The Blog

Original Xbox Samsung SDG-605 DVD Tray Eject Fix

Nix McRetro // 11th July 2013 // Microsoft, Repairs, YouTube

If your Xbox DVD drive is not ejecting, but sometimes ejects when tapped… that was the symptom I was looking at on this Samsung SDG-605. At the time I suspected the magnet on the spindle hub was holding too strongly. The modification shown worked for this drive and this symptom.... Continue reading

Sony PlayStation 3 YLOD Repair Attempt

Nix McRetro // 11th July 2013 // Repairs, Sony, YouTube

Sadly, this repair did not have any success. The serial number of this unit was 02-27430367-2452398-CECHG02. However, stay tuned… we have some mighty successes coming up! The failed attempt does not establish what was wrong with this PS3. YLOD is a failure indication, not a diagnosis of a particular component.... Continue reading

Xbox 360 RROD Repair Attempt Serial 072261382807

Nix McRetro // 9th July 2013 // Hacks, Microsoft, Repairs

This is my attempt to repair the RROD Xbox 360 from the earlier assessment. It did not work. I hope you (and me) can learn from my mistakes and see if you can repair yours with more success. The red-light indication does not identify the failed component by itself. A... Continue reading

SuperCIC Planning Notes for SNSP-CPU-1CHIP-01 with F413B

Nix McRetro // 8th July 2013 // Guides, Hacks, Nintendo

SuperCIC Planning Notes for SNSP-CPU-1CHIP-01 with F413B

This will be the article on how to install SuperCIC for switchless region-free gaming. Provided I can find the time. The board shown is an SNSP-CPU-1CHIP-01 with an F413B lockout chip at U8. This particular article never became the full installation guide I had planned. Wolfsoft’s linked example uses an... Continue reading

Block Imaging Drives with dd under Mac OS X

Nix McRetro // 8th July 2013 // Apple, Guides, Raspberry Pi

I’ve found dd extremely useful when dealing with older or otherwise inconvenient disk formats. This was particularly handy for Mac OS Standard / HFS media because OS X 10.6 Snow Leopard treated HFS as read-only. I also used it for Raspberry Pi media containing Linux filesystems that OS X did... Continue reading