Xbox won't switch on anymore

[Darkstorm]

hello

I tried turning on my xbox (normal not 360) today and it wouldnt come on, it made a crackling noise at the back where the power input was and that was all.

i tried fiddling with the lead and then there was a burnign smell (always a bad sign) and now it doesnt even crackle it just does nothing.

Is my xbox fried? or is it salvagable? (thinking hardrive mainly)

if anyone knows what to do I'd appreciate some pointers

[MattyD]

Sounds like something shorted out - hopefully it'll be the cable or fuse that fried rather than the machine itself. If you have another power cable laying around (The Dreamcast and old model PS2 both use the same type of generic cable) try using that and see what happens.

[MattyD]

If the machine doesn't switch on you'll probably need to replace the power supply using something similar to this:

http://www.gamerepaircenter.com/xbox_pow_sup.htm

Spares like this are very easy and cheap to get and they're not much hassle to fit.

[Darkstorm]

yah trie dother leads and no go best i got was a brie fpower up beep for as half second but no p[ower up and just more crackling and burnt smell.

is replacing the psu a simple enough job or is it a sodlering effort? (lacks soldering tools)

[egparadigm]

Out of interest, did you get hold of the replacement power cables MS were giving out a couple of years ago? There was a scare about peoples' consoles bursting into flames...

[Darkstorm]

yeah tho I only got around to trying it out today (to see if the cables were the issue)

[gunrock]

That was most likely your problem, but the replacement cable may have tripped out before any serious damage to the xbox motherboard or components was done.

With some luck it might just be your PSU that's dead.

[Darkstorm]

if not is it possible to transfer the hardrive into another xbox?

[MattyD]

Bearing in mind the Xbox is a consolised PC you won't need to solder anything. If you loook in the screenshot in the link I posted above you can see the board has the same power connectors as you get inside PC cases to plug into the motherboard, disc drives etc and it works in exactly the same way. The most you'll have to do is take out some screws to open the case and remove the various shields and mounts etc, then unplug it, take it out and replace it with the old one.

[dannywhac]

Used to get xbox1's with exactly the same problem - what's happened is where the 'figure of eight' power cable runs into the xbox. the two solder points have cracked, making the connection impossible to make - you can reflow the solder on them to remake the connection (the more you heard the 'crackling' the more the solder joints came apart) with a solder iron. If you havn't got one of them, you can buy a new internal psu for well under a tenner

[Darkstorm]

Ah I see thanks for the info

is there anywhere that sells the parts for the uk xbox? or are they universal? (wasn't sure if the xbox self regulated like the PS3 due to it using figure of 8 lead)

[J0e Musashi]

I've got one of those new PSU's if you need one. They sent it out to me years ago, but I never used it.

[randombs]

xbox psu's aren't universal, so make sure you get the right one. i think most of the third-party psu replacements are universal though (such as the one MattyD linked to).

as for putting the hard drive in another xbox, is your xbox modded? if not, then the hard drive is locked to the motherboard and i doubt there's anything you can do to easily unlock it for another xbox (the hard drives have a key that's tied to the xbox itself).

[Darkstorm]

ah no it's not modded, it's just a regular one (the one that was bundled with a SEGA GT/Jet Set radio Future combo disc years ago)

Anyone know what model that is as the link site said that PSU was for 1.0/1.5 machines

And Joe if you meant the new lead (the MS sent out one with the two buttons) I appreciate the offer but I got one of those too seems I need to repalce the internal bits and bobs as no lead worked after the burn smell came out of it

(especially annoying is it ahs a dvd of mine in there) >.<

[randombs]

that psu is for all xboxes from v1.0 up to 1.5 (see it has two different connectors? the pc-style bigger one is for newer xboxes, the other is for older ones)

my xbox is also a jet set/sega gt combo box, and it's a v1.0 so you'll be fine.

don't go switching it on until you get the replacement, though, even just to see if anything's ok, as you could end up making things worse (especially if, as we all hope, it's just the psu that went kaput)