samspin

For full compatibility you are best using the V1.0 board if you can. In my experience the proprietary Xcalibur video encoder on the later V1.6 boards can cause issues with some games in 480p and higher. Microsoft's own recommendation at the time was to use lower resolutions for such games, and this required using the appropriate cable. As most people use HDTV sets these days (which may not even include sockets for lower-resolution inputs) this seems a bit naff. Another incompability I randomly discovered with a V1.6 board is Harry Potter & The Goblet of Fire. Attempting to boot it gave me a black screen no matter what BIOS I used, which are severely limited in choice for the V1.6. There could well be other randomly incompatible games. In the end I got so sick of these random ailments I went with an older board. I therefore recommend you to make the most of your situation and move your modchip to the V1.0 board if you can. With regards to the SATA vs IDE HDD: so long as you are using a decent IDE to SATA adapter, you shouldn't run into any problems. I have had a terrible experience with cheap adapters in the past but Startech IDE2SAT ones have always worked perfect for me. They even include jumper selection for Master, Save and Cable Select in case you do need to manually set it to Master (cheap ones without any jumper tend to default to Cable Select, which doesn't work with all cables). Sometimes you will find that the HDD works, but the DVD drive won't, due to issues with Master vs Slave setting. I've never had this issue with the Startech IDE2SAT adapter. If yours is working with the swapped DVD drive at this point though, you should have nothing to worry about! If you wish to move your V1.0 board into the V1.6 case that you say is in better shape, that's perfectly possible, albiet a screwhole is missing on the bottom, although it doesn't make much difference here. You may need to swap over the controller ports as the wiring on the V1.6 versions tend to be much shorter, although as the V1.0 has a removeable daughterboard for these ports to plug into they might just reach anyway. Don't forget to swap the PSU as the V1.0 has a PSU with a single row of pins for the connector, the V1.6 uses an ATX-style double-row connector. BUT: do NOT put the V1.6 board in the older V1.0 case! One of the screwholes will touch the bottom of the V1.6 board where there is no through-hole and will short one of the regulators! That is, unless you file off the extra screwhole and place tape over where it used to be for good measure. In short: I highly recommend you use the V1.0 board to get the best experience!

Correction: you can't yet write to disks with this beta release, but you can read from them. Turns out I was a little over-excited... Anyway, please help this guy with testing!

Just passing this information on: I've just got word that FatXplorer 3.0 beta 1 has just been released for testing! https://fatxplorer.eaton-works.com/3-0-beta/ This contains the long-awaited support of OGXbox disks! This means no more being restricted to FTP transfer speeds to fill your disks- you can drag and drop using the ordinary Windows interface. Some features are not yet supported such as: formatting. This means you would still need to format your disk first via your XBox using XBPartitioner, then connect it to your laptop/PC. I have noted that it does appear to support opening raw backup images, although NOT compressed ones (notably the XBMCOrigins torrent, as that comes in a custom .imgc compressed format due to being backed up by HDDRawCopyTool.). Also note that the final version will be pay-for software, although in my opinion well worth it. I've been using the 2.5 version for years for managing my 360 disks and love it.

In my experience with this issue: some games have the executable programmed with capability for both PAL and NTSC. However the disc they are released on only includes the neccessary assets for the region it is intended for in order to save space. For example Enter The Matrix has several .vidpal files missing in the NTSC release, causing it to display a "Disc may be dirty or damaged" error on trying to play when the console region is set to PAL mode. This happens because the executable checks the region of the console then looks for the corresponding video intro files for that region, can't find them and doesn't know what to do. The same can happen vice versa. The only "solution" is to find a copy with the missing files or (the dirty way) to make copies of all the video file assets with the filenames renamed to .vid (in the case of Enter The Matrix). This does mean you'll end up using more hard disk space.

