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[Pharcyde1984]

I'll start at the beginning (a couple of months ago).

One day I was watching a DVD on my Xbox, and it switched off. Just Bam, powered off. I attempted to turn it off and on a few times, to no avail - it looked dead. I hopped on the phone to the local console repair guys (who I have dealt with before, and do excellent work), and told them of the situation. They told me it could be a faulty motherboard, chip, or power supply, and that they'd have to examine it to determine the problem. I told them I'd pay them whatever is needed.

Later that night, I moved the xbox from my loungeroom, into my bedroom to store it for the night (the next day I would be taking it to repair shop). I said "oh what the hell", plugged it into the wall, and what do you know - the damn thing turned on.

I thought this was excellent, and sat down and started to watch the same DVD as I was before. About 30 minutes into it, and yep, you guessed it - the fucking thing switched off again. The next day I took it to the repair shop, told them of my plight, and they said that they are going to try a process of elimination (to reproduce the problem), so that they could find a cause for it (initially it was thought that the box was overheating). They tried switching power cables, plugging it into different sockets, plugging it directly into the wall (IE: no surge protection), turning the airconditioning off for an entire 24 hours, running non-stop game demos, movies, ANYTHING to make the thing switch off again. This went on for about a week and a half, and they STILL couldn't make the damn thing turn off. They gave the box back to me, charged me NOTHING for all the testing, and kinda shrugged their shoulders of the whole issue. I took the box home, and threw it in the corner to gather dust.

Forward through to today.

Yesterday I got bored and decided to give it a go again. I took it out to the loungeroom, plugged it into the SAME socket where it originally had the power-failure, and what do you know - it worked again. I basically sat on my arse all day / night playing old snes games, watching movies etc etc, and it didn't have a single power outage at all! I left the thing on all night just to see if I woke up in the morning to see it turned off, but as luck would have it, it was still on this morning, which I used again for the majority of the day.

Come to this evening. I unplugged the xbox and brought it into my study, set it up next to my PC, and plugged it in (to transfer files across to it). No power. I changed switches, swapped out the power board, still no dice. I walked out to where my fiancee is cooking dinner with the xbox in hand, and plugged it into the kitchen socket (I figured theres a problem with my Study power socket, even though my computer and everything else has never missed a beat on it), and it worked. I then shrugged, went and set it up back to where I have been using it for the last 48 hours, and re-set it up again exactly how I have had it before (same cables, same power socket). No power again. I took it to another power socket nearby, plugged it in, and it ran smoothly for about 10 mins before it powered itself off. Again, I took it back to the original spot, plugged it in again, and it's fucking working again. (What I'm getting at here is, it's COMPLETELY random. There's no one socket / cable / power board being used that it doesn't work in. It's just working whenever it feels like it, really).

I'm about to murder someone, I have no fucking idea what to do. I have offered the console repair guys as much cash as it takes to fix the problem, and they have declined, saying that after a week of solid testing, they could not get it to reproduce the problem. There is NO pattern to the thing not working - it's not like it's a particular socket, a particular cable, a specific power board, or anything. Sometimes it will work, sometimes it won't. It's completely fucking random.

One thing that might be of use: My house blows light bulbs. A LOT. I am forever replacing lightbulbs in this house (for reasons which are not known to me). The real estate refuses to look into the issue. However I have NEVER had an issue with power for any of my other appliances at all, so I don't know if this will affect things at all.

Such a long-winded rant, I'm really sorry. For the tl;dr crowd: My xbox totally randomly powers itself off, for no reason at all. The console repair centre have tested it for over a week, and not found any fault.

Sorry for this. I know it's a long shot, but fuck I'm at the end of my tether, and anyone who has a modded xbox with a hard-drive in it can attest to the awesome-ness of it, so I'm really fucked off with having a $300 paper-weight right now. Thanks.

Oh P.S: If anyone wants to talk via IM about it, my MSN is [email protected] - add me and we can talk about it further if you didn't wanna spam up the forum with this crap.

This post has been edited by Pharcyde1984: May 28 2006, 10:41 AM

[spillage]

I have actually had a very similar, if not identical, problem to this. The power pcb at the front with the switch can short to the shielding. I have also had recent experience which is less liekly to be of use to you with your issue. Mobo fixing screws that are changed for larger one can short of the layers of the mobo itself. Also be on the look out for dry joints around the AT/ATX power plug. It would be worth using a decent 40w iron to resolder them anyway. Do the same to the wires on the underside of the PSU.

If you have been tinkering with the xbox maybe you have a small piece of solder swarf floating about that you have failed to spot. As you move the box it shorts, and another move it doesn't.

[Textbook]

I have dealt with 3 (yeah, I said 3) Xboxes that have had these similar problems.  They were all being caused by the same thing.  Do you remember when MS had the power cord recall where they shipped out new power cords?  Well, the power cords were not the problems, it was the power supplies themselves.  In fact, here is a very popular thread titled "The Power Cord Conspiracy.  Every Xbox that I have come across with random shutdown problems like what you are describing has been bad solder joints on the bottom of the power supply.  Unplug your Xbox, disconnect the power supply, unscrew the 2 screws holding it down, and flip it over.  Take a look near the back where it plugs in and check these two joints:

(IMG:http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v285/g0t_m4xx_21/foxlink-edited.jpg)

More than likely, they are either burnt, black, or cracked.  My friend's actually started smoking while he was playing one day.  This picture is very similar to what I saw when I fixed his:

(IMG:http://www.llamma.com/xbox/Xbox%20Power%20Cord%20Fire%20Hazard%20Recall_files/image003.jpg)

Basically, you can just solder them up real good until they look like this:

(IMG:http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v285/g0t_m4xx_21/foxlink001.jpg)

I'm guessing that's where your problem lies.  If that's not it, check what spillage said.

Here is a tutorial for the PSU fix on llamma's:  http://www.llamma.com/xbox/Xbox%20Power%20...rd%20Recall.htm