Sherlock

I just wanted to put an ending to this little saga. I got adventurous and transplanted the EEprom from the 'dead' console to my current working one. At first I had an issue with a flashing red light, and the console not booting beyond the ind-bios screen (that's what I have on my chip). But, I think it was a bad solder joint as touching each of the 8 legs of the EEprom with the soldering iron seems to have fixed that. So, as I type this I am backing up all of the irreplaceable data I had on the old drive I had potentially lost, to move it onto the replacement one I have spent time setting up. Just some settings files and a custom UnleashX skin I've been making on-and-off for a few years. Other than that, I intend to 'unlock' this drive and put it into another project. I know I could leave it in the console, as well as the EEprom chip. But, I intend to put the original EEprom back once I've finished my back-up and 'unlock'. Thank you for the offering of information and helpful suggestions and guides. If I only learn one thing from this experience it will be to leave well-enough alone and not bother locking XBox HDDs in the future. Like I said; I'm just putting a more happy ending to this particular story.

Sorry, I've been busy setting up the replacement console I acquired amongst other 'real life' things in need of my time. I think the dead console is a 1.0 version; the very early revision with the smaller GPU heatsink and extra 40mm fan on it. My replacement console is almost identical; also having the GPU fan configuration. I could try a EEprom transplant now. Because, and after realising that the EEprom isn't the chip I thought (I assumed it was the TSOP), but instead the much more manual soldering iron friendly 8-pin chip next to it; I feel that I could perform the transplant successfully. However, at this point I have a working console, and I'm a little hesitant to risk changing that state of affairs should something go wrong or because of an accident. I've already had one console die on me in the past when I performed what I thought was a 'low risk' procedure. All I did was remove the clock capacitor and clean up the bad soldering job whoever installed a chip did, and the console wouldn't boot after the latter was done. And as I never could discover the reason that console just stopped working, I try to limit my 'tinkering' as much as possible now. Only doing things that I am certain I know are almost impossible to go wrong. Unfortunately removing and re-installing multi-leg chips is something that I feel is easy to be a potential for creating damage, even when being as careful as possible. As for now, the dead motherboard couldn't get any worse; in terms of it's current level of functionality (or lack of). The same applies to the 'locked' HDD. So, leaving them alone for some time, while I work on other projects (including the replacement console rebuild), with the intention of revisiting it at some point in the future; even if it is just to 'unlock' the HDD to free it up for another use, is likely what I'll do for now. Thank you for the details on how to connect to the EEprom. Unfortunately that Raspberry Pi I had my sights on was gone by the time I revisited the shop. And as much as I want to get one to play around with, I really can't justify purchasing one at a higher price than I saw for the one I saw. It's one of those cases that I already own, and regularly use other devices that can everything I could ever want to do with a Raspberry Pi, so buying one would literally be because I just want a new toy to play with. One day, maybe. I think I could use my PC's Serial port, using a couple of resistors and diodes. But, I'd still need to get the components for that option. I have options, and when I have the time and patience; I will return to this. When I made the opening post; I was kind of hoping that there was a way I could have used software to unlock the drive with brute force. However, it seems Microsoft really did 'try' to make the console as 'secure' as they could. But, I know for certain I won't be 'locking' the HDD in my current working console, as well as making sure I have the EEprom backed up in a few places should anything happen to this console.

Like I mentioned above; I can't remember why, or even when I locked it. To be absolutely honest, I don't even remember doing it at all; although I have seen the options available to me in the various programs I've run before. Although I am competent with a soldering iron, the EEprom chip has extremely thin legs and the pitch is quite fine also. So, I'm not all that confident that I would be able to successfully not only safely remove two of those chips, but also re-install one without the distinct possibility of damaging another console. I really can't justify the price of buying a hot-air machine for the little use I'd get from owning one either. Also; I've seen enough dead XBox's over the years already, I'd like to try and preserve the working ones I come across for as long as possible. I have learned of an EEprom interface for Raspberry Pi. I'll have to read on how to connect the EEprom to the Pi itself. But, I know of a shop that currently has an old Raspberry Pi 2B at an attractive price right now. Connecting the Pi to the consoles JTAG points isn't an option, as I clearly stated that the console has absolutely no signs of receiving power. So, I can't turn it on for the Pi to access the required data. I am not all that optimistic though, and I may have to consider cutting my losses; accepting that I have a 2TB desk ornament.

