Original Xbox Flashing Green & Red Light - Can I Fix it? 

The capacitors you replaced seem to have mainly been the main filter capacitors. Without them working properly, "ripple/ noise can get into the dc low voltage line, messing with the chips that prefer "clean" steady dc voltage. I guess that's what mainly was the cause why the lights spat out a general error code, cause nothing was really defective, just not in an operational state. Good job figuring out the cause! :D

6:15 - ‘And it can kill you’ said with such a soft tone 😂😂

Great job tracing down the problem to the caps. I would still take off all the caps in that region where the leak occurred and clean up the space under them. You will also have a chance to test them to see if any are out of spec. Using IPA and a brush to clean the board may not be enough, as you are not changing the pH of the spilled electrolyte. When the IPA evaporates, that stuff is still on the board, but just less visible. You could use a spray bottle to douse the board and let it drip off to one side, but I think using a solution of vinegar mixed with distilled water (or at least filtered) would help neutralize the pH, then you could follow up with a rinse of distilled water and finish with IPA spray/douse to replace and remove the particles. You may want to look into replacement of other old line filter capacitors in all of your devices. This includes LCD panels, radios and external power bricks. All these noisy devices will pollute your power in your house. Could make for a good video series:).

Seen tronic fix with a my mate Vince shirt on today in his new video fixing 3 ps5. Love to see the RU-vid repair community supporting each other.

I’ve missed your console videos especially the Xbox ones. Good to have them back👍🏻

I've been watching for years vince and love 💙 your videos. Always inspires me to have a go at repair projects myself with what I learn from you 👍⭐

I love watching you fixing consoles makes me feel so relaxed lol fix more !!!!!!

Nice Fix Vince, Faulty caps. Used to get that a lot on TV PSU's when I used to repair TV's. The electrolytic stuff dries out with age / heat and they no longer work. On another note Vince, I've just repaired a Milwaukee soldering iron, fairly easy fix, you might fancy one for yourself. Uploading the video for that one soon!

Good that you got that capacitor when you did. I managed to get one of mine just in time. A few traces ruined, but not beyond salvage.

the legend is still here after i watched him for years for 3ds/wii u/wii/switch thanks for still being here legend

I don't know what it is but when I am watching your videos it makes me relaxed and makes me want to watch more of your FANTASTIC Videos. Ps you are the best youtuber ever

It's been quite a long time since I've visited this channel, and his tinkering expertise is as sharp as ever!😁👍

Good fix there mate, OG Xbox's seem to be showing more problems now they are getting older. Removing the clock capacitor has probably eliminated another future fault from happening so you've done the right thing there. I wonder if different power supplies are required as there were a number of OG Xbox motherboard/hardware revisions throughout its lifespan?

You should compare new and faulty capacitors. Look and test the upper part with your finger. Quite often the broken one is rounded upwards. You will learn to notice the difference when you examine them. Many thanks for this video as well.

Good diagnosis. It might be sensible to suspect all caps of the same vintage once you know one has gone for certain. Keep up the great work 😀👍

Nicely done. I think we're starting to see the average lifespan of power supply capacitors (depending on use) somewhere around 10-20 years. It may just be worthwhile to preemptively change them if ever working on another eBay purchase. Enjoyed this video!

have the exact same problem on a machine ive been working on on and off for a year, think it looks like someone did an eprom bypass with a wire on mine to pull the bios from another part of the chip, such a nightmare error to identify, was going to chuck it in the bin but this vid has given me some motivation to have another crack... nice one vince

As far as I'm concerned your video can be as long as necessary, I will still watch every minute of it.

I love these vids. Well done Vince.

Enjoyable to watch. Anything you do is enjoyable. You are so smart.

Brilliant - thanks for not editing too much out as that really helps to understand fault finding - we’ve just switched our Xbox 360 on for the first time in ages - guess what!!!…….

