Too Far Gone? Rusted Out Special Edition Mountain Dew Xbox

[@spydr8521]

What's with the pin gloves ? Afraid to get dirty? Even after it's clean.

[@kriscynical]

Plenty of restoration channels wear gloves through the entire video, even after the job is finished. Odd Tinkering is a big one.

[@logancook5261]

Helps with grip

[@hoktang1]

Also if you are going to sell the product. It is more visually appealing if it doesn’t come with a whole bunch of finger prints. There is also also some acid in my skin oils that may cause early corrosion.

[@hoktang1]

He also mentioned in another video that he uses 99% is alcohol. That tends to dry his hand out his hands a lot.

[@SquishyTheVampire]

Someone's being needlessly sassy

[@kalicia84]

What an incredible amount of work. I don't think I've ever seen plastic that rusty. Great job! Also enjoyed the walk down your gaming memory lane.

[@waleed9128]

Shocked that it actually powered on especially with some capacitors bulged and water damage issues.

[@1989SupraGuyFIN]

Quite surprising, indeed. I bet you, that there's no way more modern consoles would of powered on.

[@Tybearius]

Right?!?! it powered on and I was like 😳"That's not possible!"

[@GamerisawesomeYTonPSN]

The owner probably misunderstood and put in Mountain Dew

[@KitDoctor]

25+ hours? My man, you deserve a medal, and also to be able to keep the Xbox afterwards. If I worked on something that long, I know I'd get too attached to it to let it go

[@XanderRowlet]

That rust actually kinda looks like Dorito dust. Pretty good matchup with the Mountain Dew color! Jokes aside, great repair. These consoles can stand up to a lot of abuse!

[@spitt0110]

Yeah! The First MTN DEW DORITOS COLLAB

[@LVleo1978]

I actually thought the same thing, but Hot Cheetos... LOL 😂

[@MsNikkieMichelle]

I thought the same! Lol.

[@nate.hellman]

This was a gnarly clean! I’m amazed at the results. That startup takes me back to the days of OG Halo, CoD, and Dead or Alive 2. 😅

[@Baldmaxx]

A product that works wonders on rust removal on any surface is called CLR (calcium-lime-rust) remover. I had a similar project like this, and it saved me hours of work. The only drawback is that it's not environmentally friendly. Awesome video, as always!

[@gamehulk]

I've used CLR before, it does remove rust like a champ, but also all the zinc plating too, so I regret using it on one of my projects because all the parts lost their protective coating when all I had to do was scrape off the rust with a wire wheel or something. Maybe just some spot cleaning with CLR would do the trick instead of an overnight soak like I did :P

[@me0262]

Yeah, I've seen some people use that on PC motherboards and outer shells. Good to know that works pretty well!

[@bentinho]

I would not have had the patience for this lol. To answer your question, I was part of a traveling martial arts group around that time and locals who were part of the organization would host us at their homes. This particular guy lived in a Chicago apartment building and several of the apartments wired their Xboxes together to play Halo. I'm talking multiple floors of the building. It was very cool!

[@noahboat580]

That dude sounds like the best if he would LAN party the whole apartment building! Im curious how he did that

[@lightyagami3492]

​​@@noahboat580My guess is that the landlord was cool with it and set up a dedicated LAN network so it would work across multiple floors. Based if you ask me 🗿

[@niceatpingpong]

When I was growing up, my best friend lived directly across the street from me and we both had rooms that faced each other, so we got this linksys wireless link cable that had a 100 ft range. We were into modding xboxes and there was this hacked halo 2 multiplayer map pack that was released to the hacking scene and we would play that for hours. We would put our wireless modules in our windows and it was just over 90 feet from point-to-point so the experience was flawless. We would go over to each other's house every day after school and each night we would be called back to our houses for dinner, then after dinner we would call each other and play video games until like 11pm. It was a blast.

[@jonathanmartin3375]

Props to you for putting in all those hours of cleaning

[@matteogilles4238]

And to think, the manufacturing process for the whole console was in the minutes and someone spends a full day restoring it by hand. Love your work!

[@SomeDudeDan]

Great video! By the way, you can soak rust stained plastics too in vinegar (or citric acid), it makes it easier to remove the stains. About the LAN parties; we still get together sometimes for a few days to play Halo on Xboxes, and also play a bunch of other PC games over LAN, it is so much fun compared to today’s matchmaking systems.

[@sak7785]

Honestly impressed that you were even able to get it as clean as you did.