Last year I put together my personally ideal XBox. Decent AV cables, hard-mod, big HDD, quiet fans... all the fun stuff that increased the consoles capabilities and improves the experience. And until last week that XBox was running perfectly fine. However, the console is now completely dead. The PSU is fine, and I tried changing several of the capacitors on the motherboard, but there is simply no life at all. The console just doesn't react at all when the power button (or eject) is pressed. There's not even a 'blink-and-you'll-miss-it' kind of signal that the console is even receiving power. But, like I said the PSU is fine, that was the first thing I tried. And after several hours of replacing capacitors, trying to find the one that may be stopping the power from reaching the console... I gave up and held a respectful funeral for my short-lived friend. Close friends and family attended. Clearly I'm just trying to add some humour there. But when I did finally run out of components to replace I procured a replacement console to start the project again. That console came, and works fine. However, I cannot use the 2TB HDD I had installed in the previous console. I can't remember when or exactly why I did... but I locked the HDD to the, now dead, console. As such no matter what I connect the HDD to, because of the 'lock' the XBox imposed on the drive; I can't do anything with it. The replacement console can't unlock it, or format it. My PC sees the drive and it's capacity, but is unable to do anything with it. I've tried Windows and Linux, as I though the 'brutish' nature of the latter's terminal commands could break the 'locked' state. But, even Linux doesn't work. Replacing the drive isn't all that much, money-wise. However, it would be a shame if this perfectly functional HDD is now reduced to nothing more than an overengineered door-stop. Although not a massive capacity by modern standards; 2TB could still be useful for many things, if there is some way I can 'unlock' it. As I mentioned above the console it was 'locked' with is completely dead. I cannot find any reason why, but there isn't even the slightest of a glimmer of life at all. I don't know what could cause such a state, and it's confusing that it was working fine a few days before. And just for those who go straight for this suggestion... I already took out the clock capacitor. I've done that on every XBox I've ever had in my possession. It's usually the first thing I do upon opening them up. And just to be clear; I am careful when removing them. I don't force them; I do use a soldering iron and take them out with a delicate touch. Anyway... I have just ordered a replacement 2TB HDD. But, if there's a secret way of reenabling the use of the one I have now; I'm sure I could find a productive use for it. However, after trying a few 'suggestions' already; I am not going to hold my breath. That said; I am open to suggestions. I also want to clarify that the PC motherboards I have are unsuitable for running XboxHDM. The only PC motherboard I have with IDE can't boot from USB, and I don't have an IDE optical drive. And the other (which can boot from USB) doesn't have any IDE connections at all. If memory serves me; XboxHDM need to access the HDD via IDE, even when connecting a SATA HDD (via an IDE-to-SATA adapter). So, unless XboxHDM has changed since I last tried to run it; that particular software won't function properly on the hardware I currently have. Also, because the cost of replacing the HDD is so low, I'm hoping to avoid spending too much, if any money on rescuing this 'locked' HDD. I am just traying to be a little eco-friendly in repurposing it if possible.

Does anyone know a reliable SNTP server IP for UK timezone? I've tried a few different I found online but they don't seem to set the XBox to an accurate time. Some are whole hours out of sync, which would suggest that they are not for the UK timezone. Others are out of sync in the minutes by quite a substantial amount as well, not just a few. This should not be, as to ky knowledge each timezone is shifted in 60 minute intervals, all governed by the Royal Observatory in Greenwitch (GMT). It's not a major issue, but it is a slight irritant as UnleashX has the feature, I just can't seem to get it to work properly. Edit: Never mind. I entered "0.uk.pool.ntp.org" into the XBox's options just as an experiment and it seemed to sync properly now. I assumed I needed to use an IP address, because the default is an IP. But I noticed the "Use HTTP" option and wondered if the Dashboard would recognise the server if I input the HTTP link, rather than the specific IP address. It does, and now I am happy I never need to manually change the clock setting s again (so long as I have the XBox connected to the internet). For anyone else looking for working SNTP, I just looked for my region on "https://www.ntppool.org/". It seems that the XBox is capable of using that sites servers to sync the time correctly for whatever region you are in.

