Can You Help Me Fix A Broken Xbox?, Some idiot tore out the DVD Options

[webMASTER P]

I bought a broken xbox of craigslist for $25
Some moron managed to tear out the DVD drive from the xbox. The drive seems to be intact, and looks repairable, so i'd like to try to salvage it, and turn it into a media center for my folks

Here's what's going on with it now:
with the original broken DVD drive it turns out, the light is green, but there's nothing on screen. The harddrive is extremly loud, so i though that might a problem. So i swap in an old xbox harddrive i had lying around. That solved the noise problem, but still no picture (was expecing an error message).

I thought it may be the DVD rom, so i swaped that with the one from my personal xbox. That didn't work. When i got the xbox, the front panel was torn off, but somehow the wires were intact. Just in case, i swaped it with my own front panel, and the results are the same.

Now, when i try to hit eject, i head the DVD rom doing something inside, but nothing actually happens. This takes place with both a broken one, and a working one

Can you please help me salvage it?

[webMASTER P]

i decided to take the busted DVD rom apart to see if i could find a problem
i did
there's something messed up with the way it opens
Take a look at the picture

the black round part that spins the CD is hitting the tray itself when i try to close it
i can't seem to figure out what's causing it, and how to take care of it

[webMASTER P]

well, forget about the DVD drive, i fixed that
just required some playing around

the first problem still persists though
the xbox is refusing the eject the original drive, or a working one
it appears to work, but no video is on screen

This post has been edited by webMASTER P: May 23 2006, 04:23 AM

[pimpmaul69]

if it is a 1.0 or 1.1 motherboard you can solder a wire to boot a different bank on the tsop bios chip

[Dreamcazman]

Does the LED's flash at all, or is it just solid green like normal?

Has there ever been any mod attempt made to the board?

Try unplugging everything from the board (ie DVD and HDD) and see if you get something up on the screen.

By the sounds of it, if the DVD was yanked out and the face panel was off, somebody mistreated this Xbox pretty severly.

[webMASTER P]

pimpmaul69, i don't know how to solder

Dreamcazmank the LED just stays solid green
it doesn't appear that there were any mod attempts, the stickers on the back were intact.
when i unplugged everything, i got the same result

i did manage to make some progress though. I took my solderless adapter, stuck that on the motherboard, and put my xenium on it. I did get a picture on screen: the xenium safe mode was enabled. It just sat there and did nothing for a while. Then it came up with IDE error 04. I can't figure out what that is, even after searching.

Now, somehow, once, i did see the green blob, and after that, it came up with and error screen: error 06. I know that has to do with locking or unlocking the harddrive, and that's fine. I wasn't using the harddrive it came with, so i wasn't surprised when i saw the error. I did that by removing the chip, but leaving the adapter in. I haven't managed to recreate it though. I did try unlocking the harddrive that i have with XBOX HDM, and puting that in, but no luck.

That's about it. The farthest i've gotten is seing IDE Error 04 on the xenium. I was going to try to reflash it, but since i have no way to open the DVD-Rom, that's not going to work for now.

This post has been edited by webMASTER P: May 23 2006, 09:55 AM

[kaldek]

That's about it. The farthest i've gotten is seing IDE Error 04 on the xenium. I was going to try to reflash it, but since i have no way to open the DVD-Rom, that's not going to work for now.

Hmm, sounds to me like this Xbox upset the the previous owner and he grabbed it by the tray, flung it across the room while it was turned on and in the process killed all the moving parts. Maybe he was even in the middle of flashing the TSOP (onboard BIOS), and nuked it - it would explain the lack of an image!

Another thing to consider is, could this be a PAL Xbox? Will your TV display a PAL image?
Now, it's easy for me to get on my high horse here because I can solder and I'm also a Linux geek. So I don't want to sound like I'm making it piss easy, but I would try fitting a modchip that has been flashed with the Cromwell BIOS (version 2.40). The Cromwell BIOS is used only for loading Linux (it cannot run games because it does not use any MS code). But its best feature for you is that it is extremely tolerant of drives not being connected. Even if you have no DVD drive, or no Hard disk installed, it will still display the BIOS screen. This way, you can confirm if the hardware is shagged or not - if the Cromwell BIOS screen appears, the motherboard is all good.

