Xbox repair
A couple of months ago my Xbox started acting up. Inserting game discs, I'd get a message telling me that the Xbox couldn't read it. Cleaning the discs and inserting a cleaner into the DVD drive didn't help.
First it was only with certain games. Gradually it got worse until it was happening with all of them, and I feared the worst -- that the hardware had developed a problem and would need to be replaced.
While I want to get an Xbox 360, I'd just as soon put off the purchase until I'm in better financial shape, and I like to keep my old gear, especially my old game gear, working. Plus the Xbox 360 isn't one hundred percent backward compatible with the Xbox, so it was another incentive to keep the old device alive.
After some quick net research, I discovered that this is a pretty common problem with the original Xbox, especially older ones. The optics on the DVD drive flake out after a while and they're no longer able to function. Fortunately it's a pretty easy fix -- the DVD-ROM drives used in Xboxes are commodity parts, and general wisdom is that the most reliable one out there is a Samsung replacement drive. They are in plentiful supply on eBay, which is where I got mine. I even waited a bit and waited out an auction, and paid a bit less than the "Buy It Now" price.
Actually replacing the drive was trivial -- the easiest teardown I've ever done on a game console. The Xbox is held together using six exceptionally long screws that use a Torx 20 head. They're located underneath each rubber foot and beneath two of the decals on the bottom of the box. Pulling them is a sure sign that you've tampered with the box, but at this point the Xbox is well out of its warranty period so I didn't sweat it.
Once those screws are out the top of the case slides right off. The Xbox's DVD drive is held in place by two Torx 10 screws bolted to a subassembly that also holds the hard disk drive in place. Pop off an IDE cable and power cable and the DVD drive comes right out. Unclip the snazzy irregularly-shaped "Xbox" drive bezel, then pop it onto the replacement Samsung drive, reverse the process and put everything back together again. It was literally five or ten minutes from start to finish. The longest period of time was spent as I tried to find my Torx 10 screwdriver head. It's no wonder there's been such a cottage industry of Xbox hardware hackers over the years -- you can find everything from casemods to system mods online.
The boys were thrilled to discover that the Xbox is pretty much as good as new -- the Samsung drive feels a bit speedier than the Philips (probably because it's not having to re-read stuff it was having trouble with), and we were even able to fire up a game they've *never* been able to play -- King Kong, which one of them got for Christmas and put away after the Xbox decided it didn't like it the first time.
I'm thrilled because fixing the Xbox turned out to be pretty damn cheap -- only about $40 on a console that originally cost me $150 a few years ago. That's compared to almost $500 for one of the new Xbox 360 Elite boxes. Admittedly, those blow my old Xbox away in features and capabilities, but this is good enough to get by with for now.