Got myself an Xbox, Need General Help and Guidance [PICS]

[Gedeon]

Hey fellas, a couple days ago I got myself a lovely Xbox and since than I was searching the web for some sort of modding community and I ended up here, so it's a perfect time to say hello to all of you. So, um.. Hello!

I'm not a hardcore modder, I just like to use my electronics with some extra features, that's all. I also like the idea of having wireless enabled and pimped out electronics all over the house

Anyway... here's the thing. I need your recommendations guys. I have attached a few photos, sorry about the quality but that should do the trick. Got my hands on the xbox already softmodded with some old mod, it's running EvoX but it's looking really lame especially on my HDTV (component cable is on it's way from ebay, though).

HDD:
It has the old hard drive, I've got about 4 gigs of free space to play with, it was enough to try some games and man, I gotta tell you these games look great even on composite (set to widescreen) can't wait to see the difference with the new cable. So yeah, I'm about to upgrade the hard drive as well. Question is, I have a 160G laptop SATA drive lying around - perfectly fine - can I use this with the Box somehow or I better off with an old IDE drive? I might use Chimp Linux to clone it but I'm pretty sure some adapter is needed for the new HD. I might even throw in an SSD to see how it performs.

Clock Cap:
This is a common issue afaik, so I think it's worth mentioning. Mine looks good tbh, but according to the DVD drive creation date and the mobo, the box I have is 10 years old at least. Am I going to experience issues if I remove the cap by hand? Got no soldering skills at all.

Mods:
Since it's running an old EvoX softmod I don't really want to make any more changes to the original HDD as far as dashboards and stuff like that concerned, I might keep it as a backup drive if anything goes wrong. I see no traces of modchips at all.

Which "rescue dvds" worth having around? Also, what kind of DVDs should I buy? DVD-R I beleive but correct me if I'm wrong. Does these work even when something goes with the softmod? I haven't got any original games with exploits like Splinter Cell (oh the good old Sam Fisher) neither an old PC with IDE connectivity. Maybe I can hook one up if it's absolutely necessary but meh... you know how it feels these days.

What I want to do with my Xbox:
Primarily, it's for games so I don't think I'd need more than 50-60 gigs of space for the games I want to play. I'd also want to play HD (720p tops) movies with it if it's possible. Some sort of wifi workaround would be awesome that can be powered directly from the box itself, I'm all ears. It's just not possible to hook it up with UTP to my router. I heard there's a cool remote for XBMC for Android too

Future plans:
I really want to upgrade the HDD, avoid modchips (lack of soldering skills), replace the fan with a silent one (seems like a bit of work but i can definitely saw plastic) and add a wireless controller port to it (at least one) that is hidden in the inside of the console.

Oh, there's one more thing. How should I backup my EEPROM and what's it for? I am familiar with FTPing into the box and such but I heard it's important to have a backup of things...

So, agian, I would really appreciate any input on where to start. Better safe than sorry, right?

Cheers, and happy Boxing!

PS.: I own a PS3 with a Sony Bravia, but I started to like the old Xbox a lot more. I always wanted one, so... and sorry for my grammar mistakes here and there, I'm not native english.

[Gedeon]

Posting this just to have everything in one place.
This is the hard drive I want to use.
2,5" SATA.

[tim619]

Your xbox is 1.0 or 1.1 I believe 1.0. That means you got 1mb of TSOP which you could flash and you'd get the same result like inserting a modchip.
If you want to stay with your softmod you would need to lock an upgraded hdd with the right key (you get it from eeprom -> I think evox has an option to dump this than you can ftp to pc).
I'm not sure if you can lock a sata disc, if that's possible you would need an ide to sata adapter, some people have this working for even 1tb drives or so. But I dont know if they have changed bios.
Also some ide hdds fail on locking, some people say seagate is a good choice.

So if you would TSOP the box (needs one point soldering) you could insert a random ide/sata and could format it and all would go fine, if you stay with softmod locking would be the hardest part.

Playing 720p is not possible without converting to a special format having low fps. Also the difference between hdtv cable and sd is not a big difference since most games still be on 480p but some like fifa street2 improve to 720p. Software like xbmc runs flawless on 720p and difference is great (be sure to place your cable in a good way because the china cables depend on right placing).

