Jolt Country

I have an original black Xbox. Someone gave it to me. Or tried to give it to me, I insisted they take a hunderd bucks for it. The 360s had just come out and people were upgrading everywhere. I played it for a while and even put in a modchip. Then I lost interest and it's been in it's box ever since.

I plugged it in the other day, just for the hell of it and I got a system error. 'Welp, that's dead, now what do I do with it?'

I took it apart thinking I could put in a small form PC motherboard and use it as a regular computer. Then I noticed that the modchip had come partway loosened from it's spot (the solderless version). Oh well, that's probably the system error, the thing worked fine in it's unmodded state, maybe I should go back to that. So now I'm at a crossroads


Do I :

A] Continue to stuff a computer in the case?


B] Put it back to it's pristine condition?


There are pros and cons to both answers, which is why I'm posting this here.



THE
SCREWDRIVER IN ONE HAND
AARDVARK

Update! Even without the modchip it still gives me the red ring of death. My choices are very limited here at this point.

Is it a solid red light? I think that's an overheating error but fixing it could be difficult/impossible. It could be anything from a blown capacitor to a dead fan or chip. Do you get any video at all?

It looks like on CL you can get a modded Xbox for $100 so I couldn't spend more than that trying to fix it. If you've already got it open I'd check things like fans and heat syncs.

If that route gives no love... sounds like a PC case to me!

It can help lower your home's energy bill if you hollow out the case, yeah, and use it as a Dyson Sphere.

I think the original Xbox is somewhere between obsolete junk and retro goodness so I think I'll put it back together in it's non working condition and sit on it for a few more years. There's no really good emulators out there so I might have to find my games for the PC if I want to play them. The specs for the thing are pretty laughable now.


THE
LAST DECADE
AARDVARK

The video is OK but as soon as it finishes the power up graphic it just says to call customer service in nine different languages. If I had to guess I'd say the hard drive is bad. Don't know for sure but I'm not really worried about it. Not playing the games I have wont break my heart. I just watch them on Youtube and move on.


THE
FIX IT SOMEDAY
AARDVARK

One thing I am going to try at some point is to just get a 128GB flash drive and have a computer with a small motherboard go that route. Maybe back up the image after I get everything where I want it so I can restore if it dies.

Update.

OK I got error 05 at bootup which means hard drive unlocked. I looked it up.

So now I have to put the modchip back in and work some big magic ju-ju on the thing, or something. There's a laundry list of stuff on these websites. Hoops for me to jump through in order to do something that I'm not really sure I care about in the first place.

Well now it won't even boot up. Not so much as a hello. I may mod it out after all if I really bricked the thing.


THE
REARRANGE THE DECK CHAIRS
ON THE TITANIC
AARDVARK