XBMC4Xbox

I just took delivery of what looks like a 1.4 or 1.5 Xbox that looked pristine inside , not even any dust , so I was tempted just to leave the clock capacitor as it looked perfect ;
however common sense got the better of me and I let my 5 year old son pull it out with a pair of fine pointy nosed pliers ; I am glad I did .
Out of the bottom and just starting to pool on the motherboard was the dreaded corroded goo that has killed so many boxes over the years .I cleaned it all up with cotton buds and it's all good now so just got to it in the nick of time .

So the moral of the story is , no matter what else you do get those capacitors out of your Xboxes or it will end in tears

I got a 1.0 that was quite clean inside, the clock cap was still intact and board looked fine, so i thought maybe i should leave it, laughed a little and desoldered it, still have it.

What does this capacitor do? What impact does removing it have on the XBox?

The only thing it does is leak and kill your Xbox , seriously though it just keeps the time on your Xbox after you unplug it but if you are running xbmc4xbox with your box connected to the internet it keeps time automatically anyway .
All you need to do is waggle it about and it comes off the board .

Yeah you could waggle it..... but, ive done that it came out incomplete and had clear gel on it so it had to desolder anyway, now i do it everytime.

Excuse my ignorance, but does anyone have a good tutorial with pictures for removing this?

Here you go http://m.youtube.com/watch?v=ZvH0X8698jU
It is very easy , make sure your Xbox is not a 1.6 first , locate the capacitor , it's the middle one in a cluster of three , bottom left of your board and it will say Aerogel on its side , that's the one .
If you are a soldering iron man , fill your boots and take the board out and de solder it from underneath .
I personally just waggle them about and they come off nice and clean for me every time , I've used this method many times .
Good luck

I have seen some boards with the clock cap that looks like it leaked. What is the best way to clean leakage and avoid damage?

I think the general consensus is cotton buds with either methylated spirits or water .
I just use a very small amount of water then dry it straight up with a fresh cotton bud
Others suggest then using the meths to go over the area .

I agree with the original poster that you should just remove this capacitor regardless what shape it is in. You can just wiggle it with two fingers and it will come off. Cleaning is still tricky so if anyone got a good idea on how to clean that white stuff off the motherboard, please post!

I use this on circuit boards, easily found on Amazon etc, cheap. Normally get cheaper buds lol,
but these were on offer, cant resist a bargain.