This service included a
- OG Xbox TLC Refurbishment
- Additional shield painting and replacement of IDE-2-SATA adapter
The console was tested before opening up. It has a softmod with a 1TB HDD. The console takes approximately 20 seconds to boot into the dashboard (UnleashX) after the initial BIOS animation, then approximately another 20 seconds for the dashboard to fully load. After initial boot, loading games is fast and there are no apparent issues. However, after testing the disc drive with a game and pressing “eject” (which reboots the console), I got an error 07 on reboot, which normally indicates an issue with the HDD or most likely, the IDE-2-SATA adapter. I mentioned this to the customer who asked me to test an Startech adapter to see if it makes a difference. More of that later.
The console is in quite good condition externally, but internally is very dusty and has extensive corrosion caused by the clock capacitor (which wasn’t present). Shields are also very corroded, and I agreed with the customer to provide a painting service.
First thing to do was to try to clean out the corrosion in the motherboard as much as possible to stop it spreading further. It is well known that corrosion in this part of the motherboard can continue at the edge of the board, damaging traces associated with power up.
In the process of cleaning up, I had to remove capacitor C7G6 because the corrosion had gone under. This capacitor was replaced with new one. It is worth noting that despite best efforts (final estate in the rightmost picture), a couple of vias seem heavily corroded and is not possible to know if the corrosion will continue or if it has damaged that particular trace. Nevertheless, the console seems to work normally.
Next things on the motherboard were to replace the CPU capacitors and the thermal paste (which was already replaced in the past but I put new one Arctic MX-4 for good measure)
Next I looked into the DVD drive, which tested working fine with a slight clicking. Drive was relatively clean with some usual grime. I cleaned it up, replaced the rubber belt and lubricated the rails and cogs with white lithium grease. Is worth noting that this drive had been opened before as the warranty sticker was voided.
Next up full disassembly and further checking the state of the console.
All washable parts were then washed with water and sap. The fan was cleaned with a brush and compressed air, and the shields were left with a derusting chemical to prepare them for sanding and painting later.
Next up was the painting, which was done with Zinc Galvanised spray paint, which is conductive (as the shield needs to carry ground around the console motherboard and PSU).
Finally some polishing and plastic protector to make the console look as good as possible
The HDD was tested and seems new, with very low power on hours. The IDE-2-SATA was replaced with a Startech branded one, and the boot time dramatically reduced to a handful of seconds. The included 80 wire IDE cable is just not long enough to provide a clean, folded instal. In order to stop the cable getting in the way of one of the screws that closed up the shell (as per the picture below), I taped the ribbon to with some kapton tape.
Please note that together with the console I will also send the box of the new IDE-2-SATA adapter, with the old adapter inside.