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[Vidness]

Here's the sitch:   I wanted to flash my aladdin advance to put into another xbox.  I soldered it into a new 1.0 xbox.  As soon as I gave it power, it turned on.  It didn't boot, but didn't flash either.  It only had a yellow light.  So I remove the chip, and just decided to do the tsop flash.   After giving it power again, it powers up, I try 007, but after about 30 secs, it dies.  The power switch on the front doesn't work, but the eject does (it powers on the xbox, too).  So I hit the eject and then disconnected the yellow cable for the power/eject switch.  I boot 007, do the flash, it takes.   I replaced the drive with another that was already prepared.

At one point, I could power it up, remove the eject/power connector, and it would stay on.  I even watched some anime.   But now it just powers down after 30 seconds of life no matter what I do.

Any ideas on how to fix this power issue?  I feel that the power button is soldered somewhere, but I don't have any ideas on where to start looking besides the connector (which I've examined and I don't see anything).

Thanks for any comments!

-V

[Vidness]

Hmm...how about this.  Does anyone know the chip and pin which is responsible for receiving the power signal from the panel?  If so, I can cut it and hard-wire it to the front panel switch.

So frustrating!!  Thanks!

[venturahighway]

look hard for solder splashes.

[Vidness]

This is starting to get fun.   I got the idea that I could figure out which wire corresponds to the power button and go from there.

Well, I figured out that the pin closest to the power button, furthest from the empty spot on the connecter was the power button.  When pressed, it makes contact with the pin opposite it in the other row.  I figured, if my machine powers on automatically, then these two must be shorted.

I measure on the motherboard these two spots, and....no connection.

So, with no connection between these two spots, it means that the power button is not shorted, but something else is afoot elsewhere.

*sigh*  I *WILL* figure this out, mark my words.

-V

[Vidness]

Solved it!

Check this picture here:  http://www.aladdinchip.com/Aladdin_diagramB.jpg

The "BT" spot was my culprit.  That bottom-left pin inside the white connector is the power button.  It connects to "BT". Apparently, I applied too much heat to the BT spot and lifted the resistor so that it didn't make contact.  Not only that, but I must have blown the resistor as well.  Measuring across all the other resistors read 10k ohms, but for that one, it read 24M ohms, which was virtually a broken circuit.  I happen to find a 10k ohm resistor in my box of crap.  Soldered it in, and voila!  We have a fully functional xbox again.

Hopefully this will give others an idea on how to troubleshoot panel issues, be they power, eject, or any other of this sort.

-V