Try this one. Home.xml

As a very lucky owner of a 1.4ghz board, I'll share some of my experiences. It is very handy for things like homebrew, XBMC and indeed some games to run with more graphical stability in heavy combat situations. Halo: Combat Evolved running on a 1.4ghz board can act as a more stable host for LAN connected consoles to reduce lag. Unfortunately there are a number of games that are programmed to be timed based on the CPU itself since the programmers never tested with anything other than the stock CPU. In other words, scenes, clocks and walking speed. Some cutscenes even get muddled up altogether. It's a bit like a PowerPoint presentation expecting things to start and finish at fixed times, some bits of scenes starting too fast for another part to finish properly, and getting totally confused causing some parts to get missed out completely. (Ironically the very same 1.4ghz CPU being used in a Windows machine with older DOS games has exactly the same problem in my experience!) Notable games tend to be of these series: Halo 2, Wallace & Gromit, Shrek, Star Wars, GTA (pretty much all of them), Indiana Jones... and any game made by Ubisoft or Rockstar. Some, but not all, of these games can be patched to expect the 1.4ghz timing. Most of the Star Wars games can, so can most Ubisoft games, as well as Halo 2. Sadly Shrek, GTA (or any other Rockstar game) and Indiana Jones still has your character running around far too fast to do anything. Star Wars: Obiwan with patching will allow your character to have normal speed, but the enemies will still run around too fast! Also, even if you manage to get your character to move at a playable speed, some games with missions with a time limit will effectively have shorter time limits as the clock will count down too fast! There may be more but I haven't tested out too far when it comes to game compatibility. I just patched every single XBE and hope for the best- it does seem to fix most issues, except the ones I've listed above that I know about. If a game doesn't work properly when I happen to feel like playing it, I make a note and move on. The best compromise is to have two Xboxes. One can have just the 128MB RAM upgrade, and the second can have both the 128MB RAM upgrade and CPU upgrade. This the option I have gone with, and couldn't be happier with it!

I've had a couple of enquiries lately with regards to my stack of PCBs, and if I have any built up to give out. I am going to be totally honest: this time of year causes my brain to go very, very sluggish with winter hatred and I haven't touched them for awhile. I should be able to pick up again in the new year but if it's urgent I would suggest trying to make some yourself, you'll probably get it done quicker than I can. I'm very sorry about this, I don't want people hanging on false hope at the moment.

Slightly non-related but I do remember that the Muppet-X chip used to have a website at the domain "muppetchip.com" very briefly. (see http://web.archive.org/web/20050205015147/http://www.muppetchip.com/ from 2005 advertising a PS2 version, followed by an Xbox version here a couple of months later: http://web.archive.org/web/20050420041329/http://www.muppetchip.com/ ) A WHOIS lookup reveals that that domain is now owned by Disney, presumably because there is a Muppet called Chip from The Muppets. I reckon Disney complained and the modchip manufacturers handed the domain over. That might explain why these particular modchips don't turn up very often! It doesn't help that entering the site shows a Muppet character as the logo!

That's the part that got me confused whether it was a 1MB or 256k chip... again

Just thought I'd mention this from what I've read so far: it sounds like whoever modded this Xbox might have cut a trace leading to the Xyclops chip, containing the original Xbox BIOS. Can you check the traces near this onboard IC? If this is the case, it is impossible to boot from the original onboard BIOS. You must use a modchip to use the console at all, or repair the trace. If the console cannot find a BIOS to boot from, it always tries three times then FRAGs. I DO have a copy of the original MuppetX BIOS, I dumped it before reprogramming it manually when I first got it. I can't attach it as it exceeds this forum's file size limit, so I'll post a link for anyone who wants it. https://gargoyle.acns.pns.edu/xbox/MUPPETXBIOS.BIN I also have a link to another forum (in foreign language) where someone described how to make a CD with the correct filename for overwriting the BIOS via the Xbox itself (with the modchip in) https://gueux-forum.net/index.php?/topic/193810-resoluflasher-sa-muppet-x/ I hope this helps! EDIT: I thought I'd mention, the MuppetX BIOS is simply a Cromwell-like loader used for reflashing whatever other BIOS you want to put on the modchip. It cannot by itself boot any Xbox programs. It's use was simply to avoid selling chips containing modified Microsoft copyrighted code, to leave the end user to find this for themselves.

That helps a lot! So... the mystery has been solved. The OP's chip is a Xenochip Lite, a clone of the Aladdin XT without the pinheaders! It also looks like someone else had the same problem a couple of years ago: https://assemblergames.com/threads/what-modchip-is-this-and-how-to-remove-write-protection.65562/ In that thread, the OP never did manage to flash from the Xbox, they had to resort to an external programmer as I probably would have done. So you are very lucky that XBlast now exists! Apparently the reason yours is white is because a select few were made as Christmas specials in 2004- read through the AssemblerGames thread I linked to and KaosEngineer's post confirms this.

