deadish xbox fan spins but no light

[corona2222]

I picked up a dead xbox, $20, I want to see if it can be fixed. (I believe its 1.6 board, xcalibur chip and MFD 2005 )

Pressing the power button spins the rear fan but stops spinning when I stop pressing the button. No other signs of life.

No signs of being opened before. The power board powers up my other good v1.6 xbox fine, so a bad power board can be ruled out. Plugging my other good power board into the dead xbox has the same fan spin only result. I transferred the DVD to my good xbox and that works ok.

I notice 4 of 5 caps bellow the CPU are blown - I've got 5 new 3300uf 10v caps coming in the post to replace them ($6 ebay), I looked on Digikey but $24 just for postage  The closest Jaycar stock is 4700uf 16v.

I noticed the 1.0f 2.5v gold cap in there too, do the 1.6v suffer the same leaky problems as earlier xbox version timer caps? needs changing?

I don't expect to diagnose anything further until the 5 3300uf caps are replaced, but wondering if in the mean time there is anything else to check? or perform after caps replaced.

Edited November 16, 2020 by corona2222

[SS_Dave]

56 minutes ago, corona2222 said:

but wondering if in the mean time there is anything else to check? or perform after caps replaced.

Yep give the poor thing a good clean.

It should spring to life after you replace the cap's near the heat sink.

 

At least it's not as bad as the 2 X PS4 that where on my bench for random shutting down.

 

Cheers

SS Dave

Soft modding is like masturbating, It gets the job done but it's nothing like the real thing.

 

 

[corona2222]

good to know. fingers crossed. will disassemble and brush dust out, thanks.  

7 hours ago, SS_Dave said:

At least it's not as bad as the 2 X PS4 that where on my bench for random shutting down.

 hopefully just over heating auto-shutdown? and not warping board/CPU connections a common issue on those?

[tjd2]

I'm pretty sure the blown caps make CPU and GPU's power supply unstable, which probably makes it crash very quickly.

After replacing the caps, if it still doesn't power on, there is very common 1.6 xbox problem with small transistor near Xyclops (search for it on google)

Edited November 16, 2020 by tjd2

[bulkchart32]

On 11/15/2020 at 9:17 PM, corona2222 said:

I picked up a dead xbox, $20, I want to see if it can be fixed. (I believe its 1.6 board, xcalibur chip and MFD 2005 )

Pressing the power button spins the rear fan but stops spinning when I stop pressing the button. No other signs of life.

No signs of being opened before. The power board powers up my other good v1.6 xbox fine, so a bad power board can be ruled out. Plugging my other good power board into the dead xbox has the same fan spin only result. I transferred the DVD to my good xbox and that works ok.

I notice 4 of 5 caps bellow the CPU are blown - I've got 5 new 3300uf 10v caps coming in the post to replace them ($6 ebay), I looked on Digikey but $24 just for postage  The closest Jaycar stock is 4700uf 16v.

I noticed the 1.0f 2.5v gold cap in there too, do the 1.6v suffer the same leaky problems as earlier xbox version timer caps? needs changing?

I don't expect to diagnose anything further until the 5 3300uf caps are replaced, but wondering if in the mean time there is anything else to check? or perform after caps replaced.

change all 5 of those big caps in front of the processors. only one of them looks ok and it's probably on it's way out. i'd almost bet money that is your problem.

[corona2222]

caps arrived today, and turns out I ordered 16v not 10v,

and they are bigger

but they fit ok but the legs are thicker making it a little more annoying soldering them in - so I recommend getting 6.3v caps.

Soldering the legs through holes was difficult, my solder sucker wasn't sucking out the old solder, I used a heated dental teeth scarper to poke a hole through solder in the holes then feed the legs through. not sure how everyone else does this any easier?

new 3300uf caps installed, switch on...fan...light...video output... all works! 

Also brushed the dust out and have a clean board. 

Next item:

My other 1.6 Xbox came with UnleashedX, but there is no modchip installed, and I believe v1.6 can't be softmodded due to bios chip is ROM and not Flashmem.

Can I just clone my UnleashedX harddrive, change HDD lock key use it in this new v1.6 xbox?

Edited November 18, 2020 by corona2222

[sweetdarkdestiny]

1 hour ago, corona2222 said:

but they fit ok but the legs are thicker making it a little more annoying soldering them in - so I recommend getting 6.3v caps.

Soldering the legs through holes was difficult, my solder sucker wasn't sucking out the old solder, I used a heated dental teeth scarper to poke a hole through solder in the holes then feed the legs through. not sure how everyone else does this any easier?

new 3300uf caps installed, switch on...fan...light...video output... all works! 

Also brushed the dust out and have a clean board. 

