The Power Cord Conspiracy, Here's the truth Options

[cRACKmONKEY421]

I have a refurbished 1.0 with a foxlink... I've had it for years now. No solder cracks... Solder actually looked perfect. I probably average 3 unplug & plug-ins a month... which is probably not excessive, but I haven't been trying to be careful with it. I resoldered it anyway with some %96 Tin 4% Silver solder. I'm still not quite sure what causes this problem. People say "shotty soldering" but in my case the soldering job looked fine... so what makes for a "shotty soldering" job? In this case is it moslty due to bad soldering or bad solder?

[GhostDog__]

does it matter to the fact that most of everyone that has reported problems and want to join a class action suit or wut not have opened their xbox's? that doesnt void and type of warranty or replacement? i mean i understand the problem is hardware and m$ is trying to cover it up but the thompson dvd-rom's are garbage in the 1.0-1.1's also and the mcpx's fry in box's all the time.....same with playstations....their dvd-rom's are crap thats why they make new version consoles to fix their cheap hardware....well anyways im just wondering if we are going to get any where since we've all pretty much opened our xbox's

I was wondering the same thing. I'll take it one step further. What about the fact that most of these people have a modchip in their Xbox (myself included) which voids the warranty? I know some use soft mods. I could be wrong. MS is not going to replace the PSU's in modded Xbox's.

This post has been edited by GhostDog__: Mar 22 2005, 03:27 AM

[G0t M4xx 21]

I have a refurbished 1.0 with a foxlink... I've had it for years now.  No solder cracks... Solder actually looked perfect.  I probably average 3 unplug & plug-ins a month... which is probably not excessive, but I haven't been trying to be careful with it.  I resoldered it anyway with some %96 Tin 4% Silver solder.  I'm still not quite sure what causes this problem.  People say "shotty soldering"  but in my case the soldering job looked fine... so what makes for a "shotty soldering" job?  In this case is it moslty due to bad soldering or bad solder?

Not necessarily bad soldering, but a lack of reinforcement of the power connector, which transmits too much force the the solder joint, and cracks it.

[TheMuffinMan]

to Crackmonkey

1) You have a refurbished XBOX 1.0, not the same as having a 1.0, they could have changed the psu and other parts, if it's really a refurb like you say, that means MS played with it

2) 3 times a month? That's like nothing at all, I take mine to LAN's and friend's houses and move it around which is probably at least 20 times unplug/plug, you can't say much with only 3 haha

[broadd]

Maybe this has been said already, but the instruction manual that came with my replacement cord in Australia says something along the lines of "The console is designed to prevent any electrical fire from spreading outside the console, and the new cord is designed to cut the current should an electrical fault develop inside the console."

The cord is a monster! Two huge long powercables, and a huge fuse box in the middle.

[bloodshot_17]

Well I checked my powersupply cause I knew for a while now it seemed loose when plugging and unplugging the box.
I don't think the problem is the solder...
The new plugs are different, the new plug has a lip on it which prevents you from pushing the plug in further than it is supposed to go.
With out this people are pushing it in too hard and this is what is breaking the solder joint.
I used hot glue and secured the plastic piece to the powersupply board and it is now nice and tight again.
This will most likely fix everyone's problem but just make sure there is not a broken connection already.

Anyway...just my advice and what I have come to with all the data posted here.
Thanks for all the posts and research.

[Neptune]

After reading the article about the kid's xbox blowing a circuit in his house and sparks flying all over the place I thought I should throw in my 2 cents.

I do repairs on xbox's all the time, and one of the issues is the power supplies blowing out, and I mean blowing out beyond fuse replacements. I believe the reason for the power cord replacements was to solve THAT issue.

The rest of the repairs are the power connector's on the PSU being loose with no solder making contact. I literally opened one and the connector fell on the floor, even had a friend send me one and when you plugged it in, it literally shot sparks into the air over 6 inch's I was literally scared to work on the unit. Re-heated the solder on the joints, added a bit more solder and used braid, worked like a charm.

In short, M$ get your act together, you can afford to fork out $20 per unit.

[theunbeatable]

Well after reading the 31 parts of the discussion..... It seems like the Mineba Power Supply doesnt suffer from meltdown . No one has reported it as of yet, so i guess those people are safe!

