I bought an xbox 360 really cheap. ($25 and included the hd av cable and power brick)
It had problems with the video (no video, 4 red lights) and was basically only good for parts the guy said.
I wanted to learn how to fix Xbox 360 and what better way is there to learn to fix something than to buy a broken one and fixing it right?
When I got it, the xbox was trashed.
The case didn't close anymore, one of the caps was missing on the board, the video out port was broken and with broken pins so it wouldn't work with the av cable anymore (that would explain the 4 red lights), the fan duct was missing, the dvd eject button was missing and it had no case screws so I couldn't put it back together properly.

I looked through the xbox and found the broken cap from the xbox and I ordered a new one from digikey.
Once the cap came in I soldered it where the old one was supposed to be and set to work on getting video to see if it was salvagable. I soldered the video as composite and also soldered an rca jack to get video on screen.
I got the xbox on and it had a 1 red light instead of 4 it had before.
The code came up on screen and it meant the network chip wasn't working right (I don't remember the code)
I took a close inspection of the board and one of the "legs" from the network chip was bridging another.
I separated them and booted the xbox up and SUCCESS!
It booted into the dash and it was still the old blades dash.
I flashed XBR on to it and did the jtag hack and it was now homebrewed.
I ran some apps to make sure everything worked and it was working fine again.

But I still needed to figure out how to keep the xbox with full functionality for video and I wanted the xbox to still look like an xbox.

I got the idea from the original xbox 1's hd video breakout box.
I'll put in a new port on the outside of the xbox where the original av plug was at and make a breakout box with Component, VGA, Composite, LR Audio and Optical.

I still need to get the missing parts for the xbox to make it right.
I already got the missing fan duct for it.
Still need to get the dvd cover and button, faceplate, case, screws and a new dvd for it since the one it has keeps ejecting.

Here is the cap I replaced to get it to work again:



I also used the broken case to do the test fit of how the xbox would kinda look like with the db-25 connector and esata port.
I cut the broken case to it's extremes so I can see how much I can back off on the actual case and still be able to plug the cables in.




Mod's can you please delete my old post, I was going to post the pics soon after I posted but it got closed.
http://forums.xbox-scene.com/index.php?showtopic=706485

gotta love them success stories. good work man. pm me if u want, with a list of everything u need and maybe we can work something out.

Well this sucks. The wires I used for the new av connection was too stiff and lifted one of the connections on the board, making it once again dead.

could you solder to the trace?

I tried that but it still doesn't work, it ripped it quite deep, no where to solder.
But I guess it's not such a bad deal, for $25 I got an extra 203w power brick and av cables (and a dead xbox).

you could part it out or throw it on ebay

I might be interested in the drive

I ordered a 360 off ebay that only reads some games

ill let you know what drive it has when it gets here

that sucks so bad!!

where did you solder the av connections?

you should still be able to repair it. You just have to follow the path of the trace and find another part of the trace to solder to. You might also need to add a jumper wire to repair the ripped the trace depending on how you ripped it up.