The dvd drive which is inserted is good afaik, I think it runs dvd-r and dvd+r and dvd+-rw and cd. But you have to try.

I would recommend you to only make hardware changes if you are skilled with it I broke 2 or three boxes in past 7 years...

[Gedeon]

Thanks for the heads up Tim!

So from my understanding TSOP is basically the chip where BIOS is being stored and without the soldering mumbo jumbo it's read only. However, if I manage to connect the appropriate pins the BIOS can be overwritten which I beleive means I can boot up pretty much anything 3rd party from the DVD drive.

A lame question, but is soldering that absolutely necessary to accomplish this? I mean sealing tapes are out there... and when the BIOS is updated I can easily remove the additional wires and tape. Just asking.

Guess I gotta disassemble my unit again and find someone with goold soldering skills. Maybe it's time to reunion with some old teachers from school

[tim619]

You're welcome If you'd get the bios flashed you could not only play 3rd party from dvd but also disable nearly every security m$ implemented like
-DVD drive check -> is it connected
-HDD check -> is it legal locked -> if check skipped even sata possible without probs until ~1tb
-Rescue your xbox from burnt disc -> softmod cannot do this.
-Your xbox would still boot from dvd/cd if your hdd is broken/not connected whatever.
-You could change the bootup logo & disable loud xbox sound and flubber
and much more

-> the xbox would be completely free, which is not possible with softmod.

Now to your question about soldering: I think some ppl got it working using such tape or even pencil but maybe someone who got it working using this methods could make a how to,
I'm interested, too.

[Gedeon]

Sure thing, solder is much more reliable than a piece of tape but as far as I know I need to "create" jumpers just for only a couple minutes to flash the TSOP chip. I have no intention of upgrading it over and over again so from my understanding if the chip is flashed with a new modded BIOS, it's okay to have it "readonly" again.

Gotta lookup the chip type in my xbox and determine what "pins" to connect and to where. I am more like a software guy, you know.

[toxicmedz]

Your xbox is 1.0 or 1.1 I believe 1.0.

You are kidding right? No version 1.0 or 1.1 has a Dual row PSU connector.
That is likely a version 1.2 or 1.3 which also means its a 256KB Tsop chip not a 1mb.....

[budbandito720]

Your board is can be a 1.2 to 1.5
Xbox scene has a version id guide to check.. the picture is to blury to tell from that..

1.6 cant be tsop only softmod or chip

Tsop points..
http://www.biline.ca/xbox_solder.htm

[Gedeon]

Thanks for the input folks. Tomorrow I'm gonna take a closer look at the board again to see which chip it has. Didn't know where or what to check, honestly. At least now I have a clue where to start

Nobody commented on my clock cap though, but I bet I should remove it asap.

[hawsey]

Yep just waggle it (the cap that is )until it comes off if you are not a "solder man"

[toxicmedz]

Clock caps on all versions except for 1.6 are a ticking timebomb and should always be removed. whether they look "OK" or not.

Also I'm positive your motherboard is a 1.2 or 1.3 (impossible to tell which one exactly because they are identical)
I'm sure about that because your unit has a Conexant video encoder chip. All version 1.0-1.3 xboxs have the Conexant chip, version 1.4 and 1.5 normally have a FOCUS chip and the version 1.6 have the Excalibur chips.

[professor_jonny]

would you be able to take a high res shot of the lcp area to see if it has had the tsop points joined?

[tim619]

@toxicmedz
No I was not kidding, but honestly did have a quick look only and obviously I was wrong it can't be a 1.0 version and dunno if you're right about the psu connector my 1.1 looks same from top, but as you said max 1.3 because of conexant.
But definetly he has a tsop and that means it's flashable. Also if that tsop would be 256k he could still flash m8+. I used m8+ and 5035 and there was no difference...

[toxicmedz]

Yes there's no major functionality difference between having to use the smaller bios, the older xecuter 2 bios or the m8 bios are perfectly acceptable options, the only real benefit you gain from being able to use the xecuter 2 5035 bios is the config live settings. He would just have a lot of issues going about doing a tsop flash if he was going by the instructions for a 1.0 or 1.1 motherboard.

