White Light Diagnosis (Xbox One S)
If you power on the Xbox One S console and the white light stays on solid, but you get no HDMI output there are two ways to diagnose the state of failure.
Binding Light Check
First, while the console is powered on and the HDD is plugged in, tap the binding/pair controller button.
If the white light flashes, the console is up and running, and the issue is likely the retimer chip, the EMI filters or the HDMI port are bad.
No HDMI / No Binding Light Flashing
If the binding light fails to flash when you tap the bind button, but the white light stays on, you are almost always looking at a bad hard drive.
Swap out the hard drive for a blank, new hard drive and regardless of it being blank you should then get the bind button to flash the white LED.
Instant On-Off White Light
If you power on the console and in less than one second the white light turns back off again, you are usually looking at one of the following:
- A short on the board, a bad MOSFET, inductor or capacitor on the CPU power rails
- Bad RAM
- Bad KIC (the large black IC near the CPU, labelled Microsoft 861949)
- Bad power regulators anywhere on the board
White Light Off Over A Second
If you get a white light to stay on longer than 1 second, but then it goes off after a period (2-3 seconds or even 10 minutes) it is almost always bad thermal paste, air flow or other over-heating issues.
