Xbox (2001)
Wednesday July 9, 2025
What started with me wanting to try Dead or Alive 2 Ultimate quickly snowballed into getting two Xboxes and every Xbox DOA game. You like the title of this post? I couldn’t think of anything better.
The Beginning
I was reading a thread about how great DOA used to be. There was a lot of talk about DOA 2 Ultimate specifically, and I saw that 1U and 2U are pretty cheap on eBay. The cogs started turning.
I can use her Xbox One to play these…
DOA 3 is also cheap. I should grab that too…
DOA 4 isn’t expensive, either. People say that’s the peak of the series…
So I bought all of them, including DOA Xtreme for the sake of completion, and because I’m a chimpy chimp retard. I was already deep into chimp retard territory by purchasing every mainline DOA game in the series. Xtreme mostly sitting on the shelf is just the cherry on top. I looked up reviews, and the volleyball part seems pretty boring. One guy had an insanely long volley going, but it wasn’t cool to look at. It was actually kind of nauseating seeing the camera whip back and forth. Like, holy shit, someone please miss the ball already. The pool hopping game seems fun. I love the puddle jumping mini-game from Kirby 64, so I hope it’s extremely similar and my skill transfers over.
The Snowball Keeps Rolling
I thought it would be cool to play these games in the garage on an original Xbox.
Hmmm… I bet I could find a reasonably priced original Xbox…
So I was back on eBay. Xboxes are more expensive than I thought they would be in 2025, although I don’t know why I was expecting them to be cheap. It seems like the ones that are in full working order float around $100 to $150. The ones that looked like good deals usually had a problem reading discs, ejecting discs, had cords missing, or were bundled with dogshit controllers. I wanted something that was definitely going to work when it arrived, and included two controllers. I guess those are high standards to have while also being cheap.
But then I saw this listing:
“The xbox turns on a flashes green and orange when first turned on. Its being sold as not working”
Look at all that shit. A duke controller and a component video kit.
I looked up what the green and orange error code means. 99% of the time, it means there are no video cables connected. I was convinced that this guy was just doing something wrong. Maybe he didn’t try to connect the video cables when “testing” the console, got an error, gave up, then sold it as untested/not working. I thought about how everything could go my way. I’d have a cheap Xbox with the nice video cables, and the nice controller. I bought it.
Then I bought standard video cables, since the Trinitron in my garage doesn’t do component. Then I started browsing for another controller. The price of my cheap Xbox was slowly climbing up to standard Xbox prices, and I wasn’t even 100% sure this thing was going to work. I imagined how mad I would be if it arrived and my hunch was wrong, so I panicked and cancelled the order, which I instantly regretted, for some reason.
The next day, I bought a different one for $80 + $20 shipping. Tested and working, and it comes with a legit “S” (slim) controller. I figured it’s worth not being cheap if it means being happy the day I set it up. While looking around for a second controller, I got an offer from the guy selling the same untested Xbox I just bailed on. I bought it.
Hear me out. Assuming the console is bad, I’d still be getting a deal on the component cables. If the component cables are bad, which could possibly be the cause of the error code, the console could be completely fine. No matter what, I get a second controller.
I understand that going from “Wow DOA 2U is only $10” to blowing $298 on 5 8 games and 2 Xboxes is insane.
The Games Arrive
It is really cool that the old DOA games (and many other Xbox games) are playable on the Xbox One. Like any modern game, inserting the disc just acts as a physical license check, allowing you to play the copy of the game downloaded to the console. The games run in widescreen and look great. I played each one in order of release, and ended up playing 4 for a truly disgusting amount of time. I will write another post detailing my thoughts on each game soon.
The Consoles Arrive
The “untested” Xbox arrived first. One reason why I cancelled the order the first time was the fear that it would not come with a power cable. The listing said “cord” (singular) and I didn’t see one in any of the pictures. My fear was justified, because there was no power cable. Not a big deal, because I had a cable lying around that worked. I could hear the boot animation, but couldn’t see it due to my A/V receiver not being configured correctly. Whatever, the cables work and the Xbox was not flashing green and orange. After the sound of the boot animation, the Xbox flashed green and red. Damn. Going by this website, I think it has a bad hard drive. Replacing the drive seems pretty involved since I’d need to get the HDD key from the EEPROM, but it’ll be a project for a later date. Oh, well. This is exactly why I bought a second Xbox.
The “tested and working” Xbox arrived a few days later. I hooked it all up to the CRT in the garage, and it instantly powered on without me pressing the power button. I didn’t think anything of it at that moment, but after the power button failed to turn the console off, I did some research and learned that there is most likely a damaged trace on the motherboard due to the clock capacitor leaking.
In case you’re not hip on Xbox bullshit, the capacitor that keeps the time on the original Xbox is basically a ticking bomb. It WILL leak, and if it isn’t replaced or removed in time, It’ll cause all kinds of problems. It’s a little upsetting that my “tested and working” Xbox has motherboard damage. I guess it could be worse, but I wish the eBay listing mentioned it. For what it’s worth, I removed the clock caps from both Xboxes so they wouldn’t cause more problems in the future.
The cap in the “bad hard drive” Xbox looked like it had already caused some corrosion, so I could definitely see this making me want to kill myself later.
The cap in the “auto on” Xbox looked fine. It even had a blue dot on it, which indicates to me that it may have been replaced at one point. The stickers on the bottom of the Xbox were intact, so if someone did replace it, they must’ve carefully removed the stickers to get to the screws underneath. I did not do that. I went right through them. Anyway, this capacitor may have been okay, but I still removed it. The trace that is (probably) damaged is on the other side of the motherboard. I haven’t looked at it yet.
My plan for now is to just power the functional Xbox on and off with the power cable. It sucks, but at least it works. I’ll try to replace the hard drive in the first Xbox, and if that goes smoothly, I’ll try to fix the power issue on the second Xbox. I don’t want to end up with two dead Xboxes.
The whole “console corner” in the garage needed some love. It’s always been a mess due to not having the space to store consoles, controllers, and games. I felt inspired to build a dinky little shelf out of scrap wood. I also hooked the CRT up to my giant Klipsh speakers, just to have the option. I mostly use the speakers to play music from my phone, but recently I’ve been filling up the other inputs on the receiver.
I think it’s funny that after cleaning up for the photo, you can see the pile of wires I tossed to the side in the super reflective PC case. Fuck that case! Too much glass!! (It is not my PC.)
I will softmod the working Xbox Eventually™. My friend has done it to his Xbox, so I’ll get some help from him. My other friend has a “booster disc” that adds more costumes to DOA 3 that I need to get my hands on.
