Messiah-X Modchip

[nidge]

Yesterday I received 5 Xboxes that I won on ebay
They all work, just need a clean up.
One reported the Bios as Messiah-X, a bit of Googling revealed it was an early Modchip, but not a lot more information? After taking it apart I could not see a Modchip, so I thought it maybe TSOPed. After I took out the motherboard I found the Modchip is installed on the underside.



The board is a V1.0 and everything works just fine
Anyone know anymore about this Modchip?

[professor_jonny]

that is intresting as it has no flash rom.

it must onl the fly patch the tsop or have an onboard flash inside the logic chip.

it is an fpga based mod chip I believe not a clpd from the numbers on the front does it have any other chips mounted on the other side of the pcb ? as they usually are ram based not rom based and loose their programming at power down.

but it looks like that one is one is non-volatile looking at chip docs it would be interesting to find out how it works as it is a bit diff from the norm.

no flash tool will work with that mod chip

as it's on a version 1.0 it possibly boots other banks in the tsop info is vague if so you could boot it up and put the power wire on the chip and flash the tsop but you would need to check the tsop write enable points?

I would say boot from chip remove power wire from chip and flash the tsop and remove the chip altogether. it will possibly only work on that motherboard or version of motherboard.


edit: it on the fly patches the bios contained on the tsop it will possibly only work on the same version of xbox, you cant update it, you would need to flash tsop after disabling chip and remove chip after flash.

[nidge]

that is intresting as it has no flash rom.

it must onl the fly patch the tsop or have an onboard flash inside the logic chip.

it is an fpga based mod chip I believe not a clpd from the numbers on the front does it have any other chips mounted on the other side of the pcb ? as they usually are ram based not rom based and loose their programming at power down.

I don't think it has other chips on the other side of the pcb, it seem pretty flush to the mobo. I'm very wary of moving it too much in case I pull the wires off

[professor_jonny]

There is install diagrams on xbox scene I just saw as below.

http://www.xbox-scene.com/modchips/mx_diagrams.html

This chip defiantly on the fly patches the retail bios and the code is programmed into the logic via jtag there is only 6000 logic gates in the chip so it can't fit a whole bios image in its logic as it would need in excess of 2,048,000 logic gates just to store a 256k bios image.

It would rely on a specific bios I would think but if it was fancy it could patch multiple retail bioses by reading the bios image as it loads.

It would lack many features of the new bioses and would be best to update the tsop and remove it as I doubt it would have lba48, igr etc...

cool idea very innovative and I believe it is the only one like this out of all the mod chips around but it was doomed to failure as it ultimately was not user updatable.

[nidge]

Getting a bit too techinical for me there Prof

[nidge]

I've found these links...


http://www.xbox-scene.com/modchips/mx_pictures.html

http://www.elotrolado.net/hilo_respuest ... ios_68845#

http://web.archive.org/web/200209262228 ... ssiah.com/

http://forums.xbox-scene.com/index.php? ... igger-hdd/

That last one talks about flashing : shock:

[professor_jonny]

you can in no way flash the chip like every other xbox modchip.
The chip modifies the stock bios as the console boots it does not boot an alternative bios that is hacked like all other modchips.

If you wish to change boot paths or install a larger hdd you have two options really.

1. Flash the tsop.
2. Softmod the console or use phoenix bios loader.

I would suggest you flash the tsop.

To do this you need to link the tsop write enable points pop a copy of hexen or slayers and flash the tsop then you never need the chip again.

There are plenty of tutorials about.

cheers Jono

[nidge]

Some of those links above are from 2002, I guess people didn't know as much about the Xbox as we do now
I can do the TSOP flash, done quite a few in my time
The Messiah-X just intrigued me, I hadn't seen one before?

[professor_jonny]

back when this chip was released there was only 29 wire modchips around and this was a break through design.

I don't think tsop flashing was common or even available then.

[nidge]

Unsoldered the Messiah-X modchip today
The mobo is now TSOPed with the X2 bios

[hawsey]

Nice one .
Somebody on here will want that spider for their collection of chips I am sure

My main box has a chip in it which has become unreliable and I would like to do what you have done , but have never Tsoped or flashed a bios to Xbox chip before , if I make another thread when I dig out my solder iron , would you help me out on there ?



Sent by SlimKat FirePhone

[nidge]

My main box has a chip in it which has become unreliable and I would like to do what you have done , but have never Tsoped or flashed a bios to Xbox chip before , if I make another thread when I dig out my solder iron , would you help me out on there ?



Sent by SlimKat FirePhone

Of course, no problem