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OG Xbox Forums => Hardware Forums => General Hardware/Technical Chat => Topic started by: mikerilen on May 26, 2011, 11:33:00 AM

Title: Capasitor Blow Out
Post by: mikerilen on May 26, 2011, 11:33:00 AM
Taking my xbox apart today to swap out the ide cable (original, old and had it) thought I'd give it a good clean out too while I was at it and discovered this blown out cap, could someone please identify it and tell me if it is 100% necessary seen as this must of happened awhile ago (dust all over the cap and leakage) and the box has been running fine, still works perfectly, I run it as a media center (xbmc, streaming from a backend) with a dvd playback dongle in port 4, yeah that's about it hope someone can help.

This is just behind controller ports 1-2
(IMG:http://imageshack.us/m/96/1601/img01367.jpg)

Thanks in advance

PS- *Capacitor* Lol  (IMG:style_emoticons/default/tongue.gif)

This post has been edited by mikerilen: May 26 2011, 06:35 PM
Title: Capasitor Blow Out
Post by: xboxmods2977 on May 26, 2011, 06:42:00 PM
This capacitor is known as the clock cap. It keeps the correct time in the xbox dash/es by feeding it's juice into the clock circuit in the event that the ac power is interrupted.

You can remove it safely ONLY if you have a chip containing a bios with error 16 support (clock fix), or,
if you are not sure what bios your modchip has, as long as you have a working M$ dash present on your C drive, you will be OK.

In the event that your AC is interrupted, the M$ dash is forced to load so the clock can be set. The M$ dash must be present and working.

Bios' with the "clock fix" will simply ignore the invalid clock state and load your hacked dash anyway.

It may be possible to safely remove it in the case of a softmodded xbox, but I am no softmod Guru, so I can't say for sure. If you have a softmod, wait for a reply from someone who knows softmods well. Also, if you do have a softmod, you may want to leave your xbox plugged in to the AC outlet until someone with better softmod knowledge can chime in.

As far as the mess, you must clean that electrolytic fluid (yep, the dark area surrounding the cap is a puddle) off of your board or it will continue to eat the board until catastrophic failure occurs. It is corrosive.
Title: Capasitor Blow Out
Post by: mikerilen on May 27, 2011, 01:02:00 AM
@xboxmods2977, thanks for the great info, this box is soft modded, with what I can't remember it's been years since I did it, I can find out though if anyone comes along to help with this further, I haven't checked to see if it still keeps time, my guess is that it doesn't but I've had no boot issues even when it been unplugged for awhile, thanks again for the info.

Could you link me to a good cap fluid clean up guide if there is one, I can't find one after googling a while

This post has been edited by mikerilen: May 27 2011, 08:09 AM