Thread: How to adjust the POT of an xbox 360

Adjusting the pot is sometimes a necessary evil if you want your 360 (or any disc player for that matter) to read writable media. Ive been modding and repairing consoles for years, and the thing that goes wrong most frequently is the dvd drive. Dirty disk errors are quite common, and if your standard cleaning isnt hacking it, this just might do the trick. This is a short version tutorial for people who have a decent understanding of small electronics. If you can dissasemble your xbox, well, keep reading. If not, follow this tutorial instead, its very short:

1) find a tutorial on dissasembling your unit.
2) READ the tutorial
3) Come back if you still have the salt

What you will need:
Tools to dissasemble the xbox
a Philips Screwdriver
a Multimeter with a 20k (20,000) OHMs setting
a Precision standard screwdriver, small electronics pin style preferred) NO STEAK KNIVES!!!

This tutorial is based around an xbox 360, but can be carried over to virtually any dvd burner or player as the mechanics are the same.

OK, on to business, first, disassemble the 360. If you are not sure how, please read the tutorial above. If you already have read the tutorial above, and still are not sure how, please put your tools away, and curl up in the fetal position while a repair man puts it to your behind.

Now, when you have access to your dvd drive, you are going to see a little piece of silver tape below the tray. Peel it back, do not remove it.

Disconnect the power and sata cables from the back of the drive, and carefully lift out.

4 screws on the outside of the top of the drive need to be removed, this will give you access to the interior of your drive. Peel back the copper tape holding the rest of the cover on, again, do not remove.



When you pull the cover, you will see the laser assembly directly over the center of the tray. Now, locate the 2 screw like knobs on the assembly. We are going to be dealing with the screw on the left. This is for DVD functionality, the one on the right is CD functionality.

Break out your multimeter, set it to 20k OHMs.

Now the fun part, on the screw, you will see two solder points, they are SMALL...Touch the tips of your meter to each. You should get a reading anywhere from 3.4 to 3.8k OHMs.

With a very small precision screwdriver, turn the screw clockwise about 1mm. You are aiming for a 2.8 OHMs reading. NO LESS, you will eventually burn out your laser if you go lower. 3.0 is ideal if your disks will read. Personally, I dont even bother with that, since .2 iOHMs more is a guaranteed fix for POT calibration. If youve gone this far, you might as well go all the way right?

As soon as you get to 2.8 or close, but no less. Button everything up, and you should be good to go! Thats all there is to it!


What adjusting the POT has done for me in the past:
xbox(original) - dirty disc errors, corrected
Samsung DVD Player - Skipping and studdering on burns - Corrected
XBOX360 - Modded box would not read many burned disks - Corrected, they ALL read now, ANY type I have tested. I have a few Office Depot brand disks and THOSE read now! lol

Hope this helps someone out there!

nice tut.
I approve of this. guaranteed fix as long as you aren't retarded.

That's a great tutorial, done it on several I have modded for friends myself. Great thing to post.

Great tutorial but I think the rrod is more common than the drives going...

You'd be surprised how often this happens. After an xclamp fix the drive is usally what goes out before RRoD start happening again.

rrod, lol, I swear ms did it on purpose, the fix is so SO easy... Going to post a tut on that, and opening the case, and flashing soon, just need to write them. Here is the crappy thing about the rrod, when they send you your 'newly refurbished' xbox, its a load of crap, and you were probably better off fixing the rrod'd box by yourself. I sent in an xbox to get refurbed a while back. It had a new BenQ drive, and the crap we got back had a hitatchi ver46....What a load of crap, that drive was like 2 years older than what we sent.

Great tute, I'll try this when I mod my 360