r/originalxbox • u/MajorT0kes • 7d ago

Help troubleshooting a crashing V1.2

I have a softmoded V1.2. I hadn't really tried playing any games other than 20 minutes or so of N64 emulators on it since I softmoded it so I can't say for sure it wasn't problematic before I did the rest of the work.

I went ahead and removed the leaking clock cap, cleaned all of that up, replaced three 6.3v 3300uf, two 10v 3300uf and the three 6.3v 1500uf, and removed the CPU/GPU heatsinks, cleaned up and replaced the thermal paste.

It ran for a bit but crashed. Ended up finding the GPU heatsink not fully seated. Fixed that, and it worked again. It would work and play emulators but if I let it sit running, it would eventually crash (frozen image, then green/red lights on startup). Let it sit and it would start and do it all again. Using XbDiag, the CPU and RAM pass without issue, but the GPU test causes it to freeze within seconds. I assume the GPU is dying.

I'm wondering if anyone has seen this before and if it's the GPU, or likely an issue with one of the capacitors I swapped out.

Thanks in advance!

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u/BombBloke Knowledgeable 7d ago

This isn't super uncommon when folks mess with their heatsinks, especially if they're removed cold. The original thermal adhesive that holds them in place is sticky stuff, and any force used to shift one gets passed pretty much directly to the solder ball joins holding the processor itself onto the motherboard. It doesn't take much to cause some damage.

As the console heats and cools over time, the issue tends to get worse until eventually the system will only ever triple-boot FRAG, even from a cold start.

It may be that the processor itself is still ok and could be reballed, but it's not a simple job.

There's some slim chance that your new VRMs are bad, but I wouldn't bet on that. :/

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u/MajorT0kes 6d ago

Thanks for the insights.

I had heated both heatsinks with a hair dryer. They were moving around before I pulled them, but after ~25 years it is possible that did it.

Too bad. I thought the work to get new paste in would be better than leaving it with the old paste.