Broken Xbox

This is the warning on the bottom of my Xbox game console, to be a true disclosure they need to add "Taking apart your Xbox may result in you fixing it better than Microsoft was going to"



I bought a "working" xbox this weekend and it was broken. Admittedly I got a decent deal on it regardless.

Basically it would shut off at random after turning the unit on. I decided to take a look inside to see if anything was obviously amiss. First go I didn't see any problems but I suspected the power supply board.

I did a google search on the premise that since it was a microsoft product, a huge number of people have had this specific problem already without any satisfactory resolution, except for solving it themselves. (I don't consider sending it to be repaired for a exorbitant fee by microsoft to be a satisfactory resolution, considering it is really a flaw on their part.)

(I fully admit my bias against Microsoft. Yes I still use their products, that is why I am biased against them. Years of poor customer satisfaction will do that.)

I got a hit on the search "xbox shuts off" and find out this problem was responsible for a recall of power cords, a replacement being supplied that had a built in circuit breaker. Not really a good "fix" for the problem. Of course I am jumping to the conclusion that microsoft would supply a fix that doesn't really fix the true issue, the solder connection going bad from heat and lack of robustness.

I resoldered the connection and it is working fine so far.