Cedric Reed

Original Xbox Repair

- Diagnostic Pt. 4 -

Hello Cedric,

I professionally reinstalled your modchip and was able to get a solid blue light on the chip (a good sign it is installed correctly). I am able to get a boot animation when the chip is turned off, and it looks like it is trying to boot but may be corrupted, or the modchip needs to be reflashed. This seems like something that can be done but the repair is getting quite intensive - resources on the chip are either very outdated or have long been removed and are now broken internet links. I did find a instructional from an online site that may be useful - but it is an untrusted source and I will need to download from a computer and a network that I can risk getting a virus on…

Where would you like to go from here? It may be very difficult to reflash your chip, and we would need to re-negotiate pricing. I’m already quite a bit more involved in this repair than I planned to be. We can also take your working system, get it up to par, and install it into your system from when you were in service - not perfect, but at least you would get to keep a functional piece from when you were in service. I’m afraid this would mean that any filed on your original system would not be recovered… I am also afraid that having to reflash the chip may mean that the information on your original system is already unrecoverable.

But… A data recovery specialist may be able to help. I am a hardware specialist, but there may be a data / software specialist that can better recover the data from your old system.

Let me know what you’re thiking…

- Diagnostic Pt. 3 -

12/1/2023

Hello Cedric,

Took a pretty deep look at your system. In short, the modchip installed is to blame - it seems its designed not to use solder and it came off of its connections. I plan to solder the board down professionally and see if I can get a full-system boot. If not, I learned I may be able to flash the system back to its original state before the modchip, but I don’t know that I can recover game files and information - so I’m going to avoid doing that until I know more about it. Detailed information can be found below:

- Diagnostic Pt. 2 -

9/13/2023

Hello Cedric,

As discussed over the phone this will be a very involved and time-consuming repair. I will keep you updated with changes to the progress of this repair, but repairs may take as long as a month for turnaround. I will start ordering some of the custom parts tonight, and will start measuring capacitors and other onboard equipment for modern replacements.

Please find attached below a quote for repair:

- Diagnostic Pt.1 -

9/02/2023

Hello Cedric! Took a look at your game system and ran into a couple of things that don’t look quite right to me…

There is an area of the motherboard that is very hot - this appears to be caused by a faulty transistor of some kind. I need to take some time to research and see if there is any information on what kind of transistor it is, but it certainly seems like a faulted area of the motherboard to me.

I was also wanting to know what kind of modification is installed - modifications are a common point of failure in my experience, but I noticed that the solderwork was very professionally done (by whoever installed it)… But, its overall design seems to be fairly weak mechanically - it seemingly uses mechanical leverage to make an electrical connection in an area of the motherboard. This isn’t always a bad thing, but in this case it seems very poorly implemented.

Also, I noticed the original frame screws are missing - not a major issue, but I was wondering if those existed somewhere…

I will keep digging on the transistor - but thought I’d reach out with an update and see if you had any information on the installed modification.

Thanks!