I have my console running now and I tried my original concept. I was having some issues in transfering game folders to the console, several files would fail, and the usual tricks wouldn't work. So, I decided to restructure my folder hyrachy: I now have individual folders ranging from "A" to "Z" and the "123" folder on the root of the 'F' partition. And should I ever need to expand onto the 'G' partition I'll use the same hyrachy. And the 'game' folders are in those 'A-Z' folders. This means that the folder 'depth' is the same as if using the default 'Games' folder, only I'm using 27 individual folders instead of 1. I retained the original concept for the menu though. I have the config set up to have the "123", "ABC", "DEF", etc. as a list and inside each option a second layer list for individual letters which then contain the games for that corresponding letter. I've even been making custom icons to add to the list items to make the interface nice. So far it's turning out as I wanted. It's just a lot of work having to manually edit the config file. But at least once I have it as I want I can save the file and use it in the future should I ever need to got through the process again.

It's been a while since I had a working XBox to play around with, and I'm a little forgetful of some of the things I can do to customise the various dashboards to my liking. I do remember spending a lot of time playing with values in a config file (don't remember the actual file) for UnleashX to remove unwanted and redundant menu items. This got me thinking about 'adding' menu items to the lists. I have a particular folder hierarchy I like to use for organising my various games folders for my consoles. I used an old telephone keypad layout for the base: |-"Console Name" Games\ |---123\ |---111.ROM |---222.ROM |---333.ROM |---ABC\ |---A\ |---AA1.ROM |---AA2.ROM |---AA3.ROM |---B\ |---BB1.ROM |---BB2.ROM |---BB3.ROM |---C\ |---CC1.ROM |---CC2.ROM |---CC3.ROM |---DEF\ ... and so on. I've come to like this structure, and have most of my games arranged in a similar way. It is relatively easy to navigate to find something specific, yet allows simple browsing, and it looks neat and tidy. As I mentioned above; I used to have my old consoles interface set up so it was minimalist yet still had all the important things I needed to access. As UnleashX builds it's interface from a config file; could I edit the file to restructure the Games list to reflect the folder structure I usually use? I have an example of the type of edit I'd use... Depending on the amount of games per folder I propose two options. 1: <List Text="Games" Sort="On" DelayLoad="True"> <List Text="123" Sort="On" DelayLoad="True"> <Path>E:\Games\123</Path> <Path>F:\Games\123</Path> <Path>G:\Games\123</Path> </List> <List Text="ABC" Sort="On" DelayLoad="True"> <Path>E:\Games\ABC</Path> <Path>F:\Games\ABC</Path> <Path>G:\Games\ABC</Path> </List> <List Text="DEF" Sort="On" DelayLoad="True"> <Path>E:\Games\DEF</Path> <Path>F:\Games\DEF</Path> <Path>G:\Games\DEF</Path> </List> <List Text="GHI" Sort="On" DelayLoad="True"> <Path>E:\Games\GHI</Path> <Path>F:\Games\GHI</Path> <Path>G:\Games\GHI</Path> </List> <List Text="JKL" Sort="On" DelayLoad="True"> <Path>E:\Games\JKL</Path> <Path>F:\Games\JKL</Path> <Path>G:\Games\JKL</Path> </List> <List Text="MNO" Sort="On" DelayLoad="True"> <Path>E:\Games\MNO</Path> <Path>F:\Games\MNO</Path> <Path>G:\Games\MNO</Path> </List> <List Text="PQRS" Sort="On" DelayLoad="True"> <Path>E:\Games\PQRS</Path> <Path>F:\Games\PQRS</Path> <Path>G:\Games\PQRS</Path> </List> <List Text="TUV" Sort="On" DelayLoad="True"> <Path>E:\Games\TUV</Path> <Path>F:\Games\TUV</Path> <Path>G:\Games\TUV</Path> </List> <List Text="WXYZ" Sort="On" DelayLoad="True"> <Path>E:\Games\WXYZ</Path> <Path>F:\Games\WXYZ</Path> <Path>G:\Games\WXYZ</Path> </List> </List> 2: <List Text="Games" Sort="On" DelayLoad="True"> <List Text="ABC" Sort="On" DelayLoad="True"> <List Text="A" Sort="On" DelayLoad="True"> <Path>E:\Games\A</Path> <Path>F:\Games\A</Path> <Path>G:\Games\A</Path> </List> </List> <List Text="ABC" Sort="On" DelayLoad="True"> <List Text="B" Sort="On" DelayLoad="True"> <Path>E:\Games\B</Path> <Path>F:\Games\B</Path> <Path>G:\Games\B</Path> </List> </List> <List Text="ABC" Sort="On" DelayLoad="True"> <List Text="C" Sort="On" DelayLoad="True"> <Path>E:\Games\C</Path> <Path>F:\Games\C</Path> <Path>G:\Games\C</Path> </List> </List> <List Text="DEF" Sort="On" DelayLoad="True"> <List Text="D" Sort="On" DelayLoad="True"> <Path>E:\Games\D</Path> <Path>F:\Games\D</Path> <Path>G:\Games\D</Path> </List> </List> <List Text="DEF" Sort="On" DelayLoad="True"> <List Text="E" Sort="On" DelayLoad="True"> <Path>E:\Games\E</Path> (... and so on) I'd have the games stored on the XBox's hard drive in the folder hierarchy I usually use. Unfortunately, I no longer have my old XBox, and the one I currently have isn't modded... yet. I'm waiting for the chip I ordered to come. But, as soon as that arrives I already have all the rest of the parts needed (including the drive) to install a 2TB of storage. So, until I get the chip, I can't try this out myself. Once the console is modded I will be spending many hours fiddling with things to see what I can do. I was just looking for some feedback on weather my above idea will work, or if UnleashX has any limitations that won't allow me to do that. Also, is there a simpler method or different lines of code I could use? To be honest, I'm just getting a little antsy as the date of delivery for the chip gets closer. As such I'm having ideas and thoughts about different things I want to try on my console. But, until the chip arrives I'm limited to the planning phase only. Like I said, as soon as the chip arrives and I install it, I'll be like a kid in a toy shop, playing with everything I can (usually until it breaks). Any thoughts on my above idea would be received with appreciation. SH

