XBOX 360: Trouble = No Video

Dyre Straits

One of my son's XBOX 360s just developed a problem. And, it's the one that's no longer under warranty as of just a few weeks ago. Here's how he described it to me:

The screen suddenly went green. He rebooted the console and now there's no video at all.

The error indicator lights up like it should if everything is working, but, there simply is no video at all. There was no "Ring of Death" or any such error indication when this happened.

Since it's no longer under warranty, Microsoft support essentially is saying, "touch luck."

Anyone with some suggestions that might fix it?

Thanks!


BTW, I've actually already taken the console apart enough to clean out all the dust that had accumulated inside. There actually was some significant dust on the fins to the PSU as well as some dust on the two fans and the vents. The only place, though, that looked like it could have been serious is right on the front of the fins to the PSU.

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Sandok

Try another component or VGA cable? I've read somewhere on the net of a few people who replaced teh cable and voilà!

BlueMak

Try connecting it to another TV with different set of cables?
Also, I don't know where you live, but if you are in the EU then the console is covered for 2 years no matter what the shop told you.

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The people who are regarded as moral luminaries are those who forego ordinary pleasures themselves and find compensation in interfering with the pleasures of others(Bertrand Russell)"You go into Afghanistan, you got guys who slap women around for five years because they didn't wear a veil,You know, guys like that ain't got no manhood left anyway. So it's a hell of a lot of fun to shoot them." - Lt. Gen. James N. Mattis
This is slavery, not to speak one's thought. [Euripides-The Phoenician Women (c.411-409 B.C.)] http://www.macedonia.info/FALLACIESANDFACTS.htm Sic semper tyrannis.

Tipstaff

Too late though.

"BTW, I've actually already taken the console apart enough to clean out all the dust that had accumulated inside."

So, any warranty he might have had is gone the way of the dodo now.

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MIG-31

Couple that with living in the united states

Besides i had some hassle with cables when i picked up my 360 a couple of weeks ago.It would be worth trying to borrow a different set if possible.

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Dyre Straits

Forget about using some other cables, etc. What I did was disconnect the cables from the working XBOX 360 and plugged them into this one. No video.

My son already tried to see about getting an extended warranty. He was just a few weeks past the period and couldn't get it done. That's the only reason we decided to open it up.

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Dyre Straits

UPDATED:

In order to dig deep within the innards of the XBOX360, I had to pick up some tools I didn't already own. Among them are some quite small TorX tools.

After pulling the motherboard out and taking off the plastic air-cooling cover, I noticed some capacitors that don't quite look right. One of the first things I look for are these bulging caps. Well, these are as bulged as ones I've come across that are definitely bad, but they are worse than a couple identical ones nearby. Notice the yellow barrel capacitors.

Tell me if you think these are suspect:

First the Good Caps:



Now the Suspect Ones:
(The one on the left in particular.)

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Tipstaff

Hey, Dyre, are you referring to the yellow capacitors? If so, don't worry about them. Those damn things are very misleading as the tops on that particular brand have a raised top to them, and can give a false impression that they are bulging. Mind you they are crap caps though.

BTW, Asus uses that brand of caps a lot. Everytime I sell something of theirs that has those caps on them I get at least 1 question about them for every 5 things I sell of theirs.

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Dyre Straits

OK, well, I guess that's good to know.

It still leaves us with trying to figure out why the video went kaput during gaming.

Again, the way he (my son) described it, the video went 'all green' and he rebooted the unit. When it came back up, there was no video. It's black but with a little 'static' if you know what I'm talking about. Just enough to let you know there's 'something' there.

Now, of all things, he just found out on Monday of this week that they have updated their service plans and he COULD have sent it in for repairs under extended warranty. Just our luck that I have the unit disqualified now. At least it was at his discretion for me to do it.

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Tipstaff

BTW, was the below image what he saw?



There was something I remember reading on Microsofts 360 site that might be of interest. It's quite possible that the system has "somehow" switched to PAL output. Take a look HERE. If you have the VGA cable you might want to try hooking the unit up to your PC monitor as it doesn't care about PAL or NTSC.

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Dyre Straits

No, he said there was no text when the screen went 'green'. It was just a green hue like it lost red and blue.

But, I'm going to check this PAL/NTSC situation to see if it's that.

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[hobo]eclipse

When you did this, was it different cables but plugged into the same ports on the same tv or was it a different tv all together, just to eliminate the TV ports as the culprit? also how was it hooked up, component? when it was green was the picture still there with justthe loss of red and blue making it all green or was it a solid green?

Also in the pics provided, a lil off topic here but is the soldering as bad as it looks around all the lil componnets, or is that just a mixture of camera and dust trickery?

Geminiwave

oh dude...uhh i know this might sound dumb but make sure the cable is switched to the right setting. Seriously because I had it do the same thing . The black with alittle static? right? Its prob switched to HDTV when its meant to be SDTV or vice versa. What you described is EXACTLY what happens when you bump the switch on the cable.

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Dyre Straits

Yes, I tried all the different cable switch settings.

And, when it turned green there was still an image...it just lost the red and blue.

My son has TWO XBOX 360s and when we switched the cables we simply moved them over from the working one onto the problem one. Same TV, same settings, etc.

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[hobo]eclipse

did you try a differnt style of plug, if it was hooked up component try the yellow composite? also do you get sound?

