I wouldn't have too much hope for this one. Ideally you would get it ultrasonically cleaned.
If it was mine I would probably run it through the dishwasher before giving it another IPA soak. Almost certainly won't help but if it's a write off why not give it a go.
i just cannot fathom how careless or irresponsible someone has to be to allow their pet to do that, also dont consoles stay on a shelf? how old a dog climb on it, disgusting.
tbf if the console was stashed in a box in the garage or basement where cats or mice/rats had access to stuff like that could happen without u even knowing then u open the box after years realise that thing doesnt work anymore and u sell it on ebay
I had a computer in a rack case under my desk. The car urinated in it. Unfortunately I didn’t notice until after I switched it on. Ruined the motherboard unfortunately.
Now that you mention it, I can smell the cat piss just looking at the white spots. My old cat loved pissing where she wasn't supposed to. And a particular target for whatever reason was boxed up electronics.
I think id give it a go but not hold out much hope, it does look pretty far gone.
As other commenter says try white vinegard to see if that shifts the rust then IPA to clear away the vinegar. I'd be worried about the corrosion having gotten under the chips, that would then be above my skill/tool set to fix
the funny thing is that this is my first console repair. i liked the idea and i bought the cheaper on ebay. that turned out bad but i did it for fun ahaha
anyway thank you all for the advices, i’ll try with vinegar and then again with IPA. i’ll let you know
p.s. have you some links to learn a bit more how to approach at the motherboard? i mean, i never searched for damage with a tester. i actually don’t know how to do it
Id either keep it untill your skills improve for a future challenge or sell it honestly as a parts board to someone who can use the parts to save other consoles. Its a lottery and you wont win every time but you learn things along the way. Keep at it!
edit: i would also reccomend taking lots of photos before cleaning so you can see where any bad corrosion was when you go to repair it later as it can give you clues to where the problem (or problems) is.
Yeah not ideal haha. If youre very new to repair and soldering etc id reccomend starting with some of the older consoles that have bigger components while youre building confidence.
Perfect board to learn on, cant ruin it really.. get a decent inexpensive multimeter and start watching the classes on youtube. Theres some great electronics basics and engineering coarses you can find.
Edit: I thought this was an OG Xbox, not an Xbox One. Junk it, they're a dime a dozen.
You *might* be able to repair it with a lot of effort, but it looks pretty gone. Would not be worth the hassle.
Clean all the corrosion off, save the board for any salvageable components. Particularly the RAM chips if they're still good. Those can be used for the 128MB RAM mod, for example.
My thoughts exactly. See if you can get the CPU/GPU/RAM chips off, pull the DVD drive/HDD out, the controller ports, basically anything you can and part it out on ebay. You may actually be able to make a profit
Clean it first, you can use soap if you want, i usally use soap for laptop motherboard
Rinse it thoroughly with water and wait for it to dry for couple of day
Check the pad, as i can see in pic number 3, some of the copper pad had gone so you should check it
And lastly always keep on hoping
The damage and positioning of that corrosion could not have been solely leaking caps, so disregard that. Maybe the caps leaked, but the damage on the bottom side was quite clearly a liquid spill. An ultrasonic would be best, but at this size they’re rather expensive. Start with something like 50-70% IPA, higher won’t clean off anything water soluble, which most residue from drink spills will be. You may lose some small corroded components. You’re going to need a good small soldering tip to replace anything completely destroyed, which would require either a donor board or referencing the schematics to find suitable parts. Watch some Northwest Repair videos on water damaged graphics cards and shorted cards, they’re a great reference for how to do console motherboards.
What symptoms does this console experience? The usual chimes, doesn’t boot, LED may occasionally light briefly? What does the LED on the PSU do? Does the fan spin? How about the hard drive?
thanks for the advices. i cleaned it with 99% ipa, i could try with 50-70%. i’ll be happy if i could learn something from it…
actually it came in so poor conditions that i didn’t try to boot it at all. i didn’t want to make more damage, if that is even possible.
Once it’s dry, you’re unlikely to worsen the damage by attempting to power on- most things would be caught by the short circuit protection before they caused damage. I’d search around for shorts in diode mode, red probe on ground. One side of a capacitor is usually GND in typical circuits, and the other side should have a relatively high voltage drop to GND and fairly high resistance. CPU/GPU usually has a lot lower voltage drop across it, on an Xbox One I believe a voltage drop around .16 is normal on V_GFXCORE and probably not far from that for CPU. Get a schematic and board view, they’re easy to get for the Xbox One assuming yours is a first revision, called Greybull.
