Electronics repair

Xbox won't turn on lads it's the original Xbox back in the day I put Linux on it so it could surf the web and whatnot

Last time I used it was 2009 and it worked fine then

Took it apart just now there's no blown capacitors and the power switch appears to be fine

Thoughts as to what could be wrong?

Other urls found in this thread:

youtube.com/watch?v=Vi3Bi2i2bEg
assemblergames.com/l/threads/will-this-sata-ide-adapter-work-in-original-xbox.55162/
youtube.com/watch?v=_pEHBHbUp8Q
twitter.com/NSFWRedditGif

I suspect the power supply although I'm no expert. I'd probably just look for a used xbox at your local Goodwill

That's what I thought except I don't see anything wrong with the power supply

Dead motherboard battery.

I second that, lots of computers I've seen that didn't have any apparent issue simply didn't have any power left in their motherboard battery

op ive dealt with xboxes before so post a picture of the motherboard and ill tell you whats wrong i bet the clock capacitor chewed though the board

Here's the motherboard

does the power connector going into the xbox feel solid?
perhaps check the solder joints on the mains connector on the psu, they can wear and crack over time

user i had the same problem. ONE of the bottom left compacitors died on the motherboard.

I remember this being the most common problem when you hadn't turned on your Xbox for more than a couple of months

Xbox doesn't use a clock battery. It has a capacitor for that function.

However the capacitor does have a tendency to leak.

what were they even thinking?

>primary cells go flat! lets use a capacitor!
>capacitor leaks common, xbox will boot loop if it can't keep the time
>meanwhile most ps2 clock primary cells still going, and the xbox is discontinued

Sure it's not the hard drive?

Keep in mind they made this during the great capacitor plague.

The Xbox wasn't well thought out to begin with. Microsoft was new in the Console game.

Following this thread. I have an Xbox under my bed that I haven't turned on since like, fuck, 2005 or 2006. Curious what would happen if I tried to boot it up.

Try now and post results

I don't have a TV with the right inputs close by but I could at least see if it boots up first. It seriously has been like 10 years or more. I think I beat the Halo 2 campaign when it was a brand new game and then never played it again.

I think I did boot it up a few years ago to see if there was a disc inside.

judging from the fact he mentioned the power button being fine, it's probably not power on at all

a broken or missing hdd wouldn't prevent the machine starting to boot then at least hitting a green screen

The OG xbox had a problem with capacitors. In particular there's a special super capacitor that is used for keeping time that has a tendency to explode and leak electrolytic fluid on the mobo which eats away at the components around it. If you want to keep it working you might want to remove that capacitor. Although late (1.6) models do not have that problem.

It appears to be fine

Do you remember which one exactly it was?

Fired right up.

Mine was acquired brand new at Christmas in '04 so it was probably a later model OG xbox.

The fan sounded a bit noisy after a minute but otherwise it seemed alright. I might invest in an RCA to HDMI adapter so I can test it out.

>The fan sounded a bit noisy after a minute

Did you oil the fan? There's usually a oil port under the sticker on the hub.

If you had the original xbox and didn't softmod/hardmod it, you shouldn't be posting on Sup Forums.

who unleashx here?

tsop'd 1.0 xbox. it's ok.

all the games required to softmod the xbox were impossible to find in my country as soon as the exploit was found, and when you did find them for sale people would be asking outrageous prices for them. I never did it to mine because of that.

I didn't but I will definitely do this if it's going to see any action. It needs a blast of air to get the dust out as well.

>no 3.5mm jack for my headphones

Guess I have a reason to put these monitor speakers to use.

I softmodded mine by physically removing the hard disk from the console while it was powered up and attaching it to a computer that was running xbox hard disk maker. I actually had splinter cell but my dashboard got corrupted by something so I just modded it myself.

Softmodding my xbox is when I learned what the fuck FTP and linux is and how to use them.

The satisfaction of finally being able to get that ftp into the root of the xbox after fucking with ip settings for an hour. When I was 13 this kind of modding shit was like crack to me and something new entirely.

install gentoox

I remember this. I think they called it hotswapping and had the risk of bricking the console.

I think upgrading the HDD was a similar process IIRC

the power port on those old mother fuckers would sometimes loosen to the point where mine wouldn't start. look there!

underside of the board, check the very fine traces that run along the front edge. they are connected to the power/eject device and commonly tin whisker to fuck or burn out

xecutor2 on tsop + xbmc here

I think older guides required that you have precise timing when you pull the IDE cable out of the drive which maybe caused people to brick their console. I actually learned from somewhere that you could simplify the process by pulling the IDE cable out of the *DVD drive* before the console was even on. By doing that it defaults to a different error message that unlocks the hard disk. It makes the process way easier to pull off.

I had to do it that way because the clock got reset and there was no dashboard to correct it.

i used to make a fuckton of money doing tsops an softmods. still got my misprinted splinter cell disc and memory card with the files on.

also: usb ports

>tfw no cool gaming hardware

>tfw I used to make a fuck ton of money fixing RRoD xbox 360s
>15 y/o and making $40/hr
I posted ads on craigslist to fix the above and people in my HS would ask me out of nowhere. Only thing about HS I miss I think.

