I'm sure a fair few on the caf have got original xbox's hidden away somewhere in a closet or a loft. You know, the one that looks like you can make a cheese toastie on it.
Your xbox is likely dying. If you want to use it again, there are a couple of things you need to do:
1) Capacitor
There is a defective capacitor on all over these boards which leaks acid and will eventually kill the board (it may have already done so).
This capacitor can be safely pulled out with disposable latex gloves and a pair of pliers on boards before and including 1.5 as the Xbox doesn't need it. On versions 1.6 it needs to be replaced.
2) Mod your Xbox and upgrade the hard drive.
The hard drive could be over 15 years old at this point and will likely be on it's way out. The DVD drive could well be already dead although may not be. Thankfully if the DVD Drive is dead, you can buy any original working xbox DVD drive and replace it.. but the HDD drive is coded to the xbox and you cannot replace it unless you hard-mod your xbox.
To hard-mod your console your probably want to soft-mod it first, then flash it. With 1.6 only certain soft-mods work. 1.6 boards do not have a TSOP chip so cannot be flashed, so need to be modchipped.
If your hard drive is dead you have to install a modchip.
Installing a modchip or flashing the TSOP chip requires soldering wires.
Then you can replace the hard drive with a new one or even a SSD, but you may need a SATA to IDE adapter. Replacing the DVD drive with a new drive is harder because there are only a few drives made that can read xbox discs (they spin backwards and read inside to outside), but you can just replace with any working xbox drive.
Why bother getting your xbox up and running again? Well there are a few games that ran better on xbox than any other version before or since, and a few xbox exclusives. There is also no working xbox emulator.
Spider-Man 2 - 480p mode on Xbox and it had better visuals on it anyway. (Does run on Dolphin and PCSX2 though)
TimeSplitters: Future Perfect - 480p Widescreen mode on Xbox. (Again there is a Dolphin and PCSX2 version, but timesplitters is all about the coach multiplayer.
And everyone mentions Jet Set Radio Future.
So, would you bother saving your xbox or is it not worth the while?
Your xbox is likely dying. If you want to use it again, there are a couple of things you need to do:
1) Capacitor
There is a defective capacitor on all over these boards which leaks acid and will eventually kill the board (it may have already done so).
This capacitor can be safely pulled out with disposable latex gloves and a pair of pliers on boards before and including 1.5 as the Xbox doesn't need it. On versions 1.6 it needs to be replaced.
2) Mod your Xbox and upgrade the hard drive.
The hard drive could be over 15 years old at this point and will likely be on it's way out. The DVD drive could well be already dead although may not be. Thankfully if the DVD Drive is dead, you can buy any original working xbox DVD drive and replace it.. but the HDD drive is coded to the xbox and you cannot replace it unless you hard-mod your xbox.
To hard-mod your console your probably want to soft-mod it first, then flash it. With 1.6 only certain soft-mods work. 1.6 boards do not have a TSOP chip so cannot be flashed, so need to be modchipped.
If your hard drive is dead you have to install a modchip.
Installing a modchip or flashing the TSOP chip requires soldering wires.
Then you can replace the hard drive with a new one or even a SSD, but you may need a SATA to IDE adapter. Replacing the DVD drive with a new drive is harder because there are only a few drives made that can read xbox discs (they spin backwards and read inside to outside), but you can just replace with any working xbox drive.
Why bother getting your xbox up and running again? Well there are a few games that ran better on xbox than any other version before or since, and a few xbox exclusives. There is also no working xbox emulator.
Spider-Man 2 - 480p mode on Xbox and it had better visuals on it anyway. (Does run on Dolphin and PCSX2 though)
TimeSplitters: Future Perfect - 480p Widescreen mode on Xbox. (Again there is a Dolphin and PCSX2 version, but timesplitters is all about the coach multiplayer.
And everyone mentions Jet Set Radio Future.
So, would you bother saving your xbox or is it not worth the while?
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as far as i can recall it just wouldn't turn on, no colours or beeps. I was lucky because I also already owned a slim at that point, the older one was simply a blu-ray player.