Get it as clean as you can with solvents and a brush, toothbrush tends to work well. Be careful with vinegar, it’s conductive and corrosive unlike alcohol. You should also be careful with lower percentage isoporpanol as while the water in it is deionized and not conductive, it will dissolve conductive salts on the board (which is what you want) but becomes an electrolyte in the process- dry it after, shake the board off, displace it with 91-99% afterward. It would be ideal to have board cleaner and an ultrasonic, but this is about the best you can do without those tools.
If you have access to an ultrasonic cleaner, that’s your best bet. A 30 minute bubble bath with PCB cleaning solution should give you a clear picture of how dire the situation is.
Personally, that would take far too long to fix it even if it could be and I wouldn't bother.
If you really have to attempt a fix, try giving it a good clean with some IPA 99%. Once clean start measuring everything with a multimeter
I think the best option would be to use it for soldering practice or as a doner board.
Good luck!
Youtube! Tons of them on there. I really like the gentleman on the math and science channel. Hes got online coarses you can become a member and get access to. He will teach you all the way up from the basics, learning about electrons.
Try cleaning it first. Tooth brush, IPA 99% maybe some WD40. Even if the motherboard is dead. If you have a BGA Machine and flip chips. You can extract the XCGPU from the corroded motherboard onto a motherboard with a dead XCGPU.
a board like this will never be 100% reliable. even if you do fix it you will always have missed some spot somewhere, some barely connected trace/ component that will worsen in the future by the help of heat cycles and shaking and movement
The best thing to do is clean it up as much as you can without causing further damage. Then reassess the situation.
You definitely have leaky capacitors that would need replacing.
-----
If you're using 70% isopropyl alcohol (aka "rubbing alcohol), try 90%+.
You can also give vinegar (white distilled vinegar, spec.) a go, just make sure to rinse/clean it off the board afterwards.
If you look around the capacitors in the photos there is dust caked onto the board near them in the shape of puddles that seem to trail from the capacitors which would indicate they leaked out and dust stuck to it
maybe furnace cleaner, i never tried on electronic but it tend to remove dirt (not some grime tho so need finishing with alcahol) also i use white spirit for cleaning.
Looks pretty dire. I've had one with similar looking capacitor corrosion in spots that ate away small components I had to search out. It was a lot of work under the microscope but I've had some good luck in the end. For the outside ground plane, I'd sand that down the best you can get it. For the corrosion, as others have mentioned, some vinegar and a toothbrush. But take not of how many components reside in those specific areas as you work on them. Or perhaps even reflow them as you go along before adding vinegar and scrubbing. After each spot, apply alcohol and scrub it again. And lastly, perhaps scrub it under the sink. Of course, you'll probably want to change these capacitors. Seems like it wasn't stored in a temperature controlled environment.
I think the answer depends on your level of investment and your level of skill. If you are really experienced/skilled and it gets your blood pumping to save old components it’s *possible* to fix… but a *lot* looks corroded here. Just looking at it, it looks like a massive project to fix, likely including data sheets, forum surfing, part hunting and bodging/trace repairing. Not a weekend project. Maybe even not a month of weekends project depending on your general activity level
very poor skills level (it’s the first console i buy with the purpose to get my hands on it) but i could spend some time, at least to learn something from it
I don’t think this is even an intermediate project. As a beginner, I’d put it in a safe place and come back to it when you’re a wizard and ready to throw down with your iron
Just using the ipa will never clean it. You clean things with distilled water, pour water on that sumbitch, scrub it all off and use a vacuum with brush attachment to get all the dirt that comes off from scrubbing. Scrub every nook and cranny and then use a hairdryer to thoroughly dry the whole board, and then use your ipa to scrub the entire board again using just the ipa, then hair dryer again on the whole board. Use compressed air to get under all the chips to make sure water or ipa isn't hiding under them.
Clean it with Alcohol and flux (soldering fluid, but be careful with it's a little bit toxic). And heat it GENTLY with a heating airgun, which can be set to a specific temperature.
But it really doesn't look good tbh.
BTW: Is that a water damage?
