Can I somehow save this board?

[Dynia]

Hi,

So I've recently bought an Xbox really cheap, when I first plugged it in it worked but showed some weird behavior - it only powered on after i pressed the eject button, and today it was really hesistant to power on, i had to give it a couple of tries to get it to work. I've done some research and turns out it's a common occurrence after the clock capacitor starts rotting the board, and soon after finding out about this I've decided to open up the console and remove the capacitor. Unfortunately, it looks like this after removal of the capacitor: https://imgur.com/tY6JkXN

I'm no electronics expert but i do realize that this looks very bad, yet somehow before this procedure the Xbox still worked. But the bad part is that after i tried to clean it with some isopropyl alcohol and a q-tip, a couple of these tiny black and blue squares (not even sure what these are called) literally fell off the board with barely any contact. I'm pretty sure the ones that fell off had no contact with the board whatsoever, it looks like maybe a couple of the squares next to the capacitor were already missing before i even touched them.

Now - the question is, should I even risk plugging my Xbox in to see if it works, or could this cause a fire or something? Does anyone know if the tiny squares next to the clock capacitor are something related to it and not important to the console working, since some of them were missing before anyway and yet the console somehow worked?

Edited May 10, 2021 by Dynia

[SS_Dave]

Yes give the board a scrub with Isopropanol alcohol and a tooth brush.

the parts that are missing in the middle of the pic are only for when the clock cap is there, The Xbox will work fine without them

 

With the damage on this side you may have trace damage on the bottom as well.

 

Cheers

SS Dave

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

[Dynia]

 I've tried cleaning it up a bit more, some more mosfets fell off, took it outside just in case, plugged it in....and it somehow works! Really surprised about that. I don't know about the other side of the board, don't want to open my Xbox up again for now. If it starts to hesitate to power up or turn off spontaneously, then I will give it a proper clean. But right now it works entirely fine, it stopped powering on after plugging in the cord, it now powers up with a single button press.

 

Thanks!

[Lina_Inverse_]

8 hours ago, Dynia said:

If it starts to hesitate to power up or turn off spontaneously, then I will give it a proper clean.

If that happens like it did to mine just a few weeks after cleaning and putting back, it's best to jump the traces on the bottom of the board with wire. There's a couple of forum posts and Youtube tutorials on it. I used one of them to repair mine.

You will need a soldering iron if that happens but, best of luck!

[SS_Dave]

On 5/11/2021 at 11:48 PM, Dynia said:

 I've tried cleaning it up a bit more, some more mosfets fell off, took it outside just in case, plugged it in....and it somehow works! Really surprised about that. I don't know about the other side of the board, don't want to open my Xbox up again for now. If it starts to hesitate to power up or turn off spontaneously, then I will give it a proper clean. But right now it works entirely fine, it stopped powering on after plugging in the cord, it now powers up with a single button press.

 

Thanks!

The problem is unless you clean the leaked electorate from the clock cap that's on the bottom of the board it will keep eating away at the traces

They say prevention is better than the cure.

 

Cheers

SS Dave

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