[G0t M4xx 21]

yeah, I have a mineba ive been screwing around with, it seems to be fine. The cord is loose in the socket, but no popping or sparking, and no broken joints. like most things that are good quality, the Mineba supply appears to be the most expensive (it has like a million capacitors on it!), and therefore it never showed up on the 1.2-1.6 boxes.

[madsci1016]

Wow i thought this only affected older models. A day ago a friend of a friend came to me with a fried xbox and he reported sparks. I opened it up and sure enough one of the solder points on the plug connection was blown away. But his xbox was a 1.3 or 1.4 only a year old with the newer style power supply connector. I would have taken pictures but he was in a hurry.

[G0t M4xx 21]

Yes, it does also affect the 1.2-1.5 consoles, but not nearly as much as the 1.0-1.1's with foxlink supplies (once again 1.0-1.1's with deltas spark too, but not as much). i have heard no reports of the 1.0-1.1 mineba supply having any of these problems, or of any 1.6 consoles with this problem.

[G0t M4xx 21]

A single report recently surfaced that inaccurately
speculates that the recently announced power cord replacement for Xbox is somehow related to broken "solder joints" inside of early Xbox consoles. This
report is simply not true. In rare cases, solder joints have broken.
This issue is not associated with the power cord replacement program, nor is
it unique to the Foxlink power supplies [wow! some truth here] or even Xbox consoles. All consumer electronics products experience some broken solder joints as a result of ordinary wear and tear. Broken solder joints inside the Xbox
are a warranty issue. All Xbox consoles (even without a replacement
cord) have been designed to insure that a broken solder joint does not
present any safety issue.

Rare cases my ass. Look at all the people JUST ON XBOX-SCENE that have had these broken joints. Now consider the percentage of ppl on X-S vs. the total number of xbox owners, and you can see that there are easily tens of thousands, if not hundreds of thousands of xbox psu's with broken power connectors.

Ordinary wear and tear? Its clearly a bad design. Why is it mostly Foxlink supplies that are broken? Answer: lack of support of the power connector. Bad design, should be replaced.

Not a safety issue? It is most definitely a safety issue! What the hell do you think is sparking in there? Many of us that have had Xboxes CATCH ON FIRE have opened the consoles, and discovered that the area around the power connector was the source of the fire, and it was because of the broken solder joints. How can a console catching of fire not be a safety issue? People are getting burned, and property is damaged. Sooner or later somebody's house is going to get burned down, or worse, somebody may DIE. How is this not a safety issue?

Shit like this just makes me so mad

This post has been edited by G0t M4xx 21: Mar 23 2005, 05:34 AM

[G0t M4xx 21]

Update! My own damn Foxlink power supply just burnt up on me. You know, the one I repaired in my first post (pics are currently down due to using up my bandwidth). Fried the same as everybody else's.

I can't post a pic directly, but here's a link.

bottom

top

edit- nevermind, thoke links dont work either. Should be back up tomorrow.

This post has been edited by G0t M4xx 21: Mar 23 2005, 07:39 AM

[datad0g]

My power cord is like fucked up.... sometimes when you plug it in, it doesnt get a good enough connection unless you like tilt the connector up. Hard to explain, but I just wrapped the cord around the xbox to keep it tight and it doesnt turn off randomly anymore, do I have a fuxx0red psu?

You sir are a fire waiting to happen!!

[terrorvis]

Anyone mentioned about yesterdays MS statement (if it has, i'm sorry)? MS claim that the cord replacement has nothing to do with the foxlink PSU problem.

A single report recently surfaced that inaccurately speculates that the recently announced power cord replacement for Xbox is somehow related to broken "solder joints" inside of early Xbox consoles. This report is simply not true. In rare cases, solder joints have broken. This issue is not associated with the power cord replacement program, nor is it unique to the Foxlink power supplies or even Xbox consoles.

All consumer electronics products experience some broken solder joints as a result of ordinary wear and tear. Broken solder joints inside the Xbox are a warranty issue. All Xbox consoles (even without a replacement cord) have been designed to insure that a broken solder joint does not present any safety issue.

Taken from http://www.theregister.co.uk/2005/03/23/xbox_no_problem/

A single report? Its all over the web!