okay ladies lets get started!
First off I am assuming that you got your mod chip and was in a hurry and didnt take your time like my cousin did. So you ended up pulling of that little D0 (solder point) on the back of your board and now your xbox is just fraggin away and you think that there is no hope left in the world to save your xbox. Well for about $25 you can repair your entire mobo and stop crying.
Now on a scale of 1-10 on the hardness of this trick. I give it a 3 (note 1 is NOOBIE STYLE WORK - 10 meaning you made the xbox by hand ! )
Lets get on the ball now.
Tools you will need-
Now okay some of you are woundering what the hell a conductive pen is. A Conductive Pen is a pen that is filled with a liquid silver mixture that allows you to draw on circuit boards. They are also known as Circuit Writer Pens. They are used to fix broken traces and alot more.! But for now all you need to know is that they can fix that broken trace of yours.
Okay so where do you get this Conductive Pen. Head on over to your local Radio Shack and ask for a Circuit Writer Pen. It will cost you about $12.
Now you should know what the rest of the stuff is and if you dont you need to get off of the computer, crawl back into your crib and stop playing with the computer.
Now lets Prep the Xbox mother board (MOBO):
Step 1: PREPING
CLEANING the surface
Okay locate the broken trace on your MOBO and make sure you have proper lighting so you can clearly see both ends of the trace where it is broken (YOU SHOULD BE LOOKING AT A GAP IN THE TRACE). Now what you need to do before anything is make sure you clean that trace area really good!
So take a Q-TIP and a cap full of your RUBBING ALCOHOL. Dip your Q-TIP into the RUBBING ALCOHOL and rub gentally around the trace path. Make sure you clean a good area of it. Now let it dry and double check to make sure it is clean and that none of the cotton fibers from your Q-TIP are sticking to the board. If they are just gentally wipe them away. Now your surface is all clean.
[code]WOW NO BROWN MEANS NO CRAP![/code]
[b]Cleaning up the trace[/b]
Okay now that the surface is cleaned what you need to do now is take your [b]Exacto Knife[/b] and locate the gap in the trace. So say this is your trace ====| O |===== (the O is the gap in the trace and the =| is the end of the trace next to the gap). Locate the end of the trace next to where it broke and take your [b]Exacto Knife[/b] and [b]GENTALLY[/b] scratch away the green coating that is lying on top of the trace. It should turn a little shinny which will mean that the trace is now exsposed! [b]BE SURE NOT TO DIG INTO THE MOBO WHEN YOU DO THIS IT IS VERY IMPORTANT! YOU WILL SEE WHY LATER![/b]
[img]http://img.villagephotos.com/p/2004-12/913634/MVC-011S.JPG
Now wipe away any of the scrapings from your mobo and thats it for preping the board! NOW COMES THE FUN PART OH YEAH!
Step 2: Laying your new trace path
Okay now that all preping is done, we need to take the CLEAR FINGER NAIL POLISH and apply a thin layer over the top of the area we will be drawing the trace in. Now it is okay if you just smire this sh*t all over the place but I dont recommend that you do that. What you are doing here is making a sheilding layer on top of the other traces so if you screw up they shouldnt be making contact!.
Now after you apply a layer over the area around the trace let it dry! NOTE: TRY AND KEEP THE LAYER OF POLISH SMOOTH TO MAKE IT EASY TO SEE ANY DEFECTS YOU MAY HAVE! Okay all dry right, good. Take your EXACTO KNIFE and in between the broken trace you need to scratch in a connecting line! That is another reason for the Polish Your really just scrathing threw the polish layer and down to the mobo. So dont be scared to scratch at your mobo with the knife. Now the line that your scratching in needs to be some what wide. So dont try and make a small line and think it is going to work.
