Trace Corrosion Repair Tutorial

[Trebz]

Hi All

I just completed the trace fix on all A, B, C, D and E.

The xbox now turns on via the power switch as expected but when i press the eject button the xbox powers off.

Im going to re check the solder works to see if i messed up (Don't think i did).

I swapped out the power / eject for a known working one and it;s the same.

I just thought id mention this in case anyone else has the same problem after completing the tutorial.

I'll post the results when i have it working.

Oh...thanks for Darkmatter and the guys

[Trebz]

Ok Guys.

I just re soldered all points.

The xbox still turns on ok with the small power button.

When i press the eject button it powers itself off. I can also power on the xbox with the eject button.

Everything else seems to be working ok.

The xbox powers up with green lights to the Xbox dashboard.

The DVD ROM fires up and goes through it's little 'Shimmy and Shake' when it kicks in.

Any ideas guys?

Thanks

Trebz

[Maniaxx]

Did you clean the traces? Maybe some are short connected due to corrosion. Just a guess though.

Btw, anyone receiving 'reply notifies' from this board? Doesn't seem to work for me (gmail, spam folder checked as well).

[chiefs13]

Btw, anyone receiving 'reply notifies' from this board? Doesn't seem to work for me (gmail, spam folder checked as well).

For some reason they don't go out any more, pretty much like most things around here lately, broken.

Steve

[Trebz]

Hiya

Yes i did clean the traces.

When i orginally opened the faulty xbox i cleaned the traces with my thumbnail and then some isopropyl alcahol. Worked great for a month or so but then i guess the corrosion came back, resulted in the same problem.

I cleaned all solder points with isopropyl alcahole before soldering in the bypass wires. The soldering looks ok to me.....but then i am an amateur solderer...

[Trebz]

Hi all

I got the Xbox working correctly, i has splashed a tiny blob of solder onto the traces which had caused a bridge between two of them, i scraped off the solder with a little craft knife and it now works perfectly again.

YAY !!!

Thanks guys xxx

[grantysid]

Howdy,

Just a quick note of thanks - just resurrected a V1.0 Xbox (mfg 25/1/2002) from the dead...

Must have been stored for a long time, usually you open them up and they are chokka full of 'dust bunnies' and require a full disassembly and clean out. This one was mint, even the fans were all nice & clean, but I supposed that being stored promoted the corrosion.

Thought my problems were related to the front panel switch being faulty - but no, after I swapped that out I still had the same problem, so headed for the Llama..

What I did find is that Trace C is for the Red LED, and Trace D is for the Green LED. I ran out of Kynar wire after Trace C, so I have red but no green at this point. That would lead to Trace A or B being the Eject or Power buttons - I would assume.

So that is likely to mean that it will function OK with just Trace A & B complete - just without the LED's if you're lazy.

Cheers
Grant.

[cuke8466]

My power button didn't work and the only corrosion I found was on trace A, so I guess that would be the trace for the power button? Scraped off the corrosion and found there was no copper left under it at all. After adding the jumper wires I decided to sever the traces from the circuit to eliminate the worry of bridging in the future. I used a razor blade to cut into the trace at two points about 1/8 inch apart. Then heated that small section with a HOT soldering iron to delaminate it from the board and lifted it off with the razor blade. Did this at several points near the jumper wires to eliminate the traces from the circuit.

[digital.ark]

Thank-you very much for this tutorial. I bought an old XBox v1.0 for $30, and a DVD Remote kit for $2, which I am in the process of turning into an XBox Media Centre (XBMC).

I spliced-in a standard USB extension cable in place of the break-away connector, male end on the controller so I can use it with a PC, and female USB on the Xbox connector end, which lets me plug-in a USB flash drive for use as a Memory Card. Connect the two usb ends in-place of the break-away connector, and it's a proper controller again.

At first, it seemed to run fine, but after I found a copy of "Splinter Cell" for $10, I played it for a bit, and the console shut off after about 20 minutes.

Just like everyone else before me, there was no real correlation between up-time, heat or how hard the console was working. Just apparent random shut-downs. I started looking into the power supply, and it seemed the original power supplies had issues (mine is a Delta). But even when the machine shut-down, the power supply seemed to be fine.

Found this, and went to go track down some fine solder and Kynar wire. Found a really neat store, and spent another $50 on unrelated electronic bits and tools.

Last night, took the console apart, and sure enough, it had mild corrosion. Soldering that fine Kynar wire to those small pads is right at the very edge of my ability, but I appear to have done it! The machine ran for several hours without shutting down, so thanks a ton for the great tutorial! No way I could have diagnosed or repaired this without the help (and a little proud of myself for having pulled-off the repair).

One last question. What is the 'normal' behaviour for the Power / Eject buttons.

I appear to have to press _both_ buttons to power-up the Xbox. Otherwise, Eject seems to eject and reset. Power shuts it down.

Is that the expected behaviour?

Thanks again!

[karmatikal]

Ok well this has gone pretty bad for me.. I'm pretty amateur at soldering and I guess that is the weak point here. I cannot get the solder to stick to the little vias, I got it to stick to the resistors but created a cold joint when I soldered the wire to one of them. The wire snapped off pretty easily, so I went to remove the solder and I guess I heated up the resistor too much and it came right off. Is the board dead and useless now without the resistor for trace c?

[WorldFormula]

Just solder it back on.

[karmatikal]

Can anyone give me a tip for getting the solder to stick to the vias? I can get it to stick to the resstors and the pads no problem, but I cannot seem to get it to stick to the little vias... do you heat up the vias and touch the solder to it? I don't know what I'm doing here!

thanks

[WorldFormula]

Use flux. You can pick some up at a local radio shack.

[karmatikal]

Ok so now I have everything soldered on except for the trade A pad. I had it connected and I guess it got caught on my arm somehow and ripped out. Now I can't get solder to stick to the pad. Is it possible the pad got removed as well? Any way to fix this? SO CLOSE!

[yaodin]

Yeah check out pics E and D, they both show what you can do, just scrap off some of the silicone on top and solder to the trace.

That or you could duck tape it down j/k