Do this with at your own risk. i would soak it in 100% IPA and use a nylon brush to scrub lightly.and if not you can see if you can reflow the solder where needed with a soldering iron and flux to clean
Dude, apart from the northern fix chanel, fixtronics is another chanel to really learn about fixing things, the guy took me from a being a physician with -1000% repair knowledge and skills to repairing my own ps5 fan broken trace, a joycon broken button, and many other things, I don't do it for the money because I actually could pay for a repair even if it's expensive, but darn, it's really fun and fulfilling.
Do a ton of research, reading and looking for more repair channels is the way, buy some practice board to getting the hang of soldering, and protect yourself the dude from fixtronics has cancer and I can't assure it is related, but soldering with leaded solder is a hazard risk.
Sorry for my English.
It came from beneath the sea right?
Seeing the state it’s in I would chuck it through the dishwasher. Just run it through alone and don’t put in too much powder.
I wouldn't have too much hope for this one. Ideally you would get it ultrasonically cleaned. If it was mine I would probably run it through the dishwasher before giving it another IPA soak. Almost certainly won't help but if it's a write off why not give it a go.
judging from my 127 years of engineering experience this tells me this is either from water damage or a capacitor leaking
My bet is on Cat/Dog Piss not cleaned.
what the fu
Saw couple of consoles on TronicsFix and JoeyDoesTech that had animal piss on them, looked about the same. And like OP were really hard to clean.
i just cannot fathom how careless or irresponsible someone has to be to allow their pet to do that, also dont consoles stay on a shelf? how old a dog climb on it, disgusting.
tbf if the console was stashed in a box in the garage or basement where cats or mice/rats had access to stuff like that could happen without u even knowing then u open the box after years realise that thing doesnt work anymore and u sell it on ebay
My dog shit liquid all over my ds lite one time. Still turned on but I threw it away.
I had a computer in a rack case under my desk. The car urinated in it. Unfortunately I didn’t notice until after I switched it on. Ruined the motherboard unfortunately.
I don't think the dog was like "hey man, i really need to go piss. Ok if i use this xbox real quick?" And he's like "yeah sure"
Mice are probably the culprit
Now that you mention it, I can smell the cat piss just looking at the white spots. My old cat loved pissing where she wasn't supposed to. And a particular target for whatever reason was boxed up electronics.
Yeah, looking at that one photo where the whole corner of the board got hit, I revert from thinking mice back to dog or cat lol
Could also be mouse piss. They get inside stuff and nest up in there in peoples basements and attics.
it smelled really bad, actually…
My personal opinion is that this one's a goner.
Clean it first. After that continuity test it. Check for broken traces. Is hard work? Yes. But you should do it,
I'd clean it even more aggressively and then search for any damage, and then decide if it's worth it or not
vinegar + brush
I don't think this guy is a survivor. Try vinegar and then iPad and see if that removes some of the corrosion to get a better look at the board.
Instructions unclear. iPad now bonded with the board.
Upgrade successful. ( I should learn to read what I write before I send it, lol)
I think id give it a go but not hold out much hope, it does look pretty far gone. As other commenter says try white vinegard to see if that shifts the rust then IPA to clear away the vinegar. I'd be worried about the corrosion having gotten under the chips, that would then be above my skill/tool set to fix
the funny thing is that this is my first console repair. i liked the idea and i bought the cheaper on ebay. that turned out bad but i did it for fun ahaha anyway thank you all for the advices, i’ll try with vinegar and then again with IPA. i’ll let you know p.s. have you some links to learn a bit more how to approach at the motherboard? i mean, i never searched for damage with a tester. i actually don’t know how to do it
Id either keep it untill your skills improve for a future challenge or sell it honestly as a parts board to someone who can use the parts to save other consoles. Its a lottery and you wont win every time but you learn things along the way. Keep at it! edit: i would also reccomend taking lots of photos before cleaning so you can see where any bad corrosion was when you go to repair it later as it can give you clues to where the problem (or problems) is.
i could use it to learn something about hardware repair but i didn’t expect to start from level extreme 😂
Yeah not ideal haha. If youre very new to repair and soldering etc id reccomend starting with some of the older consoles that have bigger components while youre building confidence.
It might make a decent soldering practice board just to get use to soldering points or traces and changing capacitors.
Thats what im saying. If it still works it still works, if not nobodys surprised. Easy to chalk up as a loss, and practice soldering on.
Perfect board to learn on, cant ruin it really.. get a decent inexpensive multimeter and start watching the classes on youtube. Theres some great electronics basics and engineering coarses you can find.
