by GothNinja | Mar 20, 2009 | Hacks, xbox 360
Tales of My delve into the world of Micro$oft repair work.
I had put out requests during the day yesterday for the parts I needed to repair my xbox, and rectify the inherited design flaw of the system.
So i had a half dozen M4 bolts (always get more than you need in case things go wrong) Ideally they should have been about 10mm long thread, mine were about an inch and a half, but no problems that’s what hacksaws were invented for. A dozen Metal Washers, and a dozen Nylon Washers.
I had the correct tools, Thanks to the DemonP who actually owned some torx drivers, a very handy thing to own, and something I am going to get this weekend.
Step 1) Dismantle xbox to as many bits as you can… Done
Step 2) Remove the badly designed Xclamp from the back of the motherboard, and remove heat-sink… Done
Step 3) Using the m4 bolts, with washers (Remembering to use the NONE CONDUCTIVE ones next to the motherboard)
Step 4) Semi reassemble xbox, mainly to the point its safe to be plugged into the electricity supply, and making sure the DVD player is plugged in to prevent xbox live bans. Plug into power, and switch on. Leave it running for 10-15 minutes without the fan on the GPU to get it nice and hot, so the solder melts back on connection.
Step 5) Switch off and let cool down, The heat-sink will be “oww oww it burns.. .arrrggghh my fingers melted..” Hot.
Step 6) Look at the vast amount of xbox parts scattered about, scratch your head a bit, make a promise to pay more attention to the how you dismantle the next thing you take apart, and rebuild.
Step 7) Power up and Play……
Doing it Yourself
Cost: £0.00 (ok, if you don’t have the bolts that may cost you £1 maybe £2)
Time: Hour or Two tops.
Sending it off for Micro$oft to repair.
Cost: Minimum £60
Time: 3 weeks turnaround
I know which I prefer…
The Culprit
by GothNinja | Mar 18, 2009 | Hacks, xbox 360
So I have a free evening with no plans, nothing urgent requiring my attention, so have the opportunity to go a bit further on re5. Try and get past the heavily armed zombies who had me pinned down with their machine gun fire when i last played.
So a quick jump on the sofa, power up the xbox and….
NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Now my xbox elite is about a year and a half old, so unless it gets the full RROD (which comes under a special 3 year warranty) its not under cover. So I have no cover for this VERY COMMON problem, that’s a stupid Micro$oft design flaw which should have been sorted many version back… (Not that i’m bitter or anything!)
So. While lying on the floor clutching the re5 boxset and crying, I had to decide what to do…
1) Send it off to Micro$oft and pay the ransom for getting it repaired (plus 3 week turnaround). This option also costs shipping charges, and prices start from £60 going up for how much they need to fix, and i do not trust the money grabbing *!$£^*%!£$”&.
2) Take it somewhere else to be repaired, and pay whatever they charge, and have a week or sown downtime…
It was at this point a small voice at the back of my head said. “Err didn’t you spend years in university doing an electrical/electronic engineering degree? Don’t you have a shed load of electronics qualifications? Aren’t you supposed to be able to design motherboard, and build them from components upwards, even programing them?”
“Damn right, strange voice in my head! There’s nothing a Micro$oft engineer can do that in theory I can not.“
So, my plans are to collect equipment i need, and tomorrow fix my xbox myself (And remove the design flaw at the same time preventing the issue coming up again!)
So stay tuned for my exploits delving into the insides of my xbox, to find where all those characters live!
by GothNinja | Mar 16, 2009 | xbox 360
Friday the 13th saw not only the Knights Templar’s keeping a low profile, but the release of Resident Evil 5!
So Saturday morning (This being first available chance since i was busy Fri evening) I shot to my nearest town and hunted down a copy of the game. I settled for the limited Edition Steelbook version since it was only a couple of pound dearer than the basic version.
Then home to boot it up for a quick game!
