The Solderless Gone Solder, With a screw-head putting pressure on D0 Options

[mcw]

Well, just had to get this posted... True story (yeah, the past three days have been hell for me):

On Thursday, I swap out my bro's 120GB IBM drive for a 160GB SATA... Now I have a 120GB drive for my box that can be locked... Woohoo..

Friday, I decide to go ahead an upgrade it, so I open up the box. And, since it's open, I'm gonna replace the IDE cable with an ATA/66/100/133 since people claim it helps out.

Well, apparently the folding process knocked the solderless out of alignment. I didn't know it at the time, though.

Before closing the box, I plugged it in to make sure it still worked. Yup. Yay!
I then closed the box, and blam - only booting to retail.. Dammit.

So, I went through hell trying to realign... End result: stripped the screw hole in the case! Sh*t... What to do now? I was up til about 5am looking for something to use as a filler... Didn't find anything, and I had to be at work soon.

Saturday now, I head to work with the Xbox in hand. After all, I already had another one opened up there to install a chip, so I might as well do something about mine. My coworker suggested stuffing a cut off piece of a zip tie, and using a tapping screw instead. And what do you know - IT WORKED (the idea). Was able to get that chip screwed down tight...

But, of course, the alignment was never the same... Was at work til 7pm (we close at 3 on Saturday) trying to work on the damned thing... Finally got it going.

Came home - same damn stuff... Hit the box, and I might get the chip to recognize...

Finally, I got it so that the chip came up everytime... Good, right? So my bro and I play until about 2am, and then sleepy time...

Wake up Sunday morning, and not working anymore... So, I guess I'm heading back to the office with it (AND WE'RE CLOSED SUNDAY). So, I take the box to my workplace... This is 1pm...

I'm there from 1pm to 9pm working on it. Same old thing - get it aligned, close the box, and it loses it... Works fine for the most part when the cover is off...

Around 6 or so, I'm thinking it's probably a D0 issue... So, using everyone's advice, I solder a wire to the alternate D0. Bring it up around front, and attach it to the Xecuter. No go... Same prob...

Well, I decided to remove that wire since it didn't do any good... So, I'm pulling on the electrical tape I used to isolate the solder pad, and pull too much - ripped out the trace... Again, SH*T!

I've never had to do a trace repair... Seems simple enough, though... I get a motherboard that another coworker gave to me the day before to mess around with... Practiced on that a couple times, and bit the bullet...

Soldered the jumper from via->via since the solder pad for the alternate D0, along with most of the trace going towards the back of the motherboard was ripped up.

Power up the board - working... Woohoo.

Okay, now to deal with this chip... I solder in the wire harness, USED THE TOP D0, WHICH WAS MUCH EASIER, and connect up to the X2 - RECOGNIZES! YAY... I FIXED IT!

Close up, do some tests, and then I head back home...

Well, I plug the thing in - AND IT DOESN'T RECOGNIZE THE X2 ANYMORE! WHAT THE HELL?!?! The swith board is lit up, so power is coming through, but I'm only getting the retail..

So, I pop out the motherboard... Checking the trace job, maybe that's the prob? Well, I'm pushing on the solder to make sure it's secure... And POP - I ripped out the damn via! CRAP.

It's now midnight, and I'm thinking: Should I drive back to the office and work on it now?!

But, I come to the forums, do a search on "trace AND repair" and read everything going back a couple years... I then go through all the Buy and Sell ads for the past month looking for a replacement board, or someone to work on it...

During my trace repair reading, most people said - calm down, and do it tomorrow.... Yeah, I was pretty pissed about it, so, maybe that's some good advice?

Head to work this morning with the xbox, already opened up and ready to get the soldering iron put to it... I isolate the via spot I ripped up, drop solder on there along with the wire... Power it up - NO MORE FRAGGING, IT'S ALL GOOD...

I reconnect the X2... AND IT WORKS...

AWESOME AGAIN!

But, since I've been having issues with closing up the case and then it no longer works, I decided to leave it open for a while... I powered up countless times... But then it stopped recognizing.. What the hell?!

I check connections... I decide to solder a wire again to the alternate D0 and bring it up top... But it made no difference... I guess I missed on the wire?

So, I'm checking the top D0 solder point, and since I don't want to repeat the nightmate from the day before, I barely touch it. Well, I power up - IT WORKS...

Hmm, maybe poor contact on top? During the attempts to redo the pogo-pin adapter, that top D0 was shiny as can be, and maybe too much was scraped away from the countless attempts.

So, maybe I just need some pressure holding it down? What comes to mind? A FREAKIN' SCREW (no, not that one..... You know what I'm talking about!). I cut the top of a screw off, and put the screw head down on the D0 point and tape it... Power up - IT'S ALL GOOD.

Tried throughout the day, even closed up - it's all working...

Came home a few hours ago - power up - NOT WORKING... WHAT THE HELL?! I power up/power off, hit the box, etc... Finally, it takes.

So, long story short (things I learned for myself, which may or may not apply to you):

1 - If you have a solderless modchip installed AND WORKING - DON'T EVEN GET NEAR THAT SUCKER... If you want to install something else, TOO BAD.

2 - If you can solder - USE THE TOP D0! SCREW THE ALTERNATE ONE, IT'S NOT WORTH THE HASSLE!

3 - Repairing a trace is PRETTY EASY if the VIAS ARE STILL THERE.

4 - A 30W iron may not be the best thing to use, but if you can handle a soldering iron, it works great.

5 - Flux? Who needs that?!

On a side note: we did a solderless install in that other xbox that I mentioned - working fine... But, we wasted all of Friday (everytime we put it in, we would get ERROR CODE 07 if the mod chip was ENABLED, or ERROR CODE 09 if the mod chip was DISABLED). Turns out that the protective sticky paper that covers up the solder points under the solderless adapter WAS MISSING... It was shorting out the damned mobo!

6 - If you have a solderless adapter (X2), MAKE SURE THAT THE SOLDER POINTS ARE COVERED!!! Put a strip of electrical tape down on the motherboard itself.

Okay, that's the end of this tale... Here's a summary of my box as it stands:
V 1.0
Xecuter 2.2 PRO, wired in (ex-solderless)
120GB IBM hard drive
Thomson DVD
Motherboard: jumper wire to repair trace at alternate D0. Screw head holding down solder point on top D0.

Now I wish I had done the solderless in the beginning, AND NOT USE THE ALTERNATE D0. Oh well... My mistake... I still like the solderless adapter - when it works, it works well (had that in my box for a long damn time - no problems).

Next mods to do: controller port LEDs, clear 'X' (which means more LEDs!!!), and the rest of my controller dongles that I haven't got to (LEDs)...