I had to take a few days doing something else, because I was getting increasingly more frustrated while trying to understand this problem. I happened across a random post on reddit. In this post, although the poster admits that he caused the fault, they describe the exact same behaviour as my console. They did this by flashing the wrong BIOS to the TSOP. This actually brings back a little hope to me, in that I could rescue this console with a new chip. But, they went on to ask about recovering the BIOS using a mod-chip. I have read a few posts of people theorising about this, and even mention of certain chips that allow TSOP writing as a feature. However, although some people claim that you can flash a mod-chip with a specific BIOS, and do a timed trick with grounding wires, I can't find any solid evidence of anyone actually re-flashing the TSOP with a mod-chip. Not even any clear results using the chips that are supposed to allow this to happen. Has anyone managed to succeed in flashing their TSOP with a mod-chip? And would it be possible to re-flash an Aladin TX PLus2 to be able to do this. Also, is it possible to insert the SST flash from the old chip into the new chip I have coming? The incoming chip is the aforementioned Aladdin TX PLUS2. The pictures on eBay show it with a SST 49LF020A installed. Will the chip work if I install the SST 49LF020 from the damaged chip I have here? Or does the "A" at the end of the new chips model actually make a difference? I should also mention, I have actually purchased another console from eBay, which is sold as faulty. It was kisted as it's disc drive is dead, and also, this is a quote from the seller; "The unit makes a lout whirring noise." As this is also supposedly a 1.0 console, I was hoping I could use the motherboard from it and the working disc drive from this console to make a fully working machine. The listing for the second console also states "It may have other faults.", but fails to elaborate. Chances are it's just the disc drive and worn out fans. The seller states that the console has been opened before as well, but without explaining why. I'm not sure what I'm going to be getting myself into with this second console, but it was a very low price, and at the very least I can use it for parts. However, I am curious about the possibility of recovering the BIOS of the console I have here, if at all possible. Supposedly there's a mod-chip called XBlast with the ability to flash the consoles TSOP. But, I can't seem to find any for purchase. People claim to have them installed in consoles, but I can't find anywhere trusted to get one from. Or even if they are still being made. I'm a little more optimistic about the console being able to boot with a working chip installed, as that's how the person on reddit fixed his problem. But, I won't know until the new chip arrives. Ideally I'd like to try and get my hands on the so called XBlast, and try recovering the BIOS, if that is actually what is causing the console to fail to boot.

