Want a challange? Read here.

Hi everyone. This is my first time writing but I have been a long time reader. Some of the tutorials and posts on here are just priceless. I am only writing now because usually I can sort things out by myself with either experience or research but this time I have come across a bit of a challenge.

A little back story
I bought an old XBOX from the Sunday market the other day. It had no cables, no controllers and no hdd. But the price was right - $5. Why did I buy it? Dunno. I wanted to see if I can salvage it and maybe turn it into an XBMC. I also got an HD A/V cable from the market for an extra $5. (thats right the cable and the xbox where at the same price )

The idea
As I said I wanted to make myself an XBMC. But the catch was that I wanted it to be as cheap as possible. Its not that i cant go and by a proper xbox for $60-70 of someone but where is the fun in that? This was turing into a little home project. At this point I was at the $10 mark.

Setting it up a.k.a. the FRAO
I must point out that I do know a few things about modding. I have a hard-modded Wii (wiikey) and a soft-modded PS2 (swap magic). However I knew nothing, nada, zilch about xbox modding when I bought it and was setting it up.

I plugged in the HD A/V cables in my tv, found an old power lead and plugged that in as well. Although I didnt have an hdd at this point I was assuming it would show up on the screen with some kind of bios error or something. But my tv didnt register any signal - there was no sound, not even a pop; no video, not even a flicker. More important was the fact that the ring was flashing red and orange (FRAO, not FRAG). Again, not knowing what the FRAO was I though I needed an hdd. So I put in an old hdd in there just to see if I get any reaction. Nope, still FRAO but the hdd spins.

So know I am thinking that a) the whole system is messed up OR b) I was doing something wrong. Seeing how b) was more plausible I sat down and did some extensive research.

What I found out and where I am at now
After more than a few hours of digging up old articles/forum posts around my problem (some dating back to 2004) I found out that FRAO comes up after an unsuccessful hard-mod attempt which leaves soldier splatter or disconnected paths on the motherboard. In general motherboard damage. So I took the MB out and had a good look at this. I couldnt spot anything wrong with it - no soldier, no burns, no damage at all. There was some sticky stuff on the bottom though. Looked a bit like soda/juice spillage. Although it was minor I cleaned it all up and put the motherboard back in. Alas that made no difference.

This is where you come in
First of I must congratulate you for making it this far. It turned out to be quite a lengthy post. It seems that the first step to recovery (of the xbox) is truly admitting you have a problem and asking for help (from you guys).

tl;dr
So now I have an XBOX with a nice FRAO and no idea what to do. If you have any advice about what I should do please do share. Keep in mind that I dont want to spend a lot on this. Any help is greatly appreciated.