Original Xbox not reliable hardware?

Shogun1 · Postby **Shogun1** » October 16th, 2012, 8:08 pm

Today I purchased an original Xbox but the first one I got would not read any of my game discs and the second one I got after I returned the first one just crapped out on me! Now my game is stuck in the system because now it won't turn on but before it would not turn off. I'm going to return this one to the store I bought it from and luckily they have a third. If it does not work then either people try to scam used game stores by trading in their faulty systems or Microsoft just sucks at making a reliable system.

Burk1 · Postby **Burk1** » October 16th, 2012, 11:46 pm

I have had my Xbox for 9 years and play it often. I have never had a problem.I know some of the first Gen hardware had its issues (The Thompson drive). I am sure if you avoid early models,you will have better luck.

snakeboy1 · Postby **snakeboy1** » October 17th, 2012, 2:15 am

My first Xbox broke, but I guess it was pretty much my fault. I had it in the entertainment cabinet in my bedroom, and one day I realized it was on even though I hadn't played it for a long time. At some point I guess I had somehow accidentally hit the power button. I have no idea how long it was in there with the power on. It could have been weeks for all I know. It was just in there roasting away like a pot roast. Now that I think about it, I'm probably lucky it didn't start a fire or something.

Postby **VideoGameCritic** » October 17th, 2012, 5:30 pm

Shogun - where are you buying these systems?

Shogun1 · Postby **Shogun1** » October 18th, 2012, 5:14 pm

[QUOTE=videogamecritic]Shogun - where are you buying these systems?[/QUOTE]
I bought them from CD Tradepost. I finally got a working xbox after I exchanged the second one so I'm good now. Third time's a charm I guess. I'll probably never buy a console from them again. If the third one wouldn't have worked, I'd of been stuck with store credit instead of them refunding my money. I typically go to CD Tradepost and GameXchange mainly because the games I buy there actually work. I've had too many experiences at Gamestop where I've bought games that are so scratched up and of so poor quality that they don't work even though I am pretty sure they "guarantee" that they will work. Not many game stores around my neck of the woods. I usually use amazon but I wanted to get an xbox and some games right away instead of waiting for several days.

darkrage61 · Postby **darkrage61** » October 18th, 2012, 11:49 pm

All the games i've bought at Gamestop have worked just fine, the one time I did have a game freeze up on me when I bought Alpha Protocol on Amazon(forgot which seller it was from) and I couldn't get past a certain part because of that, I tried clenaing the dis cand that didn't help, so I actually had to go and get another copy of AP from Gamestop just so I could progress further.

Chaser1 · Postby **Chaser1** » October 20th, 2012, 3:27 pm

The original Xbox is a very simple system to refurbish. If you have any computer/electronic skills, I have a couple of recommendations. First, take that puppy apart and blow out all the dust with some canned air, a compressor, shop-vac, etc. While you're in there you can replace the DVD drive with a new one. Ebay has plenty of new Samsung drives available for around $30. These were the most reliable and are interchangeable with other drives.

Depending on your technical skills you can also upgrade the cooling. The original thermal compound on the CPU and GPUs was crap, so I clean and replace it with Arctic Silver. Here's a good tutorial: http://www.xboxscene.com/articles/thermal-compound.php

Lastly, I also buy a new fan to replace the noisy and inefficient stock fan. Here's the tutorial: http://www.xboxscene.com/articles/80mm-fan.php Personally I like to install a quieter green LED fan. That green glow really works well with the original Xbox color scheme.

All of this work should be under $50 and goes a long, long way to extending the life of the Xbox. I have 3 Xbox's currently including an original and they are still going strong. After these upgrades I have never had an Xbox die. Also, you should highly consider soft-modding your Xbox. It's an easy procedure which allows you to install a larger hard drive and run all your games straight from there, saving the wear and tear on your DVD drive. That also opens up a whole world of options for emulators, media streaming, etc. which is too much for me to get into here. With all the possibilities of the Xbox, it has become my favorite system of all time.

Here are some videos of emulators, media center, etc. running on a modded Xbox. If you don't think this is awesome, I don't know what else to say!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_3MgoLAbqF4
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5JqbJOZxmxQ
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WQidxWwvbb8

Chaser1 · Postby **Chaser1** » October 27th, 2012, 8:29 pm

Probably the quickest and easiest way is to mod your Xbox then download the "big ass emulator discs". There are 3 or 4 of them out there and contain most systems and games that the Xbox is capable of emulating. If you want to only install specific emulators, here is a thread about that: http://forums.emulator-zone.com/archive/index.php/t-6338.html

The definitive site for modded Xbox info is xbox-scene.com. Check out the Xbox1 section here: http://forums.xbox-scene.com/index.php

Glitchologteam1 · Postby **Glitchologteam1** » October 29th, 2012, 10:27 pm

I own a xbox that my brother bought when it came out. It is still working well but has a rather strange bug where the xbox will refuse to take any disc for a few hour when I have unplugged the system long ago prior to play it. When it is always plugged, this problem never occur.

Ive heard that there is more than one model of xbox DVD drive, some are more reliable than other. If I can find the links where they talked about that, ill post it here

jbltecnicspro1 · Postby **jbltecnicspro1** » November 8th, 2012, 2:18 pm

Chaser, thanks for contributing to the discussion. I didn't think of getting new thermal paste for the Xbox - I'll go ahead and try it.

My experience with the original Xbox is that they are very unreliable. I just had a Halo LAN party at my house this weekend, and two of my three Xbox's DVD drives all crapped out on me. The only one that lasted was, like Chaser said, the Samsung drive. Fortunately, someone went to their house and brought an Xbox back for us to play. Also, one of my boxes is modded, so I swapped the broken drive into that one (it wasn't so broken to throw an error code, thank goodness!) and swapped its Samsung drive into the broken Xbox.

But yeah, two of my boxes crapped out that night. Unbelievable, and very poor timing. Fortunately, a little bit of geek knowledge went a long way that night.