I charged the same for flashing the 360 drive firmware but that was sometimes such a pain in the ass with all of the fucking stealth and different drive bullshit.

Looks fine there's no tin whiskering or burns

The whole of the power supply including the port looks good everything is still solid

This is perplexing me

thats some nice quality control, ubi.

i gave up on the drive flashing after liteons arrived. did a few jtags though, the hard way through serial. fucking thing was so touchy a loud fart would cause a read error while dumping the nand.

I only need my original Xbox for playing kingdom under fire

although The Crusaders has a game breaking bug in it

you also aren't a real man if you haven't soldered more RAM onto your xbox

youtube.com/watch?v=Vi3Bi2i2bEg

madman

I believe you only need to add RAM if you plan to play like one arcade port you can only get on a modded xbox

I do have to wonder if it would fix the kingdom under fire bug though

The people who figured out that serial probe bullshit for the later drives are some real fucking geniuses.

Serious respect to people who can bring that kind of reverse engineering to the scene. I can't even imagine what the stealthing the firmware is like.

Can you describe it? Sounds cool.

My memory is shaky.

Flashing the firmware of earlier DVD drives in the xbox 360 was trivial. Microsoft suddenly introduced a new type of DVD drive to prevent exactly the above. People thought it was the end of flashing firmware until a guy(s) figured out the above exploit. It took a while. The picture shows how it's done and required a special probe during the reading (and writing?) process.

The firmware was also very specially designed to avoid Microsoft detection and permabanning from xbox live. I think it was a single guy who created a stealth-ed firmware (in assembly likely) and took on the entire xbox anti-tampering division team for years. I have no idea how the fuck he managed it, probably worked on the MS team or was fired. Forgot his alias unfortunately.

TSOP'd 1.0 and 1.4 Xboxes here,both PAL and running UnleashX here.

Anybody here tried to build a VGA output for it? I have a diagram how to do it without the stupid LM1881 and it's 100% safe.

The "stealth" thing is just pretending to be a legit firmware. Since you have full control of the drive fw, you only need to figure out how MS do checks. If you have full system control this becomes even more convenient.

The "probe" seems like a normal serial connection. So MS didn't connect the RX pin but left the TX pin and that somehow leaks enough data to do this.

From what I can gather, you power the drive, according to the guide. Then you build a special serial cable (no idea why) to listen to the drive controller (presumably). From the gathered data you send it something (a drive firmware?) over SATA.

OP, I would suggest also checking things out with a multimeter. The caps and the power. If the motherboard is fine and the power flows, you'll get an error message to work with.

Any idea if there's a simpler method to hack a "modern" slim 360, other than the RGH? I really can't be bothered yet for that.

They definitely didn't think XBox would be played in 15 years.

if you install the ram you can play chihiro games like vurta cop 3 and ghost squad also here is a picture of the bad cap for the op if hes still here

Strangely, the two NC pins on the drive power is labeled Tx and Rx.
Now I'm confused.

Post that bad boy. VGA would make life a lot better (and clearer).

His board has the gold version of the cap.

Alright,here is the PCB you need to build. Stay tuned,I got the rest of the pictures you need to follow.

my guess is that they're NC in normal use in a retail 360, but use as TX/RX during development/debugging

as is often the case for consumer gear, serials ports are very common, just never used in consumer settings (anymore)

i think that makes it a 1.6 xbox meaning that the cap wont leak so im stumped

Here's the second one. Excuse the slow posting,I have a 50s limit between posts but I'm doing my best to get it.

By the way these two wires are close to the GPU,so you can have an idea where to tap the Xbox's 1.5v video signal.

So maybe the modded fw uses it?
Otherwise it'd be useless.

Nope. It's actually a 1.4,though it might be refurbished since none of the pre-1.6 Xboxes have it. (it's a Nichicon 1F 2.5v gold cap as far as I know).

Do try removing it though. Since the board you have is a 1.4,it won't affect anything but it's worth a try.

On the other hand,here's the PCB itself built. This is basically a PCB that converts the 1.5v signals into standard 5v VGA signals.

Bad Mosfet bro

Can you mod digital output?

Didn't know this was a thing.
Made me check my Splinter Cell Case.

Sure. Here's the digital output trace. It's on the underside of the motherboard.

from what i know about it what the probe and later the kamikaze mod was severing the write enable line on the drives cpu allowing firmware to be dumped and re written

Who remembers XBINS and the IRC/FTP?

I felt like I was a part of something. Like a secret hacker scene. Shit was cool in middle school. I'll never get that feeling of excitement again.

ah wait it was the write protect pin being attached to ground you severed this when drilling and when using the switch on earlier mods you could switch locking on or off.

Is there a full guide? This seems strange.
The only reason you'd dump it is if the fw was encrypted per console. In which case it'd be hard to modify it.
It's kinda strange that wiring that to a "TX" pin would do something to the fw write switch/line.

