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[Guy Montag]

Sounds like a grounding issue.  Maybe something touching the case.  Or satan has possessed your 360...tough call.

[Snigel]

QUOTE(Guy Montag @ Jan 19 2010, 07:17 PM)

Sounds like a grounding issue.  Maybe something touching the case.  Or satan has possessed your 360...tough call.

If it was grounding, it's strange that the time varies so much. It doesn't matter if I poke the 360. Most often it starts while I'm not at home or asleep, so any grounding fail wouldn't be able to move in any direction.

I've looked on my solders several times, they are neat and shouldn't touch anything.

[Snigel]

Just wanted to update and say that I tried reflashing XBR with keyvault but without config. That didn't help either.

[Guy Montag]

My grounding issue that I've had is totally random.  What i was able to find out was that it didn't happen outside of the metal case, only inside it.  Then I narrowed it down to some specific screws that were doing it.  To find out if it's a grounding issue you may want to run it outside the metal case and see if it happens again.  What kind of mobo do you have?  I've had the grounding issue on Jaspers.

[craz3d]

If the ground levels change at all on that circuit and you have a short to ground, your console could see a small flow of current which triggers the system to turn on.  This could explain why the console turns itself on seemingly-randomly.

If you have leads going through the the board and out the bottom, they could be shorting out to the case.  I will echo the previous comments that say to check for grounding issue.  Place electrical tape over any leads that you've soldered; clip them if they're really long and you have a tool which will safely allow you to do so.

[Snigel]

Opened up the box today. Looked again for any soldering issues and shorts. Couldn't find a thing. But yes I have one cable going through a hole in the motherboard and down on the bottom. It's a really small and neat soldering though.

I also tried changing my diodes from 1N4148 to BAT46. For this I also needed the 330ohm resistor, it seems that the need of the resistor depends on which diode you choose.

Anyhow, changing to BAT46 didn't change the issue at all. I will try running it without the case and see if that makes any difference. If it was something touching the chassis and shorting that would easily show this way.

[Snigel]

Opened the console, connected it without the chassis and the button+leds in the front. After just a couple of seconds it booted by itself anyhow.

Wondering what's going on here. Went over all the solders again. Tried to blow dust and such of the motherboard also.

[Snigel]

Update:
Using the xbox without the box, still problems.
Tried resoldering the point on the bottom of motherboard. Still problems.
Tried soldering the point directly to the "power+led board" Still problems, perhaps even more.

I'm really out of ideas.
Since the first time this happened I've resoldered all points. Changed diodes, even changed model of diodes. Tried with and without the resistor instead of just wire.
I've tried soldering both to the power+led board and directly to the bottom of the motherboard.
Tried XBR with and without my extracted config block

QUOTE(Guy Montag @ Jan 20 2010, 07:07 PM)

My grounding issue that I've had is totally random.  What i was able to find out was that it didn't happen outside of the metal case, only inside it.  Then I narrowed it down to some specific screws that were doing it.  To find out if it's a grounding issue you may want to run it outside the metal case and see if it happens again.  What kind of mobo do you have?  I've had the grounding issue on Jaspers.

It's a Falcon board. Tried it without the case. Still trouble. Switched from HDMI to VGA, no difference.

[craz3d]

My hunch is that your issue lies somewhere on the RF board or nearby on the mainboard.

Perhaps this truly is a bug, I just think we'd see it more often if it was.  Still reeks of user error to me though

Wish I could come take a look at it myself, there's only so much troubleshooting you can do with just written words.

If you haven't already done this, make sure that you have covered any exposed leads or bits of wire with electrical (NOT DUCT) tape.  This means _all_ of them.  The goal is to make sure that as your console settles/rests, exposed leads of a component don't touch any other conductors.

[Snigel]

First I just want to say that I really appreciate all help you've given me here.

I actually got a pro to do the soldering since I didn't want any user errors. The guy who helped me has chipped thousands of consoles since the PS1 time and really knows what he's doing. But tonight I also tried to resolder some points just to be sure. Didn't change a thing.

There is almost no exposed wire anywhere. The exposed parts are only so long that they can stick to the soldering points. The thing is that, if it was exposed wire that made this, at least I think that the problem should be easier to reproduce. For now it doesn't matter whether it's standing or lying down, inside the box or not. I can move the motherboard and push it around a little while the machine is running without anything happening.

Tried to find if the RF board did any stupid things, when the console was running I removed it, reinserted it, even inserted it in an angle. Nothing of that made the xbox hang, shut down or reboot.

I really want to find some way to reproduce the error, but I can't.

What bothers me is that the console can turn itself on when the RF board is disconnected, or at least I remember it that way. Is there two pins on the motherboard (like in a regular pc) that you could short for booting the machine up?

[craz3d]

QUOTE(Snigel @ Jan 21 2010, 08:38 PM)

What bothers me is that the console can turn itself on when the RF board is disconnected, or at least I remember it that way. Is there two pins on the motherboard (like in a regular pc) that you could short for booting the machine up?

This is such a strange issue.  To tell you the truth, the thing you mentioned about 2 pins on a PC is the kind of logic I was using when I suggested to check for exposed leads.

I'd say stop worrying about it until the next XBR comes out and just unplug your system while you're gone.  It sounds to me like you've exhausted all of your options, maybe its a software bug and the next version of XBR will fix this issue.  Perhaps its an issue with the points chosen and improved points will come out.  This is really shitty advice, and I don't like giving it, but what else can you do?  Other than go crazy trying to find a mistake you might not have made, of course...

I have my own set of problems, namely that I don't keep my system plugged in and it always loses its time.  Also, my console doesn't always boot properly.  I get no video or sound and have to hit the power button twice more, once to turn back off, then again to turn it on and hope it boots.  I guess we're very early in the dev cycle, the wrinkles will get ironed out.

[Guy Montag]

You might try breaking out the multimeter and experimenting with that.  See if you can find a grounded wire or something that way.

[Perplexer]

My Falcon was doing exactly the same thing: Powering itself up seemingly at random.

Sometimes random quadrants were lit on the ring of light.  Then I found that my infrared remote control wouldn't work (although regular wireless controllers worked fine).

I swapped out the RF board and got the RoL problem sorted, and my infrared remote worked again, but the console would still boot up randomly.  So I put it on a Bye Bye Standby.

This fixed the self-power-on problem, but later, in the middle of a couple hour FTP session, my system red-ringed with error 0002 (power supply problem).  Ever since, the console only works for 20-30 seconds before it red rings.

I plan on doing more troubleshooting (replacing MOSFETs) but I hope your system isn't on the same path...

[omega232]

I've been having some issues as well with a brand new straight out of the box falcon after the jtag. Dunno what it's down to. My issue is that it refuses to switch off after a few hours of gaming, you have to physically unplug it after turning it off via the front which isn't exactly the best solution, both on effort and on the box.

[LS1Nova]

I just jtag'd my Falcon board yesterday and was having the same problem. Instead of soldering to the DB1F1 spot, I used FT1U2, so I have a solder joint on the bottom of the board, but that wasn't my problem. After I flashed XBR to my system, all I got was a black screen with random quadrants on the ROL lighting up (sometimes 3, sometimes 2, sometimes all 4). That was when it was randomly booting up by itself. So I hooked it back up to my computer and read the nand and there were a ton of errors. So I flashed my original 7371 nand back and it was back to a normal 360 again. After that I extracted the rawkv and rawconfig from the original nand.bin and injected those into XBRv3a and flashed that back to my 360. It's been problem free ever since then, with the exception of the number 1 light staying lit on my controller when I turn the system off.

Hope that helps.

Matt