So the game starts, as most these games do, with you weaponless just walking about to get the hang of the controls. (So far so good.) OK, next stage is normally where you get a weapon and learn how to use it in a small simple attack. So I find a bloke who gives me a pistol, and some ammunition and sends me out the back door of his house. (So far as expected from game, I should get attacked by a zombie or something now) Theres a cut scene, ok I see someone becoming infected, so i now kill him and start the game. (NO!) I’m in a alley with several dozen armed zombies coming from all directions, theres just more and more, My pistol ammunition ran out within first five minutes, I’m down to trying to hold them off with a machete, And they just keep coming……….
(This is the tutorial bit of the Game? I’m Hooked!)
Several hours later, I’m better armed with a shotgun and sniper rifle, fighting off the type of mutated creatures you’d expect from a resident evil game, while trying to solve puzzles in a tomb raider style… All set to a dark backdrop, blood stained walls, deep claw marks in the floor, shadows moving, glimpses of people moving in background. And the zombies are armed, and driving vehicles…
Add to this you have to be careful with equipment, You have 9 equipment slots, and they only hold so much amunition. And if you are not carefull you run out of space for health packs, or worse you can not pick up amunition. I’m seriosly restricted at the minute as I’m running about with pistol, shotgun, sniperrifle, armour, stun stick, and 3 lots of amunition. (one free slot, handy for mines or grenades…)
So basically, Don’t expect to hear from me for a while…
by CodeNinja | Feb 9, 2009 | Work, Technology
Update time….
After the success of my “system monitoring reporting by IM” two things have happend.
1) Every member of the Insane Asylum is now setup on the new IM system. with very little hassle. It did help that i pre setup everyones accounts to have everyone elses accounts on their friends list, and already authorised. (Got to love scripting away repetative tasks).
2) Its been decided that we will no longer be sending our system monitoring messages via IM as it annoyed the Governor, :0)
by CodeNinja | Feb 4, 2009 | Work, Technology
SO. work is progressing on my insane idea of a in house IM system for the Insane Asylum. Its currently going by the codename NetIM.
We have the server set up, a couple of users on there to test the functionality, while working out whats the best clients to use for Linux, Windows, & iPhone. (Keeping everyone happy is not an easy task).
Today we have NetIM plugged into to Asylums Monitoring System, So when something goes down the system tells the responsible people via Instant Messaging.
Nagios Monitoring System
CN
by CodeNinja | Jan 30, 2009 | Technology, Work
In the words of a Modern day philosopher :-
Mr. T “Got no time for the jibba jabba!”
Well the Governor of the Insane Asylum has decided the Inmates need a new communication system to cut down on the expense of plumbers to fix broken pipes from the current system of tapping on the heating pipes with a metal cup.
So an email was sent forth from the Governor asking peoples opinions on what Messaging system they prefer, and what do they like. Some of the responses are below :-
- PostIt Notes (My suggestion)
- ICQ
- Skype
- MSN/ICQ/AIM/Yahoo/ANy
- Walking over to person and Talking. (another one of Mine)
Then As the debate got sillier and sillier, involving Walkie-Talkie radios and Zombie invasions, I decided on the following Insane idea.
I vote for a telnet talker, and bots running on all our servers so they talk on there as well telling us when they not feel well, so we get preemptive IM chat from the servers before they break.
OK, so its all just Banter amongst the Inmates, nothing serious, right?
Wrong, The Governor comes to visit me in my nice padded room all happy and excited.. “I love your idea, can we really do that? it would be brilliant, I’ll let everyone know we going for our own IM system”
So I’m now looking at an install of Jabberd2 on one of our servers, getting a series of clients to recommend for Linux, windows, iPhone, and getting all Inmates onto one locked down system. Before getting our monitoring software to talk using it, and then making mini-AI’s for all our servers.
Oh and a support account to run from a widget on our customer only website…..
Its a good Job I am brilliant!!
CN