[@davidgoodwin4666]

Fantastic video bro! The video must have taken a bunch of work on top of the clean up job so thanks for making it!

[@FishDS9]

Robert, thank you for enduring this time suck of an X-Box. Thank you for the time you spent and all of the elbow grease you expended. Maybe you could open it back up and put some buggies in there for Steve?

[@teeslunk]

😮😮 3:50 it looks like it’s been sat in Mountain dew 😂😂

[@TranceCowboy]

Well done sir. That was quite the marathon of rust. That did not look easy. Lol. I always look forward to your cleaning vids, they always put me in such a relaxed mood, and once again you did not disappoint. 😀

[@Iudayus]

honestly that clean is immaculate! I am amazed

[@mopsandmuscles7855]

As someone with a background in computer repair, I’m amazed this even powered up 😂

[@eugeneko26]

Thanks for the great video! Didn't have Halo parties but remember when we gathered with friends and linked two PS1 and played Dune 2000. Such a blast :)

[@hudsonsin]

Came from Tronics, great work guys!

[@Shinquapin]

I can't believe that thing powered up and output video lol. I would've taken the time to clean the shell, but the mobo and power supply looked toasted. I definitely saw some bulging capacitors on the mobo, which is very common for these consoles. That might be all that needs replaced. We used to have halo lan parties all the time in the early-mid 2000's, sometimes with the full 16 people. I actually had a small xbox lan for the first time in a while last weekend playing the original star wars battlefront 2, and it was a good blast to the past. Awesome video, and hopefully Steve can fix it! I bet he'll suspect capacitors as the problem straight away, since it's so common with these, and some are visibly bulging already.

[@AM562]

29:35 my guess with the clicking is a hard drive is probably going out or mostly dead or dying

[@fox-vengoss5849]

Thanks Robert for sharing this very long project, i would be happy of my work if i was you, so i hope you do :)

[@bluelight456]

Impressive, when I saw that thing, I thought there was no shot it would turn on. Looks good too, great job restoring a beautiful limited edition.

[@LizActually]

26:25 I freakin’ loved playing as Talim!

[@RestorishOfficial]

You loved playing as her a lot more than I loved playing against you playing as her :)

[@SqualidsargeStudios]

A thing that worries me is the “unremoval” of the clock cap, and its ability to corrode traces when it leaks ant it will have leaked by no

[@steelcurtain187]

Wow this was a satisfying one. Can’t believe the amount of work involved

[@n7russ38]

You're extremely good at this and I have been enjoying binging your videos lately. It was an instant subscribe for me but I wanted to subscribe again after you said you played Morrowind and Windwaker which are 2 of my favorite games of all time lol.

[@brentreynolds5381]

Super fun vid. Great job!

[@paulrippcord506]

The Original Xbox was the first console I ever bought with my own money, I was the perfect age when it came out and when I was 15 I distinctly remember mowing lawns, babysitting and power washing trucks at my uncle’s truck stop until I was able afford one just in time for Halo 2. Had some great times: KotOR, DOA3, Burnout 3, True Crime LA, Crimson Skies, and the first time I ever broke a controller was playing Ninja Gaiden.

[@shuggiemcg1]

I gotta say it even turning on is amazing lol great job buddy! Looking forward to steves video on it!

[@draeken4075]

When i was in the national guard, we would all get together and have like 4 tv's and xbox's and have "training". It was a blast!

[@darthv72]

the clicking is the hard drive trying to spin up. Its dead and needs replacing. Good job cleaning it up though.

[@garnerfishy]

It’s not as simple as you’d think… Microsoft locked the drives

[@Iisakki3000]

​@@garnerfishyinstalling a mod chip isn't actually all too hard.

[@JellyMyst]

Just as an update, the drive wasn't dead. The problem was dead capacitors not getting the right voltages to it.

[@Digikidthevoiceofreason]

Dead Seagate POS drive.

[@OniKuno181]

that clicking noise is a hard drive related issue, it's dead.

[@Iisakki3000]

Yeah and because the hard drives are locked to the motherboard, it probably needs a mod chip to be able to replace it.

[@daniellorenz5993]

Modchip or you can read the eeprom with a Raspberry Pi pico and lock a ​need drive.@@Iisakki3000

[@Tybearius]

@@Iisakki3000 the hard drive is locked to the motherboard..... that's just asinine of Microsoft.