Excellent! To remove the EVO-X logo you've now got there, you'd first need to open the BIOS file with EVTool and untick "EvoX Logo" then save and upload the modified BIOS file and flash again. Make sure you leave "Ignore hard drive partition table" UNTICKED and leave it as "Partition 6 takes rest of drive"! It does not matter that you'll have two partitions extra when using a 2TB, it will still work just fine. Just to be sure you're onto a winner, drop in a 2TB HDD if you have one and check all the partitions work. Here's how I end up having to do it: Use XBPartitioner 1.3. To get the F&G partitions to equal size, scroll down to one of them and press B. Then press start to create the extra partitions and table. Sometimes, despite setting up the partition table, the G partition will show as 0 size, and the F partition will have a wrong size. To correct this: go back into UnleashX and enter the administration menu to format the partitions (you'll need to use the password "Xbox" without quotes). It will warn about formatting partitions larger than it can handle, just choose yes anyway. When you've done both F and G, go back into XBPartitioner and you will see that the last two partitions are marked ERR. Press the white button on your controller until "format selected partition" appears. Highlight and format the last two partitions again. This ensures that the sector size is correct and will avoid data corruption. I know it's strange having to format effectively three times but it does work. UnleashX will show a slightly higher size for both partitions but as long as both are equal before uploading anything, and the sector size is correct, it should be fine.

Upload "XBlast OS.XBE" from the zip to anywhere on your Xbox HDD via FTP, along with the chosen BIOS file. Then you can use "File Manager" from within UnleashX (in this case, HEXEN uses UnleashX as it's main menu) to browse to the XBE and run it.

https://bitbucket.org/psyko_chewbacca/lpcmod_os/downloads/XBlast_OS_v0.56.zip

Ah, good point! I've just checked and mine indeed has 1MB rather than 256KB of flash. Good spot! From that image above, HEXEN has loaded the EvoX Dashboard program, since that includes inbuilt support for flashing BIOSes. Because it does not support *every* flash chip, there is one of two possible problems: 1: the flash chip is not supported, thus it is coming up with the manufacturer's ID as FF and device ID 00 . 2: It is possible your mod PCB is wired in such a way to avoid the flash being writable. As documentation is lacking for this PCB you'd need to take the flash chip itself out (labeled 49LF020A) and reprogram it externally if this is the case. That's why I suggest running XblastOS to try flashing with that first, since it supports more chips than EvoX-Dashboard.

From the colour of the PCB I would guess it's a Muppet-X, I have one of these: https://www.xbox-hq.com/html/article1692.html . Yours appears to be missing a switch and socket however, so it might be a clone. Firstly I'd try flashing with XBlastOS, as that supports the widest range of chips. Just upload the BIOS file you want along with the XBE, open the XBE on your Xbox and browse to select the BIOS to attempt a flash. If not, you'd probably have better luck carefully removing the 49LF020A chip from the PCB with a needle and plugging it into an external flash programmer to do it from PC. As your Xbox is a 1.6 your options are limited, so M8+ is probably best, make sure it is the 1.6 variety with LBA48 support. I always remove the logo personally- you can do this using EVTool. Just open your chosen BIOS file and untick "Evox Logo" and save.

These proof of concept videos are quite impressive, I have heard that 480i timings are difficult though. I imagine this mod would be very difficult to get full compatibility, to do so requires almost re-inventing the wheel. From my understanding the Xbox GPU normally feeds it's digital output to a video encoder. https://xboxdevwiki.net/Video_Encoder The video encoder does several jobs including scaling, filtering, and overscan compensation. Different Xbox revisions have different video encoders, in fact if you attempt to use an older BIOS on an Xbox with a newer video encoder, it will refuse to boot (I know from experience). The video encoder has no digital output at all. Therefore the functions it carries out would have to be re-implemented, with signals from the board carefully monitored to check for requests to carry out such functions and emulate them. I know that one of them is Macrovision enforcement if you use the original DVD playback kit from the original MS dashboard. You'd have to trick the Xbox into believing the feature is enabled somehow. I could be very wrong but that's the impression I've got. Kudos to anyone attempting such a thing! If you do manage to pull it off it would be an awesome engineering feat! In the meantime I think having an analog to digital conversion soldered as close as possible to the component output is a good compromise, provided that the mainboard is in good enough condition. The filtering capacitors on the mainboard can make a difference here, it may be worth replacing them to get a cleaner output.

