chysalis Posted December 26, 2024 Report Share Posted December 26, 2024 Check out the damage on this 2003 Xbox I opened up yesterday. Two traces needed repair on the board. Corroded right through the board in some places. Going to do a full recap on this one and got rid of most of the rust. 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
fox Posted December 26, 2024 Report Share Posted December 26, 2024 those SMD joints may need a complete redo, the last board I cleaned had leakage crud on it that bad and kept throwing an error code on startup, I guess the acid chewed into those joints enough to halt electrical flow or whatever Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
PRince404 Posted December 27, 2024 Report Share Posted December 27, 2024 I don't want to know the amount of Xbox(s) that got trashed because of this then the amount which got trashed when a N00b was trying to repair them. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
big F Posted December 27, 2024 Report Share Posted December 27, 2024 (edited) I had similar a few years back luckily the actual damage was only to the clock cap connections and once I removed the SMD components and cleaned everything it all went together again and works to this day. Edited December 27, 2024 by big F Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SS_Dave Posted December 27, 2024 Report Share Posted December 27, 2024 I have had quite a few in here for repair that are missing some of the components, The only reason it was here for repair was the Power and Eject switching traces on the bottom had been fully corroded though. It's not just Xbox's that have the same failure, I have seen Car audio, Home heaters, Home entertainment systems all have similar damage. This is a BMW radio that had one speaker not working. Cheers SS Dave Soft modding is like masturbating, It gets the job done but it's nothing like the real thing. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
chysalis Posted Sunday at 11:35 PM Author Report Share Posted Sunday at 11:35 PM (edited) Same board. Had bulging capacitors, funny enough the xbox still worked even with these bulging caps after clock cap damage was fixed. I replaced the bulging caps with Panasonic ones reccomended on the forum that I purchased from Digikey. I just ended up replacing the three 6.3v and two 10v with five new 10v 3300uf caps. Edited Sunday at 11:40 PM by chysalis Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
chysalis Posted Sunday at 11:37 PM Author Report Share Posted Sunday at 11:37 PM (edited) And the result of replacement. I also softmodded it and successfully replaced the harddrive to a new 1tb sata drive. I also just ordered a pico board to hardmod the xbox. I'm just going to use a blank 4x6 pcb board to use as a base adapter for pico that will plug into the lpc port on the board. Edited Sunday at 11:47 PM by chysalis Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SS_Dave Posted Monday at 12:30 AM Report Share Posted Monday at 12:30 AM 52 minutes ago, chysalis said: And the result of replacement. I also softmodded it and successfully replaced the harddrive to a new 1tb sata drive. I also just ordered a pico board to hardmod the xbox. I'm just going to use a blank 4x6 pcb board to use as a base adapter for pico that will plug into the lpc port on the board. Why not just flash the onboard bios chip? Cheers SS Dave Soft modding is like masturbating, It gets the job done but it's nothing like the real thing. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
big F Posted Monday at 06:59 AM Report Share Posted Monday at 06:59 AM 7 hours ago, chysalis said: Same board. Had bulging capacitors, funny enough the xbox still worked even with these bulging caps after clock cap damage was fixed. I replaced the bulging caps with Panasonic ones reccomended on the forum that I purchased from Digikey. I just ended up replacing the three 6.3v and two 10v with five new 10v 3300uf caps. Serviced quite a few P3 boards that had cap bulge like that in the day. 99% still worked fine, and were in for other issues. Always seemed to be the ones that surround the CPU die. Didnt matter the make of board always the same. Its like they were universally under spec’d. My thinking is the bench line specs supplied to the OEM’s from Intel were a little off. It wouldnt be thefirst time and certainly has not been the last. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
chysalis Posted 18 hours ago Author Report Share Posted 18 hours ago On 1/19/2025 at 7:30 PM, SS_Dave said: Why not just flash the onboard bios chip? Cheers SS Dave Soft modding is like masturbating, It gets the job done but it's nothing like the real thing. I don't know. The softmodding I did because I just wanted to try it then that led to backing up the eeprom to getting a new sata 1tb harddrive. Pico seems like an easy install, I'll make it so it plugs into the LPC debug port. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
big F Posted 12 hours ago Report Share Posted 12 hours ago Anything thats not a 1.6 board can be flashed without the need to ever install a mod chip. In fact its easier, less soldering nothing to buy, if you have one of the softmod games and the game save needed you are already 75% there. I flash most of mine that way just because once the soldering is done you just put it back together, load the game softmod then push the flash from there. All thats needed after that is a harddrive swap to give you more space. If you dont need it you can just screw it back together…. Job done. The only reason you need a chip is if you are using a 1.6. Or plan to use some of the more specialist functions a modded box can do. just playing backed up games or emulating old consoles and arcade cabs is not a reason to do a full mod chip mod. That requirement died when the OG could no longer go on XboxLive. I only do it now if someone asks for it or Im feeling nostalgic. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SS_Dave Posted 11 hours ago Report Share Posted 11 hours ago 7 hours ago, chysalis said: I don't know. The softmodding I did because I just wanted to try it then that led to backing up the eeprom to getting a new sata 1tb harddrive. Pico seems like an easy install, I'll make it so it plugs into the LPC debug port. You can even use Endgame that boots to Xblast then flash the bios via FTP, No special game needed all you need is two links on the board.. Too simple.. I have been flashing Xbox boards since version 1.1 was released and all with out soft modding the Xbox 1st. The 1st re-flash I did was trick the Xbox with a game save to load Linux then Telnet to the Xbox and pray it worked as there was nothing on the Xbox screen and the only give away was the LED when orange as it was flashing then the Xbox shut down Sure fit a mod chip but unless your into testing different bios files then there is no benefit and if your going to test different bios files then a chip that has different banks is needed. Cheers SS Dave Soft modding is like masturbating, It gets the job done but it's nothing like the real thing. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ForceLikeObi Posted 9 hours ago Report Share Posted 9 hours ago Another classic symptom I've seen over the years when the clock cap causes damage is the system automatically powering up when plugged in. Damn electrolytic fluid can be crazy if it sits for years on end. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
big F Posted 7 hours ago Report Share Posted 7 hours ago Seen a few laptops suffer the same when they get the same damage. In each case cleaning and a couple of component changes fixed all. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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