@SS_Dave I agree; sending it half way around the world would be somewhat false economy. The trace you pointed out is fine, the distortion in the picture much have been some more rosin, which I cleaned off after I took the picture. I did think I had found something: Near where the clock capacitor was there are several little blue components, I'm not sure exactly what they are as they aren't marked or have labels on them. There are two right nest to each other just to the side of the three large capacitors at the front of the board. I noticed one of them was at a skew, and That seemed visually 'out-of-place' to me as everything else on the board seems to be laid out in a grid. I noticed it because I saw there was still some residue from the clock capacitor around there, and I spotted it as I was cleaning the area. Anyway, it had moved of of it's pad, although I'm not sure how. It was a pain to sit it back down, as the surface of the pad was corroded, as are the solder points of the component. But, I think I managed to get it soldered down again, after using a diamond file to take off some of the corrosion. However, weather this component was causing any problems at all, I don't know because the console still hasn't changed it's behaviour. I'm unsure if it's relevant, but there are a lot of components with tarnished solder joints in that area, probably from the fluid the clock capacitor let out, but I don't think it's casing any problems, as the console did originally boot after I removed the capacitor. I decided to remove the capacitors legs with my iron (I originally just broke it off, as it was raised off the board enough for me to do so without force), this is also when I tried cleaning up the soldering of the original chip and it was this point that the console stopped working.

@SS_Dave The legs of the TSOP are fine. I think what you can see is just some shine from when I tried pressing a pin against those pins for the 3-wire trick. I also tried it via the soldering method as well, just to be sure. As for the other spots; I think they're just shadows. The patch by the LCP was just some rosin left over from the soldering. I noticed that myself when I took the picture and cleaned it off. The patch on the left, I'm not sure about. I'm just about to take the console apart again to investigate. It's likely just a shadow, as I mentioned, as I didn't have any reason to have any tools that could cause damage near that area. As for my location I live in the West Midlands, UK. Staffordshire, to be as accurate as I care to be on an open forum. I am presuming you wanted that info for some reason. Any more specific than the county I live in, I'd prefer to PM. I can confirm that they are just shadows, there marks in those areas. It must have been dust or something, because it's clean now. Also, I forgot to mention, the console doesn't behave any better with the drives attached. And as a further point, it still has the stock 8GB drive, and it is still 'locked' to my knowledge.

