Well, I could make my own in under Rs. 20 (50 cents). All you need is:

• Soldering Iron, soldering flux and the lead wire
• Hot glue gun
• Shielded USB Cable (I got mine from a mobile transfer cable)
• 12V AC Adapter (preferably 2 A). I just used my computer’s SMPS to achieve the same (According to Molex standards, Yellow=12v, Black=Ground)
• Some patience

There are two ways to go about this..

The quick and dirty way:

I’m took this route because, this just needs some basic soldering skill and I wanted play my Kinect ASAP.

1) Cut the Kinect cable at the end. You’ll find 6 wires.

2) Tin the wires (Google “tinning” if you don’t know how to). This just mean, you’ll have to remove a part of the insulation and add a little bit of solder on it.

Tiny Tip: Use a Nail Cutter to remove the insulation on the wire.

3) So, here are the details about the wires. Thankfully, Microsoft has used the standard color code.

Yellow / Brownish – 12 V source (That is, your adapter)

Black – Ground

White – Data -

Green – Data +

Red – + 5V (The USB power).

4) Slice up the USB cable and you’ll find similar color coded wires. Solder it to the Kinect Wires.  Red to Red, Green to Green. etc.

Note: Ground is Ground, there is no separate USB ground/AC Adapter ground. So, join the AC Adapter and USB cable’s ground (Black) to Kinect’s Black wire.

5) Add some hot glue after you solder every connection. So, they don’t make unnecessary contact. You could also try insulation tape but I’m unsure about the longevity of your homemade cable.

6) And…. you should have something ugly like this.

and a mess like this….

The neat and clean way:

I didn’t do this but one guy had the patience to do it. Picture speaks a thousand words. So, here goes:

 

I wanted to get a VGA Cable by which I could could connect my Xbox 360 to my monitor (Fights over the TV is quite normal in my place). I looked at the price tag of the Official VGA cable ($40!). At the end of of the its just a cable and it doesn’t deserve $40. So, I got myself a third party cable from this chinese website called play-asia for $10. It was of the worst build quality. Ghosting images all over the monitor (Bad shielding I would say). Even Gears of War looked like Left4Dead .

I had all the parts lying around. So, thought I would do it myself. Initially, I thought that building it myself would mean bad quality. It turned out to be a pretty good after all.

Shielding is basically a protective layer over your cables which prevent signal loss. If that is bad, ghosting would be evident. Also, Microsoft was kind (or cheap) enough to provide all the pins in all the connectors (use it or not) unlike PS2’s connector. So, you can try this with any cables. Standard Definition AV cable, HD component, VGA cable (though I see no point in doing that ) .. anything!

One surprising thing is that, I didn’t even use shielding cable and still didn’t get any ghost images. How? you may ask me? Simple, I just made the cable as short as possible. Leaving little scope for signal loss.

Also read: Connect headphones to your Xbox 360 VGA cable

1) Any standard Xbox 360 video cable. SD AV cable, HD component, etc. Even a third party cable would do. You just need the port.

2) Female VGA connector / port. (see the last pic)

3) 3.5 mm stereo connector (for audio). I got mine from an old tape recorder.

Here’s how you can do it:

1) Open up the Xbox 360 connector by cutting the sides of the head. I did a shabby job, here, but it didn’t matter.

2) After that, you’ll get a piece like this. Solder the connection according to the corresponding pinouts. Red to red, green to green etc. That is, VGA cable to the original Xbox 360 connector (I think you get the idea).

Don’t forget to solder the connections of your Stereo port.

3) Use some insulated tapes between the terminals (in the VGA port). To prevent shorts.

4) I put some super glue on the metal plate and fixed it on the plastic thing.

5) And Tada! (This is going to be my signature statement from now on )

It worked like a charm. No ghosting no matter what!

Also, thanks to Ben Heck @Engadget for the nice article.

I don’t believe in frying your brains with long procedures. I’ve made it as simple as possible. So, to enter the contest just type in your name and email address and click on send.

If you have some problems sending. Click on refresh image.

Winners will be announced on 12th January 2010 and will be contacted via email.

If you like this contest, please don’t hesitate to share this via twitter or something else.

PS: This is a trial account so, a new account will be created and login details will be sent to you. All you have to do is, choose the “Recover Gamertag” option on your Xbox 360.

Winner: Madferret

If it isn’t the DVDs, then you can try a pot tweak. By doing this, you actually give the DVD Drive’s laser a little more juice (I mean power).

Some Theory:

Basically, pot means potentiometer (variable resistance). This resistance is connected parallel to the laser. So, when you decrease the resistance of your potentiometer, you can give the laser a little more current. Therefore, the laser will have more power.

So, from now on, your DVD laser will work a little more harder to read your disks.

What you need:

Again check the reading. You should have decreased around 0.1k Ω.

• Only Gold members can enjoy this update.
• last.fm & Zune only for US & Canada regions.
• Unauthorized HDD will not work.
• Chatpad / Keyboard would be needed.

Twitter:

You can read and post tweets, but you cannot follow or unfollow etc. You can watch out for Trending Topics. You can also Search twitter. Pretty Basic.

Facebook:

Facebook implementation is pretty decent. You can post status messages, read news feeds, see photos etc. Again, its pretty Basic. Sadly, you cannot chat with your friends.

last.fm:

Free music – who wouldn’t want that? This was my most anticipated feature, but it isn’t available here. One disadvantage which I could experience (without using LOL) is that we can’t play music in the game or on the dashboard. 