It is quite likely at least part of the circuitry of your chip is burnt out. I would buy some more aladdin XT chips if I were you, then plug one into the LPC pins and test for continuity with each pin before turning it on again (I've broken three in my lifetime through incorrect installation). If possible could you show some photos of the LPC area on the top and bottom please? Sam

Temporarily using a modchip is indeed on the right lines! The retail BIOS requires the HDD to be locked, but it does not have to be the factory HDD it came with. The issue is getting it to be locked to the unique EEPROM of your Xbox. Install a mod chip and blank HDD, boot a HEXEN DVD and install a softmod and follow the prompts to lock the HDD. Then remove the modchip, solder the TSOP points to allow flashing and go from there. Then use the HEXEN DVD to clean up the HDD to remove the softmod. Also unlock the HDD if you wish, since it can then be interchangeable between flashed Xboxes. Or, if you do not have a modchip, you will need some form of way to get the EEPROM data from the Xbox and set up a fresh HDD with the softmod files from a PC. https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/Xbox-EEPROM-Reader-Writer-Repair-Faulty-Console-or-HDD/140521532676?hash=item20b7bc6d04:g:2AoAAOSwjvJZVPE9 Never tried this adapter myself but this should allow you to get your EEPROM data. Then you can use XboxHDM: https://www.reddit.com/r/originalxbox/wiki/xboxhdm to install the softmod files and lock your HDD, then place it your Xbox. The softmod should then allow you to boot a HEXEN DVD.These days USB-ATA bridge adapters are very hit and miss so to do this reliably you would probably need an older PC with IDE connectors. As for modern PCs I have only been able to find one USB-ATA bridge that works purely by trial and error (copying files is fine, it's the disk lock commands that are finicky). Good luck! Personally, I think the temporary modchip solution is the easiest!

I have now got bare PCBs too but I haven't got them assembled yet. A couple of SMD components I have yet to obtain and I've had a lot to do IRL this last month. Sorry for the delay. Sam

What Xbox DVD drive do you have? Some really do not handle DVD-RW well and you may need to try a different kind of disc to burn to: a DVD-R or a standard CD-R. It can be hit and miss, especially with Thomson and Philips DVD drives. If you have a Hitachi DVD drive, you're best with DVD-R, since they tend not to read CD-R without internal modifications. Probably slightly off topic but it's worth noting here that although winrar cannot open standard xbox disc images, some programs can, as they are usually technically not in a strict ISO format. This includes Hexen. Notably MagicISO and PowerISO can be used to open and extract *most* Xbox images. Note that both of these tend to require payment after awhile. In my experience they don't always handle "Redump" Xbox images well, since these full dumps contain two partitions- a standard DVD partition for if an Xbox disc is placed in an ordinary DVD player with a short video to tell the poor victim that they need to put it in a real Xbox if they want to play the game. The second (hidden) partition contains the game data. XDVDMulleter can successfully extract from these and pretty much any OG Xbox disc image I've thrown at it. Just thought I'd mention this in case the OP wants to extract some Xbox images to play straight from the HDD at some stage.

The PCBs were due to arrive today but Fedex has experienced a delay for some unexplained reason, so it probably won't be till Monday that I can even start getting anything assembled Glad to see you need the the same kind of PCB I'm attempting to make as I hate throwing away completely working surplus materials! Could you please PM me with specifics such as your location?