Great video! Was fun to follow along! I'm in the process of replacing my laser for my Thompson drive. I ordered a new one after getting disk read errors and trying to clean it. Here's hoping!

Excellent work Vince, well done again

Nice video as always. That big cap on the psu always makes an impressive spark when dragging a screwdriver across it. This is in 120v land.

This is awesome - I just got an Xbox with exactly the same issue, so whilst it may not be the same things causing it, at least I have a head start on where to look. Cheers.

I got one around a year ago that after plugging it up it displayed a Orange light. Took a bit to boot but then I realized it was a modded xbox with a 2 TB hard drive & almost the entire xbox library. Not bad for $15

I believe the fix is something unexpected. Let me explain. I took apart a working Xbox that absolutely stinks like smoke and was extremely dusty. I tore it all the way down as much as possible and did a deep clean. When I put it back together, it was giving me the exact error that you have. After investigating, the metal sheathing on the bottom housing serves as a ground plain and touches on multiple parts of the motherboard board. I realized that I had done a bit of cleaning with a rag that had goo gone on it which is pretty oily. So I suspected that it wasn’t able to make a good contact to ground. All I had to do was clean the sheathing really well with alcohol and it works like a charm!

Class upload once again Vince!

Well, that’s a conclusive conclusion. Keep up the good work and, as always, stay safe!

Thanks. This video really helped me. Discerning between what the orange and red lights mean and how they differ, I was able to fix the problem.

That's a very common fault in power supplies of that type. What happens is that part of the circuit works at high frequency, so the capacitors work at critical levels in filtering the power. Except if they are very high quality, they wear more than the other capacitors in the circuit and, like someone commented on below, you start having ripple.

I saw TronicsFix wearing one of your my mate Vince T shirts, That is funny shit right there

Thanks for another video, Vince!

Nice detective work! Good to know what happens if power does not run evenly!

Just wanted to say thanks for the information. My butifull xbox started to blink red and green this weekend, and i had the same problem as you. No fault finding is needed, and it is working after 1,5 hours of work. I'm going to put it back when i get this heatsinks of. They are properly stuck 😀 Brilliant content as always!

Great video vince cracking fix

been troubleshooting a 1.6 my friend gave me for free from his childhood that supposedly just the disc drive didnt work so I ordered a new disc drive and then started getting the same exact fraging , i will now look into a replacement power supply. thanks!

Mind your back moving that thing around! The thing is a beast. I do like my OG Xbox though, enjoyed modding mine and changing the hard drive, and playing in glorious ish HD.

Great easy fix. I have the same issue with a vintage miltitrack cassette recorder.

The light you were confused about on the broken Xbox is the Red Ring of Death which is when an important processor dies on the inside of the console like the GPU, fans or clock capacitor. Meanwhile, the Orange Ring of Death, when you unplugged the AV of your working Original Xbox, is when the Xbox can't detect an AV cable plugged into a television and so turns that colour, but it will still work as normal and open its disc tray. If it's flashing only green, that's when the actual BIOS is corrupted, which usually happen when a bad jailbreak is done, a failed jailbreak or when bad soldiering is done when modifying. It sometimes (but usually) occurs when you buy modified Xbox's that have been entered (will usually show VOID on the bottom) and messed around with. If you get the Green Ring of Death, your console is basically bricked. If the Eject button is flashing green without you pressing it, that is definitely GRoD. Greatly done. Most of the capacitors in them original Xbox's are dying nowadays, I'm surprised how my limited edition one which you can see through isn't dead yet.

Well done. Always test power supplies under full load (with the drives connected). You can also test for AC noise on power rails using the AC range on the DVM, or, better still, a scope (comparing with the working unit). Touching the capacitor was probably just power on resetting the IC, but this is pure guesswork on my part. Your hot air station will be better at directing heat than a hairdryer and a can of freezer may be a prudent purchase for the future.

