get the dvd rom to eject but only the once, but you can hear it turn. So I think it's good for power, I guess I should put a meter on it to check it is putting out the right voltages.

okay, so I tested the voltages out of the power unit and they are good, I could also hear the dvd rom and the hdd power up.

What Rocky says is probably correct. Your next challenge is to replace the EEPROM data.

You're highly likely to need an EEPROM reader/writer and a copy of Ponyprog - and a serial port on a PC.
http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/140521532676
http://www.lancos.com/prog.html
http://www.lcdparts.net/Images/DB/STEP3_500.jpg

...and good EEPROM data, appropriate for your motherboard revision, from somewhere.

spicemuseum wrote:What Rocky says is probably correct. Your next challenge is to replace the EEPROM data.

You're highly likely to need an EEPROM reader/writer and a copy of Ponyprog - and a serial port on a PC.
http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/140521532676
http://www.lancos.com/prog.html
http://www.lcdparts.net/Images/DB/STEP3_500.jpg

...and good EEPROM data, appropriate for your motherboard revision, from somewhere.

Okay, well likely I have a usb to serial 9 pin adapter. I was thinking of making up an eeprom reader, but that one look really good value, by the time I've gone out and bought the parts and paid for fuel it's probably cheaper
Thanks for the info, I'll let you know how it goes.

Okay, so I ended up making an eeprom reader just because... Not sure it liked being connected to the computer via a usb to 9 pin serial connector. But after a few tries I managed to lift the info. The serial number matched the box, the only number I was unsure of was 'DVD kit zone 00'. So does this tell me that the eeprom is okay?
Thanks

Right now I'm really confused. Made up my eeprom reader and wasn't 100% sure it was working properly with the usb to 9 pin serial connector, so I opened up my 1.6 and couldn't get it to read. Then read that 1.6s are a bit trickier to read and I needed to hook it up to the TV and connect after the flubber screen. Worked a treat. So while I was there I tried it on the frag box and it loaded the flubber screen. So I read the eeprom again. So I attached the dvd rom and sat it in the box no joy. Started then froze. So I disconnected it left the leads attached, got the flubber screen. So attached dvd rom out of the box, got flubber. Attached hdd booted to clock. Attached controller to port 1 no control, same for 2 and 3 but fine on 4. While I was trying these options it glitched and froze. Managed to set the clock and load to the menu and into system. had a few more glitches, it started getting hot so I have given it a rest for know. I did put the dvd rom and hdd back in to help the airflow loaded up to clock and the glitched out a couple of times more. Suggestions please.
As I have loaded as far as the menu screen can I take it the bios is fine Am I looking for a short Or several shorts Thanks

Probably a bit late but I see a lot of corrosion there. I would clean the motherboard with alcohol 95%+ and a tooth brush and check again what happens.
I have a 1.4 xbox fragging and it had also a lot of corrosion caused by the clock capacitor. I cleaned it and even added some jumper wire in some traces that were already gone and it is still fragging. not sure if the eeprom got damaged. Waiting for aladdin xt to arrive in order to see if it boots with the modchip installed.