Okay now you have made the line to both ends of the trace you need to RE-PREP your work area. The polish is one reason we are using rubbing alcohol instead of Acetone. If you were to wipe it down with acetone it would mess up your protective layer of polish. VERY IMPORTANT! MAKE SURE THAT THE LINE YOU SCRATCHED INTO YOUR MOBO CONNECTS FROM TIP TO TIP OF THE TRACE AND THAT IT IS CLEAN OF ALL THE SCRAPINGS. ALSO MAKE SURE YOU SCRATCH OFF THE POLISH THAT IS COVERING THE SILVER PARTS OF THE TRACE TIPS THAT YOU SHOULD HAVE MADE BY REMOVING THE GREEN LAYER ON THEM!.
Okay now your woundering what the hell you just did LOL! OKay lets see shall we! By using the polish and scratching in the path you have made a small path way on the mobo for the ink from the conductive pen to fill in! So say it is something like this ----v---- say that is what looking at the side of your board would look like! In lamin terms you made a river that needs the liquid to fill it in!
Step 3: Make your trace!
Now take your Conductive Pen and shake it around really well for about 20-30 seconds. This will mix up all the liquid in the pen. Now remove the cap and tap the tip against the tip of a hard surface and you should see a silverish ink flow out. Now take the pen and press it against the mobo where you made the scratches in the board! Dont worry if the ink over flows! YOU'VE GOT A PROTECTIVE LAYER ON TOP OF YOUR OTHER TRACES TO KEEP IF FROM MAKING CONTACT! OH YEAH BABY ITS ALL GOOD! Now that you have filled it in make sure that it is touching the tip of the traces that you scraped off. That is how it is going to make contact. Now take a Q-TIP and dip it in the Rubbing Alcohol and GENTALLY wipe it across the line that you made. You will see that it is wiping away all that extra ink that has over flowed onto your work area. Now the reason you need to wipe it gentally is so that it doesnt wipe away the ink that filled in the path that you scratched in.
Once you have wiped away all the extra ink all that should be left is what is in the scratch in area. Make sure you wipe all the extra off of the board! Congrats you just made a trace! Now look at it closely and make sure that it is connecting to both ends of the trace! Okay if it isnt connecting dont worry just put more ink on it if you need too and just make sure you wipe it clean. Once you have made sure it is connecting just let it sit for about 10 mins to dry. Okay now your almost done!
Step 4: Test the trace!
Pop your board back in and see if it is till fraggin. If you followed my directions you should see your XBOX LOGO AGAIN!. If you got it to work and there is no more fraggin you need to pull out your board and put one more coat of the polish over the trace and thats it your done! Let it dry and enjoy your working xbox.
If your still having problems just let me know. Just give me a post in here and I will see what I can do for you! When I get a chance I will get you pictures so you can see step by step what is being done. I took some from my phone but they are crappy so I need a camera first. Anyways I hope you enjoy this post! Let me know what you think! :!:
First off I am assuming that you got your mod chip and was in a hurry and didnt take your time like my cousin did. So you ended up pulling of that little D0 (solder point) on the back of your board and now your xbox is just fraggin away and you think that there is no hope left in the world to save your xbox. Well for about $25 you can repair your entire mobo and stop crying.
Now on a scale of 1-10 on the hardness of this trick. I give it a 3 (note 1 is NOOBIE STYLE WORK - 10 meaning you made the xbox by hand ! )
Lets get on the ball now.
Tools you will need-
- Rubbing Alcohol
- Exacto Knife
- Clear Finger Nail Polish
- CLEAN! Q-Tips
- Conductive Pen
- AND OF COURSE YOUR MOBO!
Now okay some of you are woundering what the hell a conductive pen is. A Conductive Pen is a pen that is filled with a liquid silver mixture that allows you to draw on circuit boards. They are also known as Circuit Writer Pens. They are used to fix broken traces and alot more.! But for now all you need to know is that they can fix that broken trace of yours.
Okay so where do you get this Conductive Pen. Head on over to your local Radio Shack and ask for a Circuit Writer Pen. It will cost you about $12.
Now you should know what the rest of the stuff is and if you dont you need to get off of the computer, crawl back into your crib and stop playing with the computer.
Now lets Prep the Xbox mother board (MOBO):
Step 1: PREPING
CLEANING the surface
Okay locate the broken trace on your MOBO and make sure you have proper lighting so you can clearly see both ends of the trace where it is broken (YOU SHOULD BE LOOKING AT A GAP IN THE TRACE). Now what you need to do before anything is make sure you clean that trace area really good!