Next item:

My other 1.6 Xbox came with UnleashedX, but there is no modchip installed, and I believe v1.6 can't be softmodded due to bios chip is ROM and not Flashmem.

Can I just clone my UnleashedX harddrive, change HDD lock key use it in this new v1.6 xbox?

16v vs. 6,3 isn't that a bit much? I mean, 10v ok but 16!?

You can softmod a 1.6. You just can't TSOP flash a 1.6 cause there isn't one to flash. ;) SO go a head and softmod your 1.6 or buy a ultra cheap LPC mod chip for it. Or just a 49FL020 and solder it.

[Benur75]

Hello,

the cpu caps have to have a very low ESR (internal resistance) and of course at least he same voltage or more, and of course the same capacity. But when I recap an XBox or an Atari PSU or an Amiga 500/2000, I always  choose caps with the longest MTBF lifespan. Jackon has not the worst reputation, but they are far from the best. I you want to keep an electronic device for a long time, or if you want to sell it with a maximum of serenity, I would advice you to buy Panasonic FR Series.

Yes, i's a bit more expensive, but no so much if you also think to preserve earth by lengthening the lifespan of the product you repair.

This is only an advice, you are really free to do what you want. You have to be really proud to have repaired a nive Xbox.

Congratulations,

bye

 

[Benur75]

Hello,

the cpu caps have to have a very low ESR (internal resistance) and of course at least he same voltage or more, and of course the same capacity. But when I recap an XBox or an Atari PSU or an Amiga 500/2000, I always  choose caps with the longest MTBF lifespan. Jackon has not the worst reputation, but they are far from the best. I you want to keep an electronic device for a long time, or if you want to sell it with a maximum of serenity, I would advice you to buy Panasonic FR Series.

Yes, i's a bit more expensive, but no so much if you also think to preserve earth by lengthening the lifespan of the product you repair. Last times, I started to also change output psu caps, because even if they are still goods if only speaking about µF, when I checked them about ESR, they were 0.7 ohm whereas the Panasonic were 0.06 ohm, so ten times less. You can look at this nice explaination, also exist in english:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Equivalent_series_resistance

This is only an advice, you are really free to do what you want. You have to be really proud to have repaired a nive Xbox.

Congratulations,

bye

 

[corona2222]

Hi Benur, first time I've replaced caps - its been a quick turn around but I've ordered a bunch of Panasonics FR's now thanks for your advice. Yep pretty much my understanding of caps but I didn't expect ESR to be a problem. 

I did some testing with M328 ESR meter, a couple of the original 3300uf capacitors showed as 2 diodes  i'm not sure what component that could be but its not a capacitor 

the other original caps: 8619uf ESR 0.19Ω, 4459uf ESR 0.45Ω - no wonder the board was upset.

testing the new Jackon 16v caps: 

and another meter, I'm unsure why it thinks the cap is rated 25v. but the ESR didn't seem far off the panasonic FR, not bad?

 

Hi sweetdarkdestiny, is your concern about the voltage difference the ESR? is ESR 16v vs 10v much different? or is the concern the variance from original max voltage 6.3v, if so why?

 

 

Edited November 18, 2020 by corona2222
moving pics.

[SS_Dave]

16 volt cap's will be fine it's just overkill

The 3 caps next to the CPU are smoothing the 1.8 volt rail and the 1 near the power connector is for the 5 volt supply.

 

Cheers

SS Dave

Soft modding is like masturbating, It gets the job done but it's nothing like the real thing.
 

[Arakula]

On 11/18/2020 at 11:08 AM, corona2222 said:

Next item:

My other 1.6 Xbox came with UnleashedX, but there is no modchip installed, and I believe v1.6 can't be softmodded due to bios chip is ROM and not Flashmem.

Can I just clone my UnleashedX harddrive, change HDD lock key use it in this new v1.6 xbox?

The 1.6 can be softmodded (in fact, this "other" one obviously is); I presume you meant that it can't be TSOP-flashed, which is true.

And yes, you should be able to do as planned if you can determine the HDD key of the newly repaired xbox.

[corona2222]

new 6.3v 3300uf Panasonic FR caps arrived (right), back to similar original xbox sized 6.3v caps.
comparison to the previous replacement caps Jackcon 25v cap (left).

they read 3500uf on the Mega328, the meter was zeroed, maybe not exact but close.

all 3300uf caps swapped again, Panasonic FR have 10,000 hours life expectancy, hopefully at least another 10 years life in this Xbox.

and luckily the xbox still works 

Edited December 1, 2020 by corona2222

[KaosEngineer]

Electrolytic caps have a tolerance specification.  Generally, +/- 20%.  So, 3501uF is within spec for a 3300uF capacitor.