The Power Cord Conspiracy, Here's the truth Options

[G0t M4xx 21]

Well, OK, MS did seem to indicate it was some other prob in the xbox when they recalled the cords, but some article I found had a quote by ms saying that the power cords were "defective".

However, considering all the previous hints they gave at an internal problem, why the hell has the problem magically shifted to external factors like overvoltage? (betanews article)

Also, that 1 in 10000 failure rate is very off. So far, i've picked up that about 50-80% of these Foxlink 1.0 supplies have broken joints (and a small percentage of other brand/version supplies)

[TGD]

I just wanna give my own expeirence. I too have repaired one of my older 1.0 xboxes about a year ago. It was an xbox i mainly used for testing,etc so i would bring the xbox from downstairs up to my computer room quite often. Well i noticed the power cord would slide in loosely and eventually it began to produce sparks as i plugged in the power cord into the xbox.

Finally the xbox no longer would power on so i took a quick look at the underside of the xbox psu....sure enough there were two solder joints completly gone..with black "burned" rings around both of them. It was easily fixed by reapplying solder..i no longer have this xbox but just thought i'd give you my own experience on this issue.

TGD

This post has been edited by TGD: Mar 12 2005, 03:25 PM

[onlinejames]

Im from Australia and i also have a v1 with a foxlink PSU ,and guess what ?? same problem, solder joints have broken , the xbox was still working , I was wondering where the website or contact info was so i may order my new power lead
I sure hope the new lead is a good solderer to fix the soldering that has broken away
thanks

[onlinejames]

I found the link, I got 2 new leads on the way
one for the V1 dated 2002-01-04 with the Foxlink PSU
the other V3-V4 dates 2003-09-28 with a delta psu
how long does it take for the leads to reach people in australia??
thanks

[aksmeg]

Chaulk us up as one suspicious of MS's "defective power" replacement policy. We found bad PSU solder joints the cause for our Xbox power failures. There was more than one. The first failure was due to the power cord socket connection to the circuit board as so commonly described in these posts. The second failure, also involving solder joints, occured a couple of months later and was much harder to discover. Many of the solder joints for the heat sunk voltage regulators were loose and visibly oxidized. It took an inspection using a jewler's loupe to see that those solder joints looked different than the other joints. They were of a different color and exhibited hairline gaps at the regulator's leads. It looked liked the leads were not properly cleaned of oxidation prior to soldering. Removing the solder, abrasive cleaning and resoldering fixed the PSU. Xbox gaming use seems to involve almost constant hard drive activity. The hard drive use in combination with the CPU and the graphics CPU requires more than your average desktop power use, yet this Xbox PSU is puny. Now throw the typical user -- like our kids -- into the picture. They think nothing of operating the device on a rug, up against a wad of dirty laundry, or with some tossed item also covering up the xbox ventilation holes. It is a setup for overheating the PSU.

How much money did MS save omitting the bolts to secure that power cord connector to the box? Do they need any more cash? Sooner or later an Xbox is going to burn up someone's house. Our kids now know to turn off the Xbox when not using it, but they don't really do it for safety reasons. They do it because they associate PSU failure with leaving it on not in use.

[henno]

I've had lots of faulty with the foxlink psu's & the dry joints.but today i got an early box in with a delta psu & the socket was not dry jointed but had one of the pins burnt out( & missing) & the other very badly scortched. but the supply board & the solder 100 % o.k. so there might be somthing yet in what m.s. has done. they might have two probs ! or more.?

[xfool2004]

First, I'd like to thank everybody invloved with this site! I usually find the answer to my problems and therefore I dont have to post too often!

I am having a problem with an xbox that uses a delta power supply. (V1.2) I have seen sparking from this xbox! It turned on, i left it on idle for about 2 hours, restarted it, and it hasnt turned on since. My friend was having similiar problems (this is his live box)

Can the xbox mobo be damaged or will replacing the PSU fix this problem?

Thanks everybody!

[loglog]

Here's my experience with the power cord. Went to the xbox web site, ordered it, got it (in Belgium), so far no problem.

But the power cord just didn't work. It was blinking red then got green, and the test switch made it blink red then shut it off. While the power led was always off.
Those aren't even explained in the manual (blinking red then getting green?)


Anyway, I then entered the customer support loop. That is, I was send from 1 customer support # to another, usually to end up in an automatic # explaining me how to GET my power cord mailed.
Basically their french-speaking customer support just didn't know shit about the cord replacement, and made me enter their loop until I gave up. And emailing them gave me a nice 'you should phone-call instead' back

Back to the old cord now.. just hoping it won't fry. Problem is that, meanwhile, I've messed with the power cord, removing it and plugging it back several times. From what I've read here, it could be the cause of the problem, and I wouldn't have done that if M$ hadn't bored me with their stupid letter in the first place.

[seriouslysilly]

[G0t M4xx 21]

Just thank god M$ doesn't make cars. I can see it now:

"Yes, there have been reports of our cars catching fire, so we're sending all our customers a free fire extinguisher and a bottle of water!"

or

"we know the airbags sometimes don't deploy normally, so you must tape this pillow to the steering wheel, and keep it there at all times!"

This post has been edited by G0t M4xx 21: Mar 18 2005, 04:51 AM

[shank69xo]

Just thank god M$ doesn't make cars. I can see it now:

"Yes, there have been reports of our cars catching fire, so we're sending all our customers a free fire extinguisher and a bottle of water!"

or

"we know the airbags sometimes don't deploy normally, so you must tape this pillow to the steering wheel, and keep it there at all times!"

Hell yes.

[gordita37]

How are you supposed to take out ths PSU *I think thats what its called* because I looked at it, and looked liked it was.. well dont really know, I didnt see any screws or anything

[pimpmaul69]

How are you supposed to take out ths PSU *I think thats what its called* because I looked at it, and looked liked it was.. well dont really know, I didnt see any screws or anything

there are 2 screws holding the psu down

[gordita37]

maybe I wasnt looking for screws.. I dont remember it was late when I opened her up, what kind of screw driver does it need?

[Alcott]

Can the xbox mobo be damaged or will replacing the PSU fix this problem?

Thanks everybody!

I would like to know this as well. I have a 1.0 xbox, which was recently replaced with a 1.6 mobo. It has a SmartXX Chip and i'm using the power cord it came with.

What can happen to it?