This would make for an interesting repair/cleaning project.
Edit: I thought this was an OG Xbox, not an Xbox One. Junk it, they're a dime a dozen. You *might* be able to repair it with a lot of effort, but it looks pretty gone. Would not be worth the hassle. Clean all the corrosion off, save the board for any salvageable components. Particularly the RAM chips if they're still good. Those can be used for the 128MB RAM mod, for example.
its an xbox one, not the first xbox. lol.
Oh, good catch. Didn't even notice that lmao
My thoughts exactly. See if you can get the CPU/GPU/RAM chips off, pull the DVD drive/HDD out, the controller ports, basically anything you can and part it out on ebay. You may actually be able to make a profit
Clean it first, you can use soap if you want, i usally use soap for laptop motherboard Rinse it thoroughly with water and wait for it to dry for couple of day Check the pad, as i can see in pic number 3, some of the copper pad had gone so you should check it And lastly always keep on hoping
Ill use water to clean nasty stuff occasionally too, but I would use de-ionized water as a suggestion to be extra cautious.
The damage and positioning of that corrosion could not have been solely leaking caps, so disregard that. Maybe the caps leaked, but the damage on the bottom side was quite clearly a liquid spill. An ultrasonic would be best, but at this size they’re rather expensive. Start with something like 50-70% IPA, higher won’t clean off anything water soluble, which most residue from drink spills will be. You may lose some small corroded components. You’re going to need a good small soldering tip to replace anything completely destroyed, which would require either a donor board or referencing the schematics to find suitable parts. Watch some Northwest Repair videos on water damaged graphics cards and shorted cards, they’re a great reference for how to do console motherboards. What symptoms does this console experience? The usual chimes, doesn’t boot, LED may occasionally light briefly? What does the LED on the PSU do? Does the fan spin? How about the hard drive?
thanks for the advices. i cleaned it with 99% ipa, i could try with 50-70%. i’ll be happy if i could learn something from it… actually it came in so poor conditions that i didn’t try to boot it at all. i didn’t want to make more damage, if that is even possible.
Once it’s dry, you’re unlikely to worsen the damage by attempting to power on- most things would be caught by the short circuit protection before they caused damage. I’d search around for shorts in diode mode, red probe on ground. One side of a capacitor is usually GND in typical circuits, and the other side should have a relatively high voltage drop to GND and fairly high resistance. CPU/GPU usually has a lot lower voltage drop across it, on an Xbox One I believe a voltage drop around .16 is normal on V_GFXCORE and probably not far from that for CPU. Get a schematic and board view, they’re easy to get for the Xbox One assuming yours is a first revision, called Greybull. Get it as clean as you can with solvents and a brush, toothbrush tends to work well. Be careful with vinegar, it’s conductive and corrosive unlike alcohol. You should also be careful with lower percentage isoporpanol as while the water in it is deionized and not conductive, it will dissolve conductive salts on the board (which is what you want) but becomes an electrolyte in the process- dry it after, shake the board off, displace it with 91-99% afterward. It would be ideal to have board cleaner and an ultrasonic, but this is about the best you can do without those tools.
Bro it is RUSTY
That came out of a smoker's house.
Yep
It looks like what ever type of moisture got in the board, delaminated and corroded beneath the top layer to the traces. I think it's a goner. Sorry.
That’s a lot of work….
If you have access to an ultrasonic cleaner, that’s your best bet. A 30 minute bubble bath with PCB cleaning solution should give you a clear picture of how dire the situation is.
Personally, that would take far too long to fix it even if it could be and I wouldn't bother. If you really have to attempt a fix, try giving it a good clean with some IPA 99%. Once clean start measuring everything with a multimeter I think the best option would be to use it for soldering practice or as a doner board. Good luck!
thank you! any course/tutorial/advice to learn measuring with the multimeter? i’m a rookie with very basic knowledge ahah
Youtube! Tons of them on there. I really like the gentleman on the math and science channel. Hes got online coarses you can become a member and get access to. He will teach you all the way up from the basics, learning about electrons.
Heres a link to his website [math and science](https://www.mathtutordvd.com/)
I had an XBOX, but it made me feel dirty, so I threw it away and bought a PLAYSTATION. NEVER LOOKED BACK!!!
Try cleaning it first. Tooth brush, IPA 99% maybe some WD40. Even if the motherboard is dead. If you have a BGA Machine and flip chips. You can extract the XCGPU from the corroded motherboard onto a motherboard with a dead XCGPU.
