A little Help Here ...

[doafan]

On my way to the office I noticed something that it was lying on the ground near a trash container that took my full attention so immediately parked my car and went for it, or should I say them ...

... being honest I never owned an Xbox system so am begging for some help here, don not know if they work cause don't have the proper cables to test it by myself but damn I want to restore/make work at least one of them but don't know where to start, any link, video, tutorial that somebody from here have used in the past or even better the advice from somebody with experience from the forum that can give me a hand, please 

[fauxshot]

Hey there Doafan,

You'll definitely want to get your hands on a power and AV cable if you need to test them. Since the power supply is built in, you should be able to just use one of those two-hole power cords like the Dreamcast uses (I think any similar cord will work, I can't think of what they are actually called though). You'll have to buy the AV cables, or borrow some from a friend.

If they turn on, try out a game. Make sure to play it for at least like 15 minutes, because one problem you may run into (depending upon the age of the 'box) is the disc drive. You can look this up online, but I believe there were two or three different disc drives they used throughout the Xbox's life span; if you have one of the older ones, it has a disc drive (Thompson?) which is especially prone to failure (i.e. you can play for a while, but at some point around 10 or 15 minutes in it'll say there's a disc error, because the drive fails to function). These are kind of expensive to buy on their own; you can buy another Xbox for the $30 or $40 you'll pay to get a new one.

If you want, you can open them up by taking the six screws out of the bottom, removing the shield over the Disc drive (left side, if console is sitting in front of you in a normal position), and looking at the drive; again, if you google search you can find pictures that'll clearly show you how to identify which drive it is. (Edit: This is very easy to do, you just need the right screwdriver.)

Other than that, I'm not sure if Xbox's have any other big problems. I have my original, and aside from the disc drive failing I haven't had any issues. It's a great system (games look better on it than the PS2), and since it doesn't have the perceived value that Nintendo consoles have, you can get games cheaper on it than the GameCube equivalent.

Also, I'd highly recommend playing Metal Arms: Glitch in the System (you can find it pretty cheap) if you like 3rd person shooters with a nice amount of content. I'm not sure how well it holds up nowadays, but I really enjoyed it back in the day.

[redblaze57]

As far as cleaning it
https://youtu.be/CsjX72Zq8aY

[badATchaos]

Damn. It looks like some Jawas got a hold of those.

[fazerco]

Rebuild one into a Coinops 8 machine

[telly]

Let us know if you actually get them working; I have to say I would be really suprised if they do! 

[azure]

Be sure to update this doafan, curious as too see if they can live once again.

[dreama1]

Looks like it's been shit out of a elephants ass. What did they do to it? You might want to think twice before you plug anything into those things.

[pacgamer89]

Those systems were most likely stored out in someones shed maybe because they stopped working and then they just decided to trash them.

[doafan]

Used the power cable from my Dreamcast were only one of the two consoles has signs of live unfortunately the HD is dead, it make a lot of noises when I turn it on (will try to take a video or at least the sound), managed to open this console and damn it had a rough time, luckily don't see any physic damage in any of the capacitors from the motherboard neither on the power supply but I do need to perform a deep clean but first I need to find the proper screwdriver to remove it from the case, the CD drive won't open so I guess I will have to open it too, the cooling fan is completely dead, what I have on mind is to open the second console, swap the HD just to see if it makes any noises also to see if the other CD driver opens, will try to find an AV cable anyway here are some pics of this poor fella 

[Nickkchilla]

It'd be awesome if you could save at least one of them. Anymore than about 30 bucks spent on repair parts though, and I'd say it's not worth it.

I'd also give a +1 to the Coinops 8 installation or even XBMC. I've got one I've done this to and it works pretty well for a little media center.

Also since you've got it opened, and maybe you're aware, the original Xbox had a clock capacitor inside the console that would malfunction and burst after a time. If it's still in there, I'd recommend removing it before that happens. It would be disappointing to resurrect the console, then have it burst on you after all of that cleaning.

[darkragnorok]

Rebuild one into a Coinops 8 machine

This so much. Worth it despite being a pain in the ass to do if you well do anything stupid in the process

[ffxik]

Ick.  I've had people bring me consoles that look like this wanting them to be cleaned.  It stinks that one is having HDD issues.  Swap what parts you can between the two to see what actually works.  May luck be on your side. 

Plus side that if you do get a working one and neither disc drive works they're easy to replace since they aren't married as they are with the 360.  Any of the 3 will work in any original xbox.

[doafan]

Have been kinda busy these past days but managed to open the second console which by the way it's in a better condition, already have replaced the damaged power supply from the one that it's working where it appears that the CD reader is working also this HD doesn't make any weird noise so I placed the HD at one old computer that have at the office where it's being detected from the Bios but dunno if the content of the Hard Drive is not compatible with Windows cause can't see the content of it, before I purchase the video adapter can somebody please tell me if the content can be seen at Windows really don't want to spend money in vain 

[ffxik]

Have been kinda busy these past days but managed to open the second console which by the way it's in a better condition, already have replaced the damaged power supply from the one that it's working where it appears that the CD reader is working also this HD doesn't make any weird noise so I placed the HD at one old computer that have at the office where it's being detected from the Bios but dunno if the content of the Hard Drive is not compatible with Windows cause can't see the content of it, before I purchase the video adapter can somebody please tell me if the content can be seen at Windows really don't want to spend money in vain 

No, the drives themselves are locked per se.  Windows will detect it but that's as far as it will go since it uses a special file system called FATX.