Odd PC troubles & a "comatose Xbox"?

I'm not quite sure why, but I seem to be given the strangest PC's for repair? I mean, what is reported as "the problem" always seems to be the tip of the iceburg, as they say...

Trouble reported: CD-ROM doesn't work. "Ok", I think. Probably a screw up in device manager- something out of sorts. Nope- as always, device manager finds no issues to report.

Additional PITA issue- this is a Gateway, desktop PC (old-style that sits on the desk & designed for the montior to rest atop it) with NO PS/2 ports, whatsoever?? Now, this is a new one on me. All righty then- no prob, because there are 2 USB ports front & three on the back. Non-issue, right? Wrong.

Out of the rear three, the uppermost is taped off ("broken" say the owners). So, for the time being, I'll simply move some of my utilities to this PC via USB thumb drive. Here's the good part- any time I plug in the thumb (or anything USB) to the rear ports- the entire thing shuts off! ...sigh...You know what this means, of course? The front two USB are being used by the KB & mouse. Yep, I'm fresh out of ports- lol. You have to laugh so you don't take a sledgehammer to the unit.

I unplug the KB so I can transfer the utilities. All goes well. I'm thinking that I can temporarily use Daemon Tools to help this guy run the one program he needs running. Nope- Daemon won't run the software- gah!!!

Back to the drawing board on that one. I'll have to open it up & see what's going on in there. Maybe I'll luck out & find an errant screw making contact in the case somewhere- otherwise, I'm starting to suspect the mobo.

On to the dead-ish Xbox. I'm called by a student to ask if I could have a peek at the grandson's Xbox. Symptoms are: no screen, no audio, disc drive will not eject. I swapped for good cables- no go. Opened it up to check for bad/burnt cables, wires, caps. Nope. Off to Google, where I find a very informative site all about Xbox- llama.com.

This appears to be what is described as a "coma console". Sounds bad & is. The "fix" is straightforward enough- make a wire bridge across two points on the mobo back. Except! The points are so tiny that a strong magnifying glass is needed to even be able to tell that these are circles...I returned it with the recommendation the people locate an electronics repairman who does fine electronics soldering. I have a solder gun & know how to use it- but really don't have the expertise to drop a microscopic dot of solder onto something that small...Ah well, it was interesting to dis/reassemble & to see the innards of an Xbox.