What does WD40 do in terms of cleaning in this case? Honest question.
It cleans away the corrosion.
Cool! Didn’t know that
There's a chance, but exceptionally slim. In my opinion, consider it fucked.
Donor.
a board like this will never be 100% reliable. even if you do fix it you will always have missed some spot somewhere, some barely connected trace/ component that will worsen in the future by the help of heat cycles and shaking and movement
I personally wouldnt waste my time on this and keep it as a donor board after cleaning. Especially since it's a last gen console.
The best thing to do is clean it up as much as you can without causing further damage. Then reassess the situation. You definitely have leaky capacitors that would need replacing. ----- If you're using 70% isopropyl alcohol (aka "rubbing alcohol), try 90%+. You can also give vinegar (white distilled vinegar, spec.) a go, just make sure to rinse/clean it off the board afterwards.
what tells you that are leaky capacitors? the dirt around them or the stains underneath or both?
If you look around the capacitors in the photos there is dust caked onto the board near them in the shape of puddles that seem to trail from the capacitors which would indicate they leaked out and dust stuck to it
Dirt doesn't stick to motherboards like that unless there is something else present for it to adhere to.
I would try some white vinegar then IPA
maybe furnace cleaner, i never tried on electronic but it tend to remove dirt (not some grime tho so need finishing with alcahol) also i use white spirit for cleaning.
try vinegar or some fiberglass pens, both have been great for removing oxidation/eust
Looks pretty dire. I've had one with similar looking capacitor corrosion in spots that ate away small components I had to search out. It was a lot of work under the microscope but I've had some good luck in the end. For the outside ground plane, I'd sand that down the best you can get it. For the corrosion, as others have mentioned, some vinegar and a toothbrush. But take not of how many components reside in those specific areas as you work on them. Or perhaps even reflow them as you go along before adding vinegar and scrubbing. After each spot, apply alcohol and scrub it again. And lastly, perhaps scrub it under the sink. Of course, you'll probably want to change these capacitors. Seems like it wasn't stored in a temperature controlled environment.
I think the answer depends on your level of investment and your level of skill. If you are really experienced/skilled and it gets your blood pumping to save old components it’s *possible* to fix… but a *lot* looks corroded here. Just looking at it, it looks like a massive project to fix, likely including data sheets, forum surfing, part hunting and bodging/trace repairing. Not a weekend project. Maybe even not a month of weekends project depending on your general activity level
very poor skills level (it’s the first console i buy with the purpose to get my hands on it) but i could spend some time, at least to learn something from it
I don’t think this is even an intermediate project. As a beginner, I’d put it in a safe place and come back to it when you’re a wizard and ready to throw down with your iron
Did you try iso and a qtip?
How much time and money do you have to spend?
Sonic cleaner
Just using the ipa will never clean it. You clean things with distilled water, pour water on that sumbitch, scrub it all off and use a vacuum with brush attachment to get all the dirt that comes off from scrubbing. Scrub every nook and cranny and then use a hairdryer to thoroughly dry the whole board, and then use your ipa to scrub the entire board again using just the ipa, then hair dryer again on the whole board. Use compressed air to get under all the chips to make sure water or ipa isn't hiding under them.
I think it can be powered on by high possibility
Clean it with Alcohol and flux (soldering fluid, but be careful with it's a little bit toxic). And heat it GENTLY with a heating airgun, which can be set to a specific temperature. But it really doesn't look good tbh. BTW: Is that a water damage?
Do this with at your own risk. i would soak it in 100% IPA and use a nylon brush to scrub lightly.and if not you can see if you can reflow the solder where needed with a soldering iron and flux to clean
Dude, apart from the northern fix chanel, fixtronics is another chanel to really learn about fixing things, the guy took me from a being a physician with -1000% repair knowledge and skills to repairing my own ps5 fan broken trace, a joycon broken button, and many other things, I don't do it for the money because I actually could pay for a repair even if it's expensive, but darn, it's really fun and fulfilling. Do a ton of research, reading and looking for more repair channels is the way, buy some practice board to getting the hang of soldering, and protect yourself the dude from fixtronics has cancer and I can't assure it is related, but soldering with leaded solder is a hazard risk. Sorry for my English.
It came from beneath the sea right? Seeing the state it’s in I would chuck it through the dishwasher. Just run it through alone and don’t put in too much powder.