Your IDE errors refer to the hard disk or DVD drive not being seen. (IDE means "Integrated Drive Electronics" and in laymans terms means "a hard disk or DVD drive connected via an IDE ribbon cable"). It tells me that your Xbox is not very happy with the hard disk or DVD-ROM drive.

Personally, I would flash your Xenium with Cromwell on another Xbox (easy for me to say, I have three...) to see if you can get video, then put it in the dud Xbox to see if you can get video. If you can, then reflash the Xenium with EvoX or your other favourite BIOS. Once you have the BIOS and video appearing, you can work on the hard disk and DVD-ROM drive.

[webMASTER P]

well, i do see a picture of my chip going into the safe mode, so i guess that means it's not PAL, or has any video issues

I did manage the get the DVD Tray open (all the sudden it started to work) so i trie restoring the Xenium OS to defaults. I just burned the ISO that i downloaded from xenium's site. I'll be honest, i didn't do much reading on it. It's been a while since i had to flash the chip. I am not a power user. Once i get the xbox to work, i leave it alone.

I'd like to try things in other xboxes, but all i have avalible is a 1.6 that i need to return to a friend, and a 1.0 with some stripped plastic, which makes it hard to put the chip back on it.

[pimpmaul69]

the solder you have to do for this is probably one of the easiest solder jobs

[webMASTER P]

well, i do have a feeling something is messed with the onboard bios
i am going to try intalling my current modchip there, and if i can get it to work, TSOP flash might be a great way to salvage the xbox

[webMASTER P]

well, i've made progress
after some tinkering around, i put my xenium on the broken xbox, and managed to boot into the xenium OS
great!

i connected an unlocked harddrive, and locked it.

Then i proceded to boot into Slayer, and restored the HD. Now, when i try to boot the xbox with the chip it boots into MS Dash. Great!
But, when i take the chip out, it turns out, the light goes solid green and there's nothing on screen

pimpmaul69, you might be on to something, i may have to do a TSOP flash

Any ideas?

This post has been edited by webMASTER P: May 24 2006, 03:10 AM

[kaldek]

pimpmaul69, you might be on to something, i may have to do a TSOP flash
Any ideas?

I think you mentioned this was a version 1.0 Xbox, yes? You can apparently flash the TSOP in these without a softmod (softmod works on all version 1.0-1.5 systems). I think the article was here on Xbox-scene.com, but it was a tad complex - especially if you don't solder!

A better option is to leave the modchip in it. These expensive solderless chips are great, but expensive - so I use the cheaper solder models. I have a personal preference for the Duo X2 but an Aladdin XT or Duo X3 (basically two Aladdin XTs on one chip) would also be fine. Since this is a version 1.0 Xbox, the solder job is quite easy.

If you lived near me (Melbourne, Australia), I'd do it for you!

[pimpmaul69]

technically you dont have to do the tsop flash..just solder one wire to one of the 2 solder points and run one of the other banks.. no need to tsop flash at all... sorry bad pic there is a tutorial on solder points..but remember only solder to one of the other 2 solder points


This post has been edited by pimpmaul69: May 24 2006, 05:31 AM

[webMASTER P]

kaldek, i appreciate the offer, but i am on the east cost US
leaving the chip in is an option actually. The reason i bought a second xbox, is to give it to my parents. No, my mom doesn't like Halo, but my folks do watch a ton of movies, and my dad hates having to burn DVDs all the time. I figure XBMC would be nice to have in their living room
So, what i might do, i just give them my xbox, and keep this one.

pimpmaul69, what you are suggesting DOES sound simple. I would defenetly prefer to read up on it though. Can you point me to a tutorial about this?

[pimpmaul69]

go here solder the big point to either a18 or a 19.. not both cause you dont need to reflash