I have tried a few things today... with no change in circumstances. First, because it was the easiest, I tried the 3-wire trick, but that didn't change anything at all. The console still does the triple restart and then rests on the alternating green and red lights. I also tried to see if I could solder wires to the chip, and re-install it that way. However, because of the original solder points being pretty much destroyed at this point, I had to spend a lot of time to expose traces and very carefully connect wires. This was extremely time consuming, as I mentioned I don't have a precision tip for my iron. Again, nothing changed at all. But something occurred to me, while I was cleaning up after today's failed experiments: I don't think it is a bad flash. When the console was working it had the chip set up to only activate when the power button was pressed for longer. Doing this showed the EvoX logo in the corner of the screen while booting. When you pressed the power button quickly, it booted with the chip disabled, as in the EvoX logo wasn't on the screen while booting. This makes me think that the original on-board BIOS was untouched. Also, I can't see any bridged points on the motherboard to allow the BIOS to be rewritten. That is unless they were removed afterwards, but I can't see any evidence of that. I've removed all of the wires and cleaned up the soldering points. I have even tried re-flowing some points that I think I may have accidentally touched with my iron. Basically, other than the clock capacitor being missing, at this point the board's state is like it was never modded to begin with. The clock capacitors pads are damaged, but only the pads, and as far as I can see those tracks terminate there. So, the damage to the pads isn't interrupting any other components. At this point I am a little un-hopeful in that the new chip I have coming is going to change anything. I've uploaded some photos of the board; full images of the top, bottom and a close up of the LPC area. I don't have any decent sources of indirect, so I had trouble getting the exposure to show any detail without having bright spots that yo wouldn't see properly. My camera is pretty good for macro, but the flash is too bright for such a shiny surface of this kind. I have been searching for a 1.0 motherboard for sale, because I'm doubting the possibility of this one working now. But, the only one I have found is from an American seller. And I'm sure the shipping would make the transaction rather pricey. In other words, if anyone knows of someone willing to sell me a 1.0 motherboard, and they are in the UK, or a relatively low cost shipping distance away, I'd be extremely appreciative. If I can't get this one working I can always try and salvage the working parts for future repairs. Such as using the RAM for upgrading another board. I'm going to reassemble the console for now, as until the replacement chip arrives there really is nothing I can do to try and get it running. Even when that chip does arrive, I'm starting to doubt it's ability to get the console to actually boot up. I think it's something more than just a BIOS problem. But, I can't figure it out. As a last ditch effort, if the new chip doesn't help; I am considering replacing all of the capacitors. It's a relatively low cost procedure, and the only thing I can think of that I can do myself to try and fix this console.

Very close, although the BIOS chip on mine is removable. And mine is a little toasted and missing a few pads around the LPC connection now. The chip was soldered directly to the motherboard that way, and I had some trouble removing it. At least the damage is to the chips board, and I managed to preserve the motherboard. I could try soldering wires to the traces or even the "Lattice" chip legs, but the tip on my iron is not fine enough for that kind of work.

It may not work for me then, as I am getting alternating red and green. Could I possible make anything worse by trying it?

You beat me to my next idea: I was thinking that the reason this 1.0 console had a chip in the first place could possibly be the result of someone before me messing up when trying to flash the BIOS. As from what I know 1.0 consoles are the fan favourite, because they have the largest space for flashing. Also, I've gone over the board with a magnifying glass looking for anything that I may have damaged, and other than a little bit of extra solder on a few points, I can't see anything. My theory in that is why this console had a chip in it is further supported by the manner in which the chip was installed. It was clearly a rushed job, and no care or consideration was taken during the installation. I think someone who didn't fully know what they were doing broke the console with a bad BIOS flash, then bought a cheap chip and hastily threw it in the console as quick as they could. To be frank about it, there are a few little indications that this console, although heavily used, and probably loved, wasn't treated with respect when it comes to the modifications. The term 'quick and dirty' comes to mind. That isn't to say it's in any kind of bad condition, just that it feels like the mods were done by people who didn't really understand what it was they were doing, and all they cared about was the result. I have a bit of a wait until the new chip arrives, and I intend to install it the 'proper' way with the header. Although that does mean clearing the solder that has flowed into the LPC through-holes. I may have to pull the legs of the male header out of the plastic frame and solder each one individually. As I don't have a solder sucker. I could try braid, but I don't have any luck with that stuff, especially as I'm out of flux as well. I have a few weeks to gather supplies for the job. In the meantime, I may try the 3-wire trick. I did read about it earlier today when I was trying to research this problem originally. But, it's very late here, I'll take a look tomorrow. Thank you for the suggestions, and also adding weight to my suspicion of the bad flash theory. I literally had that idea as I got the email telling me someone had added to this post.