Dyre Straits

I'm going to have to wait on further testing. He took the powerpack and cables back to the store with him for others to use. (He manages a comic book and game store and has several consoles setup for MP gaming locally.)

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Dyre Straits

I have the power pack and cable here again now.

When I was checking it before, I actually was checking the Composite video using the Composite capture of the ATI TV Wonder 550 I picked up some time ago. That's when I was seeing the 'staticky' like result.

Now, Tipstaff, re: those capacitors: Yes, it's the four yellow capacitors I'm referring to. The two that look good to me, when I test the OHm on them, with the tester set to 20, I get a reading of 0.00 on both of them. But, when I test the two 'suspicious' ones, I get a result of 0.06 on both of them. I would expect to get the exact reading on all four. Or am I mistaken?

The thing is, I really don't know whether these capacitors have any relation to the video of the system.

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technonerd

You could try to call in for warranty at microsoft, let them know that you open the xbox and didn't realize that the warranty expanded. They would be
generous enough, who knows you may be surprise :P

Tipstaff

Honestly, you got me on both counts. The guy I work with is an electrical engineer, and I pretty much rely on him for figuring this stuff out. I just know what is good, how to tell if it's good, how to replace them, and what not, but anything past that is pretty much beyond me. In the case of these caps I happen to remember selling a few Asus 7600GS cards, and my buddy and I got to talking about them specifically.

If it helps, from what I remember about those caps was that they are from Fujitsu, 4v820uf 6.3v. God help me, but I can't seem to remember the Ohm (20-23 I think.. or is that 0.020-0.023?). Of interest is that every time I see those caps they are usually on a video card mixed in with some Matsushita caps.

Personally I'd sell it off for parts on eBay, and buy a new one. Getting something back, even a hundred bucks or so towards a new one would be better than throwing money at it, and trying to fix it yourself.

Mind you, even if it's opened Microsoft would still accept it for repairs at your cost. How much that would be though... that's the thing.. it might not even be worth it.

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clicker666

I had the ring of lights with mine, sent if off to M$ with a $126 charge on my card. They returned it as tampered with (because I opened it) and I still haven't received my refund after a month.

What I did end up doing was:

Applied a low profile heatsink to the southbridge, applied ram sinks to the exposed memory, removed the x clips and replaced off of the main heatsinks. I cleaned the old heatsink crap off and applied arctic silver 5. I duct taped the open areas and put a divider in the duct, and put a think piece of cardboard over the GPU sink to help force air over the GPU sink. I also had to cut away a lot of metal at the bottom of the heat shield to allow the ram sinks to clear. (all from XBOX scene.) I fired it up and let it run until it overheated without the fans running, then reconnected fans.

End result: I still can't use it in HD - it overheats. But I gave it to my son who uses it on his SD TV without problems, as long as it's in the vertical position. (Three red lights in horizontal.)

Unfortunately I didn't test it in the vertical position on his TV, so it's entirely possible that it may have worked properly in SD to begin with in a vertical position - which would have saved me a lot of work. I ended up just buying a basic unit for me, and got a three year extended warranty. No more messing around with the new 360.

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Geminiwave

hey also did you try to reset your xbox video?

hold down y and right trigger as the thing is booting up.
uhh...okay yea so take out any discs, then hold down the center button on the controller to turn the console on. immediately hold down Y and right trigger, it should start loading up and then stop and shut down...then reboot and it'll reset the video settings to a sort of "Safe mode"

try it out.

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Dyre Straits

Thanks, I'll definitely give this a try ASAP.

Also, in answer to another question: Yes, there was still audio when the video went out.

In fact, the whole thing behaves normal with only the absence of video. The lights on the console work, there's no 'Ring of Death" or any other such error indicated.

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Tipstaff

Interesting. Thanks for pointing that one out, Gemini. I knew there was a way to clear out cache, and what not, but I didn't realise there was one for resetting video too. Good to know.

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Sandok

If that is the case, the thing Gemini posted will most probably be what you needed... Good luck!

Dyre Straits

Well, guys, I think we can say that the video is dead on this box.

I did -- several times now -- what Geminiwave said to do and, it does exactly what he described. The box goes through the cycle of green lights, shuts down, reboots and, during this reboot it does cause a very brief 'flash' on the TV screen. But, it's just a very quick, brief second, and the screen remains black the whole time. It's just enough to know tha some kind of signal is 'trying' to get through, but there's no image at all.

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Sandok

Sucks man

Dyre Straits

I know.

He's (my son) going to call MS to see what/if they can do anything.

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Geminiwave

okay so...if it were the video chip the 360 would have a ring of death. if it were the port broken, you'd get flashing ring...so clearly its passing the handshake. its sending a signal to the TV and getting a signal back because otherwise you'd get a red flashing light. hmmmm....

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Dyre Straits

Exactly. If there were no signal at all, the light/s would be red like if you pulled out the plug. As it stands, it's behaving as though everything is A-OK.

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Zardon

I am on my third 360 and I can honestly say, they are made like total s*(t. the build quality is attrocious. What pisses me off even more is the latest one I have occasionally sends out a no signal to the tv for around 3 seconds every day or so. Quite frustrating if you are in the middle of a tricky part in a game.

They must be getting pig farmers in outer mongolia to put them together.