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The sound of silence

Head Rambles Posted on by

Over the years I seem to have amassed a few audio and video files from various sources.

I have them stuck on an old broken hard drive on a shelf in the back room.  Well, the hard drive isn't broken but its case is so I can't move it without bits [or bytes?] falling all over the place.

Our K8 gave me an old XBox 360 some years ago and I discovered I could plug the XBox into the television and into the hard drive as well so I was then free to listen to all my music and enjoy all my films at my leisure.

The other day the fucking XBox broke.

I think they call it the "Three Lights of Death"?

Three little lights flashing on the front of the box apparently means major trouble anyway.

I toyed with the idea of getting it fixed but then I had a brainwave – maybe I could use a bashed up old laptop instead of the XBox?

I had a bashed up old laptop as it happens.  The last time I used it was an age ago when I copied all my LPs into files.  I dusted it off, removed the family of mice and wiped the hard drive.  I installed Linux.  I then rummaged through my boxes of junk [all that stuff you know is going to come in handy some day] and actually found the correct cables and wires to connect the laptop to the television.

I set the whole thing up so the laptop only displays on the television, but I can control it from my chair using my real laptop.  Fucking brilliant!  I can now watch films, play music, play DVDs or stream YouTube videos or whatever the hell I want to do.

I'm a genius.

Last night we settled back to watch a film.

The fucking laptop blew up after an hour.  It was so hot it damn near melted.

Anyone got a spare old XBox they don't want?

 

 

Comments

The sound of silence — 13 Comments

    • Hi Ripper

      How do these people figure this out? The mind boggles as to how the geeky types think.

    • Thanks for that.  I have tried all the suggestions including those on YouTube.  The only new discovery is that apparently I have Error 0102, whatever that means.

      • Error E18/0102 is 'no audio/video' due to a broken cold solder joint on the CPU, GPU or RAM. The tried and tested way of fixing this is to remove the mainboard and pop it into a pre-heated oven until the solder melts and reflows. Seriously. Alternately, use a hot air paint stripper or blow lamp on the board but keep it moving.

        • I saw those "remedies" including wrapping the damned thing in an eiderdown and running it until it melts.  Maybe I should just stick it in the microwave?

  3. GD, does your TV set have a USB port? If so you can stick the old hard drive in an enclosure, about £7 from PC World and plug it straight in.

    Harry – I have no idea how a person can work these things out, but once someone does its all over the forums, then the idea gets improved on. The only one that I can lay claim to was with the early Playstations. Some games wouldn't work due to the crap laser in the DVD drive. My solution was to turn the Playstation umop apisdn. The weight of the disc bought it a tiny bit closer to the laser. Worked most of the time.

    • The back of the TV looks like a power station control room – loads of various connecters, sockets and gizmos….. but no USB slot.  It's about the only thing they forgot to include.

  4. GD, I have an old XBox that your more than welcome to.  I have also installed XBMC on it so it should suit your needs? Drop me a mail if you want it.

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