I found out the other day about the ticking time bomb in almost every original Xbox. Turns out Microsoft used a capacitor to run the system clock that has a tendency around the 10-year mark to leak acid all over your Xbox's PCB.

I opened mine up and yes I had acid around the capacitor. I still need to do a proper cleanup job on it but I've broken off the capacitor and gotten most of the acid off. There were about 4 or 5 surface mount devices (SFDs) that got covered by acid and had come off the PCB, but my Xbox still works so must have been associated with the clock capacitor or something else unimportant.

Moral of the story; open up your OG Xbox (v1 to V1.5) and remove the clock capacitor before it bricks your system.