You can use these features on your PC with greater ease. There is no extra feature like automatic achievement update or something like that. Why would they want to use this?

I couldn’t access the other two features because, I am not in  US.

Verdict: It is not an Extraordinary Update. Its very restrictive as this is Microsoft. Personally, I would rather have a Web-browser option than this.

Today, I was just browsing through Xbox LIVE for some arcade games and eye caught up on an Xbox LIVE update which will offer Facebook, Twitter, Last.fm, Zune and much more. This is most awaited update this fall. All you have to do is complete a survey for the Xbox LIVE Update program and wait.

Note: Just completing the survey does not automatically get you access to the Preview Program. We’ll be making final selections from the completed surveys and send you an email if you are selected.

What you need?

1) Xbox 360 (duh!)

2) USB keyboard, wired or wireless, doesn’t really matter

How it works?

I know that Meekrosoft is a money hungry sucker, but surprisingly, they let us use a USB keyboard off the game.

Note: USB keyboards still can’t be used as a Controller.. Money Suckers!

How to:

I think this is my shortest tutorial, as of now…

Plug your USB Keyboard in to your Xbox 360 and Kick some Alien butt!

The signal from Xbox 360 is very weak. We need to amplify it. I will be showing ways to amplify the signals.

Ways you can do it:

1) This is the easiest method. If you have a decent speaker just connect the RC cables to the line-in port of the speaker. Then, connect your headphones to the speakers and you’re done.

2) You can also amplify the signal through your computer. Below are the instructions.

What you need:

1) Female RCA to Stereo Cable/Connector (You can find it on eBay, Amazon etc.) alternatively you can also make this from some Spare/Broken RC ports and some headphone wires.

2) A computer (PC/Laptop)

Procedure:

Unmute the Line in setting in the volume control panel (Start -> Accessories -> Entertainment -> Volume Control). Connect the white wire (left channel) to the RCA to Stereo port, similarly, the red ones. Plug it to the “Line in” port of your computer. Now, plug your headphones to the “line out” port of your computer.

That’s it!

If Unsuccessful, try this.

1) Dowload Winamp and install it.

2) Download Winamp Line-in Plugin, and install it.

3) Connect the RC wires from the Xbox 360 to the Connector. Plug the connector to the Line-In port of your Computer.

4) Connect your Headphones to the Line-out port

5) Open Winamp and Click on File—> Open URL (Ctrl+L)

Enter line://[option1=value1,][option2,][etc.] in the box.

Disclaimer: Do not use this method if you have the warranty. Use this method as your last resort.

What is RRoD?

Basically, RRoD (Red Ring of Death) is a name given to Microsoft’s 3 Red light error and is a caused by cheap manufacturing.

How do you find out the reason causing RRoD on your Xbox 360?

Hold the Sync button and press the Eject button 4 times. You’ll find different number of quadrants of red lights illuminating. Using this you can make a code out of it. Here is the legend.

All four lights illuminate = 0
One Light = 1
Two Lights = 2
Three Lights = 3

Fixes as per the Codes:

1) Part 1

1RROD E73; E74;
2RROD 0011; 0012;
3RROD 0002; 0020; 0021; 0022; 0023; 0101; 0102; 0103; 0110; 0203

These errors can be fixed by X-Clamp replacement method. Click here for the tutorial.

2) Part 2

3RROD 0001, 0002

Click here for the tutorial.

After your fix, you can try the 12 Volt cooling mod. This ensure longer life of your fix.

Possible Defective parts:

1) Power brick/supply

2) Motherboard

3) Mosfets

Finding the defective part:

Common sense…

Use the power brick with any other working Xbox 360 (Just to check, borrow it from your friend)

1) If it doesn’t work – Your Power brick is faulty

2) If its does – Your 360 is faulty.

You can also check your 360 with another working power brick.

1) If it doesn’t work – Your 360 is faulty.

2) If its does – Your Power brick is faulty

If your Power brick is faulty, all you have to do is replace the power brick. You can find it online on eBay, some forum’s Trading Posts etc (XS, GI etc)

If your Xbox 360 is faulty, here are some things you can try.

1) Sometimes, it can be due to some metal piece on the motherboard which is shorting it.

So you can use some cotton dipped in alcohol and clean the motherboard all through. Do this row by row, column by column.

If it works, celebrate and play some Gears of War!!! If not, move on to the next step.

2) Mosfets can be defective. Info about Mosfets.

You will have to replace the mosfets.

Materials needed:

* Soldering Iron

* Mosfets (just get some free samples from onsemi.com)

Procedure:

1) Open up the Xbox 360 and pull out the motherboard.

2) You will have to replace these. To replace these basic de-soldering skills are needed.

First, try replacing the mosfet closer to the CPU. If you fail to get it working, replace the second one.

There are many versions of the mosfet. You may find these on Xenon boards:

Replacement part:  ON Semiconductor part # NTD60N02RG

Replacement part: International Rectifier part#IRLR3715Z

You may find these on Falcon boards:

Replacement part: Fairchild Semiconductor part #fdd8782

3) After the replacement, if you still can’t get it working then, you will have to replace the controller chip. You can find it under the memory stick slot.

On Xenon Boards:

Replacement part: ON Semiconductor part # NCP5425

On Falcon Boards:

Replacement part: Analog Devices Part#ADP1823

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