I didn't mean to come off sounding rude either, so if I did I apologise.

[xman]

About your HDD, I'd change it for 2nd hand IDE hard drive myself. I my opinion, it's only worth using sata, which you will need an adapter to do by the way, is when you are using a large sata. You should be right to pick up a second hand IDE from a computer place easy enough and it will potentially give you fall let grief.

[Gedeon]

would you be able to take a high res shot of the lcp area to see if it has had the tsop points joined?

Sure. According to this guide (http://www.biline.ca/xbox_solder.htm#two), I am absolutely 100% positive these pads are untouched. Still not sure which board I have, but obviously 1.2, 1.3, 1.4 or 1.5. Well, at least now I know the TSOP chip type (which is the M29F002BT70N1 or... am I even looking at the rigt chip? ).

Personally I wouldn't touch a soldering iron with this, these pads are extremely small, however I probably have a friend around who knows someone and he can do things like that. I just gotta tell them to "connect" these pads, right? Sounds easy but man, this is really small stuff to deal with.

Anyway, if I manage to get my board "patched" do I have to boot up some special DVD from the drive or I better off loading some software to the HDD and flash the BIOS from there? If so, what would be the perfect and most recent version for this particular chip?

And just for the record, which "method" are we dealing with here? Is this called the cheapmod? I was browsing around at xbox scene, phew, there's a plethora of info on the console that's for sure.

Looking forward to hear your suggestions!

[Gedeon]

I also removed the Aerogel cap and that sucker started to leak. Not much, but the traces are there. Guess I defused the bomb, huh?

[Gedeon]

I was kinda proactive today and went a bit further. A friend of mine lent a hand in the soldering process and connected the tiny pads on the board for me (see attachment: I forgot to make pics, so it's the previous image though, but I marked the changes he made). He also checked the connection between the pads with a multimeter and everything seems to be fine so far. The console can boot up even with this mod and works as it should.

From now on I guess flashing the TSOP will be a walk in the park, it's just I have no idea how to proceed. Yet

At least I didn't have to use sealing tape

[toxicmedz]

As long as the points are all connected properly for your board all you need to do now is you need to softmod the Xbox if it isn't already then you download and burn a disc for hexen and when that boots you choose the option for modchip/tsop and pick your favorite 256kb bios from the list and if it is all setup right it will allow you to flash the tsop.

[Nextelhalo]

Your getting there. Now that you've done the TSOP soldering you'll want to flash the bios. As said above you DO NOT have a 1.0-1.1 board so a 1MB bios is out of the question, you'll need to use a 256k bios because you have a 256k TSOP chip size. Since your already softmodded (dont worry how old the softmod is) you can download a utility disc like Slayers 2.98 or Hexen and use that to flash that chip (yes those are great to have around). Normally those disc's wont boot on a retail xbox but since it's softmodded you can load them right up.

Once you've flashed your TSOP you can slap in a new hard drive. You can use the SATA laptop drive but I"ve always stuck with old reliable IDE drives. A 120-250GB should be more than enough for what you need and easy/cheap to come by. One thing to take into consideration is how the bios is setup before you flash it and add your hard drive. You do have to plan this part out depending on how big the hard drive is that you select. Those two utility discs should guide you on that part before you flash the TSOP chip but it's always good to do your reading first. I suggest using an Xecuter bios or Ind-bios for your TSOP flash. Use DVD-R discs for sure.

Your board looks pretty clean, nice to see you removed the clock cap. You could change out that fan if you wanted to however I think you only really need to do some cutting of the metal grill's on the xbox to drastically improve air flow, after that's done you can set the fan to run at a lower speed or stock speeds(20% depending on bios settings)and it will stay plenty cool. There is plenty info on the boards about cooling/fan mods. Might not be a bad idea to do some cutting of the hard drive caddy to allow some heat to be sucked off of the hard drive. All the info you'll need for the cooling stuff is wrapped up here by Whufclee......http://www.xbmc4xbox.org.uk/forum/viewt ... f=14&t=218





Good luck and happy modding sir.

Nex