[@DeeW112]

Nope. Steve got it working again without replacing the hard drive. :-)

[@AleLGB]

The clicking sound is the hard disk drive telling you it's completely dead

[@Raven-fu1zz]

Evaporust is definitely my go to for rust, it puts a protective layer on where the rust was so it doesn't rust again, also for the plastics vinegar is pretty ok for some things just not all, also heard a run through the dishwasher with detergent that has an anti rust helps too but I've never done it

[@GamSin1981]

Those original Xbox consoles are built like tanks. The error message you are getting is most likely a hard drive error. Either it's totally dead or the files are messed up on it. The best way to fix it now is to mod chip it and change the hard drive, which is what I have done to mine. In fact, I modded it to take a 2TB solid state drive and installed all the emulation and Xbox games on it.

[@me0262]

27:15 Yep, I defintiely had a Halo LAN party. If I remember it was October 2022, and I called it the Haloween party. We had 4 Xboxes all hooked up to 4 TVs in the family room. We didn't have 16 people, but 7 people playing across 4 TVs was pretty epic. Still doesn't hold a candle to Goldeneye. Can't do it now unfortunately, most of us have moved out of state, one we dropped ties with because he went crazy paranoid (he was usually the one to whoop our ass in any game though).

[@railpao]

You might want to borrow Steve's ultrasonic cleaner to help you on projects like this one, in the future. Still, I'm impressed it powered on at the end. And more so by the amount of rust you managed to remove on the motherboard and psu.

[@butangviber]

Really fun video. Happy to see it restored. I wonder if in this situation if the Chemical Guys Decon Pro Iron Remover, would work on the plastics to get the rust out.

[@jasonh8470]

I bought the OG xbox when it was first released. I was late to the party with the PS1. I am in my early 50s, so multi-player wasn't a thing while I was growing up. I never played Halo, and I still haven't. The only multi-player games I've played are 2 and 4 player games sitting together on the same couch. My friend and I played hundreds of hours if not a 1000+ playing Twisted Metal. Our GFs hated those nights because we would play all night and not go to sleep and then go fishing all day. Great moments in my life for sure. Great job restoring the OG Xbox.

[@nintendope1]

You should add one of those cheap electric toothbrushes you find at the grocery store to your arsenal. I think it's called Spin brush. The top head spins and the bottom head oscillates. Great video by the way.

[@alexarnold6773]

Yes this is perfect I was looking for an og Xbox restore video involving rust.

[@cosmos8569]

Was very referencing to watch the whole process that rust looked like red clay mud, lot of time you put in but great end result Tronics fix put me on to you awesome job!!!

[@w1ze07513]

Amazing work. You are great at restoring.

[@BrainHurricanes]

Great clean overall. Don't be afraid to properly clean the mainboard. The main board had been submerged allready, so no harm if you wash it with soap and water. Even perfectly fine boards get submerged in an ultrasonic cleaner.

[@nitrax8629]

Oh my god... the fact that out of all things to be broken it's the practically unscathed from rust hard drive that didn't work is incredible. This is 100% salvageable by Steve, will need a hardmod to get it running again but it's so close to working!

[@anthonyshiels9273]

A proprietary rust remover such as Evaporust or MC-51 works well for dealing with stubborn deposits.

[@GMPranav]

18:15 - "Basically". That would have been a great pun if it was intended.

[@CaelThunderwing]

07 indicates a Hard Drive Issue. specifically the console detected a drive but the drive isnt responding back its unlocked/ready. most likely SOME water seep'd in and either completly F*d the spindle motor or RIP those platters. w/o a prior existing EEPROM Dump from when this was working, your going to haveto manually dump it OR tsop flash to get around this. the OG Xbox w/o modding, will not boot from an -at power on- unlocked hard drive.

[@GamerisawesomeYTonPSN]

Probably inside Mountain Dew that’s where it was

[@Spider-Nomad]

For that bottom piece i probably wouldve tried some diluted oven cleaner. Helped me get some stubborn stains off of old antiques.

[@simple-gameplays1315]

22:35 gives me the willies, the screeching sound

[@timothystevenhoward]

the HALO parties were awesome. I remember one at my friends condo in Detroit we had 2 or 3 CRT hooked up I can't remember if we had more than 2 xbox at once. that was 21 years ago

[@jerryjohnson4618]

Wow 😮😮

[@CadeCahoon]

Had multiple halo parties. We had cat cable going everywhere. A Tv in four different rooms. It was an amazing time.

