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[SOLVED] Xbox Power button issue and clock capacitor leak


Alfking
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Hello all! 

A few months back a got my first OG Xbox, but the DVD drive was broken. I ended up buying a second Xbox for parts with a working drive and swapped them out (I ended up getting lucky, it was a Samsung drive). So a couple days ago I pulled out my spare Xbox and found the only problem with it was the power button not turning the console on/off. The console would power on when plugged in, which looking into this online told me its a common problem. So I ended borrowing the working drive and softmodding it. Everything was going perfectly until I was playing some snes9x and the console was smoking! Turns out the clock capicitor was leaking on the motherboard and melting. I knew about the clock capicitor issues, but stupid me thought I'd just do it later. So I cleaned up the mess and removed the capicitor, but it left some irreversible damage. Now the console will boot up and work fine for 5 minutes before suddenly turning off. I inspected the motherboard and noticed it had some corrosion on the "A Line" (Source: https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&source=web&rct=j&url=https://www.ogxbox.com/forums/index.php%3F/topic/29-how-to-fix-trace-corrosion/&ved=2ahUKEwjl4szT1bn7AhXbjokEHQddBoEQFnoECA4QAQ&usg=AOvVaw1PMDAuq47ME_GX_0VJ58Ll). I'm not sure if the clock capicitor melt down has something to do with this new issue (most likely do does) or if the corrosion has gotten worse from the whole incident. I'm posting pictures below. I think the best method moving forward would be to try and solder in a wire workaround (From source above). I need some advice, whats the best move moving forward? I want to save this Xbox if I can.

20221119_234041.jpg

20221119_234101.jpg

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4 hours ago, prtscn said:

You will have to remove burned PCB layers first, so there is no carbon left. And recreate burned PCB tracks with jumper wires.

 

That sounds pretty difficult, I'm not really sure where I'd even start with that. Is that a requirement? In other words, why would this help and are there other things I could try as well?

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11 minutes ago, Alfking said:

That sounds pretty difficult, I'm not really sure where I'd even start with that. Is that a requirement? In other words, why would this help and are there other things I could try as well?

If the tracks are burnt through then they'll need to be recreated to allow the xbox to work.

A glass fibre pen will help, they are cheap and available on Amazon and eVilbay. Add to that some Isopropyl alcohol to clean up.

Once there you can get a better idea of whats gone pooff!!   Most likely you popped a couple of traces and toasted the Earth plane.

soldering in track replacements sounds hard but its not. Theres plenty of videos on YouTube showing you how.

Thin wire and some nail polish is normally all you’ll need.  The nail polish is for sealing over the copper tracks to insulate them and save them from corrosion.

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15 hours ago, big F said:

If the tracks are burnt through then they'll need to be recreated to allow the xbox to work.

A glass fibre pen will help, they are cheap and available on Amazon and eVilbay. Add to that some Isopropyl alcohol to clean up.

Once there you can get a better idea of whats gone pooff!!   Most likely you popped a couple of traces and toasted the Earth plane.

soldering in track replacements sounds hard but its not. Theres plenty of videos on YouTube showing you how.

Thin wire and some nail polish is normally all you’ll need.  The nail polish is for sealing over the copper tracks to insulate them and save them from corrosion.

Thanks!! I'm still not 100% certain on all the details, but I have a better idea on how to approach this. Is there a video tutorial you could refer me too? The only bit of motherboard that has the tracks (The exposed metal that acts as an internal wire right?) exposed is the circle area a little ways down from the capacitor. there was originally a surface mount component bridging a small connection, but it turned to a crisp and snaped off. Now that it's gone the two aren't touching anymore I don't think. You can see it better in the original photo I posted. My best guess is that this has something to do with the random shutting off of the system. The power button had problems before, and I'm almost certain it's from motherboard corrosion but that's a much simpler fix, and doesn't harm game play at all. I'm not sure what you mean by popping traces and toasting earth planes, could you explain this a bit further? I'm a bit new to Xbox repair.

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  • 2 weeks later...

Well, great news! I was able to repair my Original Xbox after all. There was an excellent tutorial online that explained motherboard corrosion and I was able to figure out using a multimeter that the A trace was corroded. I was able to expose the too points with a glass fiber pen and using some Kynar wire to bypass the onboard wiring and get those too points to interact. That ended up fixing all the problems I was having with the system, the power issues all went away and no more randomly shutting off. My guess is the A trace was faulty before but not enough to cause any real problems outside of the broken power button, and once the clock-cap exploded on me it leaked more electorates completely ruining that trace and causing the console to freak-out. Turns out the problem had something to do with the clock capacitor after all, although not the way I initially suspected. I hope this helps anyone in the future who may be experiencing similar issues.

20221127_232249.jpg

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  • KaosEngineer changed the title to [SOLVED] Xbox Power button issue and clock capicitor leak
2 hours ago, Alfking said:

Well, great news! I was able to repair my Original Xbox after all. There was an excellent tutorial online that explained motherboard corrosion and I was able to figure out using a multimeter that the A trace was corroded. I was able to expose the too points with a glass fiber pen and using some Kynar wire to bypass the onboard wiring and get those too points to interact. That ended up fixing all the problems I was having with the system, the power issues all went away and no more randomly shutting off. My guess is the A trace was faulty before but not enough to cause any real problems outside of the broken power button, and once the clock-cap exploded on me it leaked more electorates completely ruining that trace and causing the console to freak-out. Turns out the problem had something to do with the clock capacitor after all, although not the way I initially suspected. I hope this helps anyone in the future who may be experiencing similar issues.

20221127_232249.jpg

buy kaptopn tape, will not shrink and will hold better in hot conditions.

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  • KaosEngineer changed the title to [SOLVED] Xbox Power button issue and clock capacitor leak

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