>drilling
o fuck i remember that. Wasn't the line inside the chip package and you had to drill through it with a ground wire attached?

yo i remember also tsop your xbox those old ide drives ant gonna live forever

Each drive had a special key that you had to "spoof" onto the hacked firmware. That's why the reading process was necessary, the firmware required the hardware key that was embedded or it wouldn't work. Extract key, spoof onto hacked FW, reflash hacked FW.

Can I use a SATA->IDE bridge?

yes the write protect line is soldered to ground inside the package older chips had this on the drive board outside the chip

You seem to have done this already. What did you wire the trace to?

Why not just replace the drive? That huge compatibility chart is still going.

Yes. One of my boxes has one.

yes but you need a 80 wire ide cable and certan ide adapter here is a link to a forum that will help you
assemblergames.com/l/threads/will-this-sata-ide-adapter-work-in-original-xbox.55162/

tsoping means that you can install unlocked drives so you can use drives that cant be locked including using ide to sata adapters

And it doesn't check the drive fw it seems.
That was actually kinda simple for a DIY ODE. The key is used to encrypt the data between the drive and console?
I remember the WiiU ODE needing a key too. It was never released because there was never a way to practically dump it.

Imagine drilling half a mm off and everything is just fucked.

whoops

Forgot the RGB points. Make sure you use those points and twist a ground on each,as in the picture,since those are sensible.

XBINS is still around? I know Xbox-scene is dead for good now (they were a bunch of butthurt morons anyways) and Xbox-HQ may have got the lead (not sure tho) and the best site is gone for a long time now,allxboxskins if somebody remembers. I still have the custom flubbers from there,including a cool skull one,all for iND-BIOS 5004.

TSOP + either IDE drive or SATA w/ SATA to IDE converter are the way to go for these now. I've seen 2TB drives in those Xboxes,but the prices were high. (which was justified as well,since they came with Samsung DVD drives and 2TB WD greens.)

Yeah,you can. If you plan using them with a softmodded (not hardmodded yet) Xbox,make sure the drive supports locking (you will need to lock the drive to your Xbox's EEPROM. I also have the diagram for that.)
>What did you wire the trace to?
Female TOSLINK connector.

no more

It's interesting how the 360 was 90% hardware hacking, just because no one could deal with the software.
Wonder how the One is doing.

The funny part is that the original xbox was supposed to be unhackable. Microsoft emphasized that repeatedly.

The 360 was so fucking close to an easy exploit. That King King game got us very, very close. Sad it never reached 10% of the original xbox scene. I wonder if the power PC processor made it more difficult, anyone know?

Close? How close? What was special about that game?
Also PPC was definitely not the main factor. Wii was also PPC. It's all the software.

the one is being decaped by xecuter as we speak and the 360 was stupid on Microsofts part they left the fucking jtag port enabled on the system. this allowed for full memory dumping and control of the cpu its also cheap a few zener diodes a resistor or two and a paralell port on an old pc

>left the fucking jtag port enabled on the system
Remember the Original Xbox's LPC port?

yep that's how the modchips worked it let them shut off the tsop flash on the board and replace it with their own on the chip

>xbins
Just compile my own xbmc4xbox from SVN. Games from private trackers or isozone. The scene is dead except that one guy who was working on AID and that other guy doing xqemu. Can't really call him part of the scene, though.

Meant King Kong game.
youtube.com/watch?v=_pEHBHbUp8Q

I forgot why it didn't get very far. Who are the savant fuckers who find these kinds of exploits in the games?

Do they dig into the image file or watch the memory while the game was running? And for every game too? I'll never understand how the scene does this shit.

>inb4 ubuntu
Ubuntu used to be good a decade ago for the new friends.

Actually exploits in games are common. That's why it's the OS's job to protect the system. You can't trust game developers to do that.

if i remember correctly with a moded drive you could use a dumped copy of king kong the shader files where not signed and could be replaced

on the wii the games ran on bare metal the os being unloaded make of this what you will

>Japanese programming

No surprise. Look at Nintendo today.

Allowing unsigned resources to load seems like MS's fault. Which means it should be doable on other games too.
Unless I'm not seeing the full picture here.

Wii had coprocessor doing everything the game isn't doing.

That's a good point. Probably why the shittier game had this kind of exploit.

Still impressive. It took a few years. When the announcement first came out for King King people went fucking crazy, they thought it was the start of the new home-brew scene. Too bad.

no point in hacking the games when the debug port is wide open. also they could get past the starlet because of the all the keys where still in ram when in gamecube mode so they uesed tweesers to jumper points to dump the whole ram.

im convinced some one is siting on an exploit waiting till xbox live for the 360 is shut down same with the ps3 and psn

You can remove the capacitor on certain models, I did so with mine after softmoding it.

the devkits for the original xbox used an removable button cell battery

Just remembered I got this book.

yep book was free a while ago he made a bus sniffer out of an fpga which was cool

i'm reading it right now it's actually really good

fuck it's hard to believe this stuff is more than a decade ago.

It brought back a lot of memories when I busted out the OG Xbox today