When you mentioned it may be a fault through a failed soft mod. I thought they were as easy as breathing to soft mod 😂 great video regardless keep it up mate

The one that requires more electricity is might be an older generation or older than the good. The 1.0-1.6b boards kind of different. Good job and keep up the goog work

I really missed console trying to fix, nice!

I never thought I would say this, but I crave a car video after this one 😂

So I really enjoyed watching your video and learning some of the different problems of the Xbox and how to fix them. However, I would like to know if the capacitors that you ordered will work on any model of the Original Xbox? My Xbox also has the same problem and it would seem like that would be the fix.

Believe I’ve got 3 of those Xbox’s, 2 which have been modded, All still working from what I remember, At: 27:00 you mention a Cap that’s just out of tolerance, I had a similar issue with a Big Yamaha AV Receiver, Took it to my Brothers a few years ago and he checked a Capacitor which tested ok & I asked him to replace it anyway & he did & voila, It turned on fine, We believe the Capacitor had gone out of tolerance just enough to prevent it from turning on, Good Video as always Vince! 🙂

WOW man, mine has the same problem and putting the finger in the same position made my xbox start without red/green flashing. Now I'm gonna recap the PSU. Thanx a lot by now....

Vince if you want to get the stickers down without damaging them you can use IPA on them, and you can restick them afterwards

Nice Vid Vince. The OG Xbox is so huge lol

No worries Vince, another great video. 👍

Seeing the inside of the OG xbox takes me back; my neighbor's xbox died some time ago due to a faulty power supply and I cannibalized mine to get his working again, since I didn't use mine anymore (luckily ours were the same model). Now I'm wondering if I kept the old faulty one and if it's a similar issue, maybe I can get mine working again (though if I remember right that one wouldn't power on at all). Anyway, nice work!

TronicsFix rocking a MMV shirt today.

Good job mate 👍

Great video! Really like that blue mat. Is that something I can find on Amazon?

Awesome fix. 👍

Awesome work big fan cheers mate

Now that's how you make a tutorial! Also, God bless you for caring about "retro" gamimg, especially the og xbox, in 2023.

This was a great video!!! 😊

Capacitors, always capacitors (well not always, but when it's an item like this, this old, thermally constrained, yeah caps is certainly a good place to start). And yes, that stuff on the logic board certainly looked like cap leakage. I've seen the same many times when working on Apple Macintosh logic boards from the 90s - the best part is when you get a dusty system that's had cap leakage the dust/dirt tends to stick to the leakage making it very obvious.

14:34 definitely heard the HDD spin up when you pressed down on the chip that time, makes sense if it contains the IDE controller.

Repaired one 6 months ago, had same error. I gave a board good IPA cleaning and it turned on. As is Halo edition i kept it and still works.

You are great at fixing things! I was particularly interested in the Eufy Robovac since I just bought a brand new 30C which was on sale on Amazon for $159 US. With all due respect, if you have a full time job and young family how do you have the time to fix all of these gadgets?

That thing you push is a crystal resonator at 32768Hz, they fail from time to time, it is for time keeping oscillator, so without stable power it breaks normal oscilation. You can put 2x1000uF in parallel in the place of one 2200uf

Love all your videos m8 from William Duncan AKA foggy❤❤

Hey thank you for that new Video. 🥰

A tip for cleaning under bga. Use a modelling air gun with the pressure cranked up with ipa then a follow up with deionised water with a blow dry

@18:00 that capacitor is a load capacitor for the 32KHz crystal, so my thought is that the crystal is bad or the capacitor is cracked, they are usually about 20pF.

The original x-Box came out during ground zero of the "capacitor plague" You'd be well off to replace all of them.

I have a 1.6 that started doing this. Will give the power supply a look and swap the caps if needed and see if it works on mine

Clock cap fixed the one on my bench. Ty

Like the way u talk through all the steps and say what your thanking and explain what and and y u might thank what might be the problem!! Keep up the good work .. I have a og ps3 phat the backwards compatible one I'm lost on ... do u have any good info ??????.. I wish I could send it to u to fix but I don't thank it would be worth it ...