I can't do anything with the console at all right now. The console simply will not boot. The exact process is this: Press power button (or eject). LED comes on (Green) and fans spin up. After a second console turns itself off. Another second later the console turns back on again, on it's own. After another second the console turns off again. And finally after yet another second the console turns back on, but the LEDs are now alternating between red and green. And this is how the console stays until it's turned off manually. During that entire time there is absolutely no picture or sound going to the TV. Also worth mentioning is that the disc drive isn't active during this time either. The console is completely unresponsive. So, although I appreciate your suggestion of 'soft-modding', but if I can't get the console to boot, that's completely out of the question. I'm not a newcomer to the modding scene, I've been tinkering with my consoles since the mid 90's. And I know my way round a soldering iron too. I assumed as much about the L2 wire, as I did an activity LED mod to an old console some time ago. But, just to be sure I put it back, as I didn't know if the chip was listening for something on that line. I also already tried linking the BT to ground, as I thought forcing the chip to be 'always-on' could maybe bypass anything the stock BIOS was trying to do. The reason I ordered a new chip is because I have burned off most of the quick-solder pads of this one, and I don't have a precision tip for my iron to solder wires to traces or chip legs. That's something on my shopping list, as I don't know what happened to my old one. I'm more concerned that the console is completely unresponsive, and goes through that deliberate process. It must mean something is happening, or not happening as it should or in the right order. I'll try and see about taking some pictures of the motherboard, but I need to find my good camera first.

I purchased a second hand XBox from eBay. The console came with an Aladdin Advance mod-chip already installed. This chip looks different to other "Aladdin" chips in that it doesn't have the 12-pin female header. Where that socket is on other chips of this kind there is a unpolluted area labelled "FLASH". I don't think this console was ever used for anything else other than playing copied games, as it was running on the stock Dashboard, and still had the 8GB HDD installed. Even when the EvoX mode was initialised by holding the power button to turn on the chip, the console still booted to the stock Dashboard. To cut a long story short, I opened the console up to remove the clock capacitor, and give the console a general clean, and I accidental knocked off the wire going from L2 to the IDE socket, at the socket side. To be honest, the soldering was extremely bad, and looked like it had been done in a rush by someone who had very little idea of what they were doing. I promptly repaired the loosens wire, and as the soldering attaching the chip to the motherboard was a very bad job also, I decided to add some solder to the points to reinforce them a little. I personally don't like the 'quick-solder' pads much, but that's how this chip had been installed. And as I mentioned there is no header socket at all. However, on reassembling the console, it won't boot. Neither into EvoX mode or 'stock'. The way this chip was set up was to hold the power button to activate it. But that isn't working either. All that happens is the console powers on, then off, on again, and off a second time and when it powers on for the third time (all of this is automatically on it's own) the console doesn't display anything on screen (although I do hear a normal 'click' of the speakers when the power comes on) and the consoles LEDs are alternating red and green. Which, from what I read is a bad BIOS read. I don't understand why though, as I haven't done anything to the BIOS. I did load up Hexen 2018, and went into the flashing options, but I didn't actually do a flash, because I didn't know what the chip was at the time, I thought it best to see what I was going to flash to first. This also installed the EvolutonX Dashboard automatically, which did work okay at first. I really don't know what has happened, but I have now done some damage to the chip itself in trying to find some way of getting the console to boot. There is a surface mounted capacitor right next to the LPC labelled "C7D2", which I must have accidentally touched with the tip of my iron, as there is a little 'spike' of fresh solder on it. Is it plausible that I have damaged this capacitor, and that is what's causing the console to fail to boot? If so, can I bypass this capacitor, or replace it? As I said, with all of the soldering and desolating I have ruined most of the 'quick-solder' pads on the chip now. As such I have ordered an Aladdin XT PLUS2 from eBay, but it's coming from China, so it's not going to be here for a few weeks. But as the console doesn't boot at all, with or without the chip installed, I am wondering if a new chip would actually make a difference. Because I haven't mentioned it above; it's a 1.0 XBox. I have even tried completely removing the chip altogether, which is how the console is right now. Yet, it still refuses to do anything other than what I described above. Any advice would be greatly appreciated. I really don't like the idea that I've killed the console. I could obtain another, sure, but I would like to try and repair this one if I can. I dislike giving up on things if there is still a chance I can fix it.