N64 Freak released over on DirtyPCBs.com designs for ATX converters. From there you can order production of a minimum batch of 10 bare boards. There are some pitfalls though: you do need to know in advance what version Xbox you intend to use, as there are two designs. One for V1.0 to V1.1 Xboxes and another for V1.2 to V1.4 Xboxes. Reason being, the first two revisions of the Xbox motherboard uses a single row socket, the following three use an actual ATX style connector, albeit internally wired and voltaged differently. Also you do have to populate them with the required SMD components, socket and wiring yourself. Currently: I am in the process of waiting for a batch of V1.0-1.1 adapter boards to arrive and then fit the required components, and this will be the first time I'm trying this. I only intend to use two of them at most if successful, so I've only ordered two ATX sockets to go with them so far. In theory I could offer to create some more using the spare boards if you need an adapter for a V1.0 or V1.1 Xbox motherboard. If you need an adapter for a V1.2 Xbox or above, I'm afraid I'm not able to be of much help at this time, though if you're lucky someone else might reply to this thread if they have some spares for V1.2 and above... though if you need one for V1.6 motherboard, then I'm afraid I don't know where you might find one as N64 Freak did not do a design for that revision. Sickmods.net used to do one if I remember rightly, but sadly that site has died a rather painful death and it's domain recycled for use by the usual advert parking companies... yuck. Anyway, I'll report back if I do manage to successfully make my set.

I'm afraid there is no straight answer for this. Disk locking is part of an optional security specification, most hard drives have it, some (very) old ones don't. With SSDs it is a different story. All consumer-market SSDs I have ever come across support locking fine- even cheap generic ones such as Colorful and Drevo. However when it comes to enterprise drives customised for different OEMs, things are little complicated. In my experience, several Intel, Samsung and Micron SSD models that have customised firmware do not have the optional security specification to allow locking- IF that is, they have been produced specifically for certain hardware manufacturers such as HP and Lenovo for use in servers. It is easy to get suckered into these because well-used enterprise OEM SSDs tend to end up on eBay when large companies get liquidated and go for cheaper than the market price, and so end up in the hands of ordinary consumers anyway. The best way to avoid this issue is to either check whether an SSD you are interested in is a consumer SSD, or to check that the part number is not one listed at a PC manufacturer (google it) but is instead a generic one listed on an SSD producer's website (eg. Samsung, Micron, Crucial, etc). I have come across several Samsung 1.92TB PM863 SSDs that support locking, and one with an HP Part number that does not! The HP version is VK1920GFDKL, whereas the generic one is MZ-7KM1T9N and has a different label! CAN be locked: CANNOT be locked: This does of course make this situation a bit hit-and-miss, and this is just one example! I personally prefer ones that can be locked as there is the option of ATA Secure Erase to instantly wipe an SSD to restore most of its performance when re-purposing it. I can only speculate that the reason for this feature being omitted from some enterprise-targeted SSDs is to do with the fact that many offer self-encryption. Implementing this comes at a cost, so it makes sense to disable this feature entirely if an SSD is to be marketed somewhere where data sensitivity is not an issue. I know this doesn't really help, but I hope it does highlight what you need to look for. Of course if you are only thinking for Xbox use, just use a modchip or flash your TSOP with a BIOS that does not require locking... I can understand for a v1.6 though so I guess needs must if you don't want to solder in a modchip to that one.

If you flash directly to the TSOP rather than a modchip, you could end up with an unbootable console if the clock speeds are too high! You'd then have to either physically desolder the TSOP to reflash it externally and then solder it back on (very difficult depending on your equipment), or permanently rely on a modchip to get your console working again. Aladdin XT modchips are dirt cheap right now and the flashrom chip socketed thus easily removable from the Aladdin board, allowing you to plug it into an external USB EEPROM programmer to flash a working BIOS image to it. I've done this a fair few times whilst testing for the highest possible clock speeds and ending up with either a frozen boot animation or a black screen when getting too eager. It sounds like you've got spaces in your directory path, you'll need to type inverted commas around it if it has spaces in it. It's easier if you browse to the folder with the xboverclock program and bios file in it, then copy the path from the address bar. Then open the command window and type: cd " Right click the command window to do a paste. Then type another " . The inverted commas will ensure that this will still work even if your directory has spaces in it. Press enter. Then you should be able to type xboverclock and whatever else you need to do. Be very careful jumping the gun here. Some games are more demanding than others. Playing a 1080i video is part of a good test, followed by a session of Halo 2. I have found that sometimes I *think* I have a stable overclock, only to then load into Halo 2 and end up with the system freezing after around 20 minutes of play (sometimes during heavy combat and the feedback motors in my controller stay rumbling non stop until I turn the Xbox off!). Anyway, good luck! I suggest you read over the thread "theoretical GPU overclock" from this post onwards. There are quite a few times I've answered similar questions.