[@SiCVoltage]

You did it sir. Omg that’s amazing work

[@8bitnation419]

Whoa! such amazing restoration. Sad to see such a rare edition of this Xbox in that state it looks unreal. But an Ultrasonic cleaner would have speeded up the process and would have cleaned up those motherboard and the pcb's better also would like to see a removal of that clock cap and some new thermal paste on both the CPU and the GPU, the GPU heatsink will need to be heated up to be removed. Also the metal plates could have benefited from a respray to restore there colours. As for getting the console working some new capacitors, new HDD along with 80 Wire IDE Cables and a TSOP Mod/Modchip would likely have got it working again.

[@Jokkocze]

Probably never gonna be seen, but soaking in diluted white vinegar overnight also works for most ABS-plastics. You'll want to try it on a less visible spot to make sure that it doesnt react with the pigment in the plastic, and obviously remove any stickers and metal bits first, but it then works pretty well. Gotten rust off both a transparent xbox and an old mac classic by doing this.

[@superd7479]

I use vinegar to soak plastic parts in like you did with the soapy water! It softens the rust so you can wipe it off easily and doesn’t hurt the plastic!

[@heejinscloud]

I always loved the original xbox, I had one when I was younger just sitting in the corner of my sister dresser amongst our clothes (they were everywhere as I was very messy as a kid) but I have no clue where it is right now. one of the three probably happened: my mom sold it or threw it away or my dad still has it since he kept all the toys my siblings and I had as kids and also hoping he still has my childhood Gameboy advance that I miss so much.

[@jennyf-eg5gl]

Gee... did this thing sit on the bottom of the lake or something?! Mess. Besides, that's a great job! I am impressed with how much rust you got off the Xbox.

[@Earthgrand234]

I'm wondering if a degreaser would have gotten that caked-on rust from the plastic pieces off. Also for something like this I wonder if a ultrasonic cleaner would have been good to use.

[@adventureridergirl]

I use citric acid in my dishwasher to remove hard warder deposits from my dishes (and from my pipes). I'm sure it would've worked for rust too, but it has to be boiling hot water to really work. So the plastic pieces would likely need to be submerged in the citric acid solution (or run them through the dishwasher) to get the job done.

[@retrocomputinggrotto]

Gaming used to be so much more social than online gaming you get today. My friends and I used to drag our bulky desktop PCs with 19" (massive) CRT monitors and set them up around each others homes - we spend as much time chatting and nibbling on food whilst setting our LAN Games as actually playing the games :)

[@AdamWulfric]

Make sure you guys send your prayers over to Steve for those who don’t know he is currently dealing with cancer.

[@GhostReaper2043]

The clicking sound you're hearing is coming from the main hard drive, which needs to be replaced. It's surprising that the console even turned on despite all of the rust. However, I wouldn't recommend relying on the power supply and motherboard in the long run it's best to replace them completely. My suggestion would be to swap the case with another Xbox rather than wasting time on cleaning the power supply and motherboard.

[@Marlenaanne]

Amazing job! I have been really enjoying your videos. Your pacing is great, I can really relax but still learn a lot while watching this or playing it in the background. I especially appreciate your attention to detail like showing the label of what bit you are using and when you change them out. I am interested in what different solutions you used during the cleaning. I know I cant use higher % IPAs on the outside plastic because it kind of ruined the sheen on some of my earlier projects. Keep up the great work!

[@Elvenhunter1]

Definitely can recommend having a decent size ultrasonic cleaner. Might be a good investment with what this thing looked like. It gets rid of some very VERY hard to clean stuff. I've worked with electronics repair/refurbishment and that thing saved us a lot of time more often than not

[@Manhattan_]

Can't wait for the next installment of this beautiful XBOX!

[@projectpacer]

Great job on cleaning. I'm wondering out loud. I have heard that there is a product that is used on boats to remove rust staining....of course that is on gel coat but wondering if it would work without affecting plastic too much. Might be worth a test if you have one of these in the future.

[@VentusHarpus12]

Ive done it in the past with rust on the plastics, i used a drill on the 4th speed, with a brush used for leather and it got really clean

[@iamnotbritish]

as i was watching your effords into cleaning the bottom case by hand, i couldn't help but wonder how effective could a drill with the brush attachment be? i always see them in car deepcleaning videos when a person is working on carpets and seats, et cetera, that's where i got the idea from.

[@jacober8214]

WOW! That poor poor xbox! fantastic work.

[@noahboat580]

Besides maybe those silent asmr restoration channels, i never seen a console this rusted and needing a cleaning, deservably so with it being that mountain dew xbox. Great restoration, inspiring even.