Yay! Original Xbox! Love these things!

I had a MVS with the real time clock going crazy fast on diagnostic test. But when I went touching some pins of the RTC chip with a logical probe suddently it started counting time normally. Turned out the trace that feeds it power (from either the PSU or battery) goes accross aaaalll the board and over under several times, it had a bad via at some point. I guess the probe have some capacitance that managed to kick-start the chip. So yeah, electronics be wierd lmao.

You can use a soldering iron to heat up individual caps

I've fixed half a dozen of these now, ALL the large capacitors go bad, especially around the CPU and GPU. Console5 sells a kit, for the main board and the power supply. You can also get a quieter fan.

Those caps are exactly what went bad on my original Xbox. Luckily they were bulged, so I was able to diagnose them right away because I never would have figured it out otherwise.

You basically fixed an Xbox with a hairdryer, you really are getting the hang of it 😄👌

cool video now I gotta find a working power supply to test this system out thanks

I had this problem Vince I change hdd and boom it’s working once again 😅

I wondered where my air duster was, did you nick it!

The leaking clock capacitor is a common problem on the OG Xbox, but has been rectified on the 1.6 model which you were working on. Easy way to know if cap has gone, the residue smells fishy and the cap is budging.

If heat fixes your problem then it is bad solder joints. Heat from the device running will create heat on it's own and after a while of being on, it may start working in it's own. This can be show with a hair dryer... I wish you tested this too as heat causes the joints to expand and then get a good connection. So your caps may actually still test good but the fix was really new solder on those joints. FYI :)

Hey vince. Do you a link for where you get your flux. Thanks mate.

lol dude you playing with fire messing around that exposed PSU ... I once forgot to plug it off and accidently touched the psu and it hit me so hard lol

Those caps are neccesary cause the psu works with high frequentie cause its a flyback trafo and thus noise can go in to the power line and maybe mess up some on die components and areas of the chip like maybe the circuitry that does the power for the whole die or the clock generation circuit

Hey Vince, do you have the link for the desoldering gun you have? thank you!

I have a dead Xbox. I bought a used one off eBay but still have the dead one. Your videos have given me the motivation to go tinker with it. Maybe I'll mod that one if I revive it and leave my other one stock. Great videos. Loving your channel.

I recall from another video that specific PCB version have very "cheap" clock cap which breaks and can kill your console.

I'm a simple man, I see xbox repair, I click Like.

I don't like to do reflows. A lot of the time the problem is something else or the chip itself being dead. So you just end up adding unnecessary heat stress to the board.

So i have just dusted my old xbox off , i am using the PS2 power cable to power the xbox as i have lost the AV cable and power cable , oh and i need a new controller , my xbox is flashing red and green , could that because i dont have a AV cable plug in ? Oh thank you so much i carried on watching the rest of video and you answered my question 👍

What does heating the capacitors do? Someone commented it reflows a cold joint, but the way you were heating them didn't seem hot enough to reflow.

Another thing i do is use a 28x28x8 heat sink on the south bridge to keep them cooler

And here I was, expecting some PGR gameplay.

Personally and some might think it pedantic but I would change all the capacitors because they have long long exceeded their lifetime expectancy and you don't want to have to keep dropping the hood off and doing them piecemeal and it would give you a peace of mind that for the next 20 years they should be good.

i would allways check the traces under the board near the clock capacitor. thats the first thing the clock cap likes to eat

Nice video, will be nice, to mod this xbix with modchip, the real beginers guide... Keep on gret repair videos...

I always reflow all the components in that area of the clock capacitor and make sure to use vinegar and water mix of 80 percent vinger and 20 percent water

I got this problem when I removed the clock capacitor, put it all back together and never worked again, gonna try and fix it.