Code:
The dark grey is the burnt or missing trace. Now the little brown dots are all the crap from the splashes from the solder and all the other foriegn crapSo take a Q-TIP and a cap full of your RUBBING ALCOHOL. Dip your Q-TIP into the RUBBING ALCOHOL and rub gentally around the trace path. Make sure you clean a good area of it. Now let it dry and double check to make sure it is clean and that none of the cotton fibers from your Q-TIP are sticking to the board. If they are just gentally wipe them away. Now your surface is all clean.
[code]WOW NO BROWN MEANS NO CRAP![/code]
[b]Cleaning up the trace[/b]
Okay now that the surface is cleaned what you need to do now is take your [b]Exacto Knife[/b] and locate the gap in the trace. So say this is your trace ====| O |===== (the O is the gap in the trace and the =| is the end of the trace next to the gap). Locate the end of the trace next to where it broke and take your [b]Exacto Knife[/b] and [b]GENTALLY[/b] scratch away the green coating that is lying on top of the trace. It should turn a little shinny which will mean that the trace is now exsposed! [b]BE SURE NOT TO DIG INTO THE MOBO WHEN YOU DO THIS IT IS VERY IMPORTANT! YOU WILL SEE WHY LATER![/b]
[img]http://img.villagephotos.com/p/2004-12/913634/MVC-011S.JPG
Code:
The dark purple is where you scraped off the green coat from the trace ends.Step 2: Laying your new trace path
Okay now that all preping is done, we need to take the CLEAR FINGER NAIL POLISH and apply a thin layer over the top of the area we will be drawing the trace in. Now it is okay if you just smire this sh*t all over the place but I dont recommend that you do that. What you are doing here is making a sheilding layer on top of the other traces so if you screw up they shouldnt be making contact!.
Code:
The yellow area is the polish that you applied, and the blue tracers are ones that got coated when you applied it over them. So lets just say that the blue ones are double protected! And the light purple is the clean and coated trace.
Code:
The black area is where you should have scratched away the polish. Make sure you also cleaned the polish of the trace tips!Okay now your woundering what the hell you just did LOL! OKay lets see shall we! By using the polish and scratching in the path you have made a small path way on the mobo for the ink from the conductive pen to fill in! So say it is something like this ----v---- say that is what looking at the side of your board would look like! In lamin terms you made a river that needs the liquid to fill it in!
Step 3: Make your trace!
Now take your Conductive Pen and shake it around really well for about 20-30 seconds. This will mix up all the liquid in the pen. Now remove the cap and tap the tip against the tip of a hard surface and you should see a silverish ink flow out. Now take the pen and press it against the mobo where you made the scratches in the board! Dont worry if the ink over flows! YOU'VE GOT A PROTECTIVE LAYER ON TOP OF YOUR OTHER TRACES TO KEEP IF FROM MAKING CONTACT! OH YEAH BABY ITS ALL GOOD! Now that you have filled it in make sure that it is touching the tip of the traces that you scraped off. That is how it is going to make contact. Now take a Q-TIP and dip it in the Rubbing Alcohol and GENTALLY wipe it across the line that you made. You will see that it is wiping away all that extra ink that has over flowed onto your work area. Now the reason you need to wipe it gentally is so that it doesnt wipe away the ink that filled in the path that you scratched in.
Code:
Now the silver is the ink from the pen and the little dots are the over flow. Remember that this ink dries in a few mins, so make sure you start wiping off the over flow before it fully sets or cures.
Code:
Now if you wiped it clean you should see a real fine trace! WOW!Pop your board back in and see if it is till fraggin. If you followed my directions you should see your XBOX LOGO AGAIN!. If you got it to work and there is no more fraggin you need to pull out your board and put one more coat of the polish over the trace and thats it your done! Let it dry and enjoy your working xbox.
Code:
OKAY, seeing something like above means you want to smile alot!. The light blue trace is coated with polish for the last time enjoy!