[@Hustlexz]

Same here man. I’m a few years behind but I lived in a rural area where broadband internet wasn’t an option. I was able to play games like Quake 3 and CS pre-source online on my 56k but eventually Valve changed the net code on CS and my ping went to 500ms and that was it for me I gave up on gaming for years. Totally missed out on the OG Xbox and halo days. 😢

[@LOLMAN9538]

Thankfully your good friend Steve from TronicsFix knew what to do

[@corybenway6562]

After opening it. I would have considered a donor console. Clean the green case and replace all the internals. 25+ hours or getting a used console for $40-50.... Unless the Mt dew edition had a bigger HD or boot screen.

[@ninamercer6807]

Plot twist: all the powdered rust was actually dorito dust.

[@LariviereChris]

What a job!!! Insane result

[@MikesArcadeMonitorRepair]

Multiple caps on that motherboard are bulging and one of them looks like it’s actually opened up. I would have at least replaced those before powering it up. But that being said, great job on cleaning it up.

[@ShelyMB]

Saddens me how people mistreat electronics so much. Even more so for limited editions. You always do such great work. Your voice is so peaceful and soothing. Keep it up and don't change who are for anyone.

[@SquishyTheVampire]

In this case it was in a flood. So the owner had no control over that.

[@ShelyMB]

@@SquishyTheVampire wow sorry to hear about the family having a flood.

[@teeslunk]

Well Done 👏 👌 on getting those stickers off like that 👍 ✌️. I should clean 🧼 my Xbox. ✌️

[@StoneCoreYt]

I’m a bit late but Error Code 07 indicates a bad HDD (Hard drive timeout / HDD took too long to become ready) and needs to be replaced or repaired

[@josephfanning1241]

I own one of these, but it was stuck in a trailer for years and now I can't find it. There were only like 500 of them, I wonder if it's mine.

[@BushyMc_muffin]

a product i highly recommend is: Bar Keepers Friend multi surface cleaner , works on everything just dont use it on anything with a gloss finish,

[@MrMonsterGuy]

I'm a Dental Hygienist and I love my job. Yeah, you're cleaning teeth, taking x-rays and checking gums day in and day out, but you people make it so much fun. Meeting so many different people from so many backgrounds and locations. So many different connections are formed and it's so great. I have a KZbinr that I clean that focuses around gaming content and I love BSing with him and talking about KZbin and gaming. My job is the tits.

[@andrewarmstrong5266]

This is colour way is absolutely stunning but the rust damage inside the empty shell is heart retching, if this was mine and I found in that state I’d be mourning lol

[@Paulmufc-f2n]

Great job restoring

[@therealkarl88UF6BRXQ]

Good job ! You will need a modchip to be able to replace the faulty hard drive

[@hectorj.romanp.]

Impressive. Well done, Robert, and thanks Steve (I foreshadow that he will fix it).

[@casualcombine]

I wonder how well evapo-rust would work. I'd be worried about it ruining the plastic though.

[@DrRandom.]

It looked like it was sitting in the middle of a sandstorm on mars or something with all of that red dust!

[@andrewnugent9625]

Long before x-box we used to get together for LAN parties, all of us bringing our computers over and hooking them up to play Doom. The social aspect was probably quite similar, and it was a blast. Question why use vinegar instead of something like Evaporust? Also, the glue for most feet, stickers etc is usually a type of rubber cement and is cleaned best wiht a hexane based solvent, search for rubber cement thinner and you will find it. You have far more patience than me. I would have replaced the powersupply and optical drive. An ultrasonic cleaner also does wonders on a lot of those parts as well.

[@codyisrude]

I've repaired some crusty original xbox consoles and this by far is the worst I don't think i've ever seen a motherboard that looks like a mix of rust and corrosion

[@GusTecher-d5p]

Awesome video, I learned a lot. May I ask what the baking soda solution is?

[@maicoalvim]

Where did you buy that pick you used to remove the tags?

[@niceatpingpong]

I saw a video recently on evaporust and I think that would be good here because it's PH neutral (ish) so it attacks the rust, but not the base metal. I forget the channel, but the guy also makes his own version for pretty cheap and for someone like you who deals with a lot of rusty stuff, it may be good to look into. EDIT: also, that front bezel on the disk drive that says XBOX comes off and I bet there's some schmoo under that as well, so it may be good to take that off next time, especially since I could see the potential for some rust to become dislodged and end up in the laser.