I've opened up alot of xbox's and xbox 360's and I've repaired quite a few DVD drives, but I never seen this.




This Samsung TS-H943 logic (Ms28) board came out of an unmodded 360. It belongs to a friend and he told me that recently he put a movie in the 360 and it just froze. The 360 still turns on but the drive is dead. After removing the logic board, and noticing what appeared to be melted plastic all over it, I thoroughly checked the inside of the drive but nothing appears to be melted. I even tried replacing the laser with one out of a bricked Hitachi, but it didn't work (I already knew that wasn't it but I had to try!)

Of course, since it's unmodded I don't have the key. I'm assuming it's the board itself that's bad.
If anyone thinks they can extract the key from the eeprom, with a programmer, please let me know. Any recommendations or advise would be appreciated.

Dude!

That's epoxy glue put there by M$ to stop you desoldering the flash.... It's supposed to be there...

If you are any good at soldering, then you can avoid using a programmer. You could remove the flash device and put it on a new MS28... The epoxy comes off with heat, using an electric paint stripper....

i don't think it's supposed to be like that because i took the card out of another ms28 and it looked nothing like that. (i'm goin through the same thing with my drive not opening). you can see a little bit of it under the chips or what, but it's not all spread out like that. I replaced the card from the new ms28 and put it in the old one and it worked fine(played movies, games, etc). the only problem now is that i gotta figure out how to flash it again since it wasn't previously.

ya that's how all the ms28 drive boards look, if it has clear epoxy just around the fw chip then its a ms25, if it doesn't have any epoxy on it at all then its a ms21 or lower.

if the console is freezing %98 its not the drive (its probably going 3rlod).

if your having problems with the drive reading or ejecting then a quick fix would be to remove the case, logic board and tray then soak it in rubbing alcohol for at least an hr, let it dry for about 24hrs and put it back together.

Thanks for all the input guys, I appreciate it. I'm undecided whether or not to attempt it myself. I've soldered in a lot of modchips in the original xbox's and I've even repaired traces and replaced the smallest resistors on an xbox motherboard. I don't have a heat gun, referred to by Podger, and I'm hestitant to soak the board as Grim187 suggested. But I'm sure you both have more experience at this than I do. Grim187 (or anyone), have you completely soaked mobo's in alcohol like that? Would it be better to get a heat gun? I'm not afraid to do either one and I am willing to attempt removal of the eeprom (If I find a good tutorial for it). I guess I'm looking for the best alternative before trying it. If you, or anyone else wishes to reply, I'm all ears (or should I say eyes).

Thanks
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