[Orange/Red Error Light Documentation Confusion]

You could get stuck if you pulled off the modchip in the short window where it's testing the RAM. As for 'normal' cases where that would happen, I don't think it can happen unless the failure is not RAM related. The test code runs from flash so it should be independent of RAM issues (except for bank 1).

[Orange/Red Error Light Documentation Confusion]

Great idea!

Have you see the stuck status yet? I got them a few times while refining the test design but haven't had any recently.

[256MB RAM upgrade release and tutorial]

8 hours ago, Tim said:

Was randomly googling (an issue i'm having with getting CCI files to ISO using repackinator in Xemu) since "re-discovering" retro gaming a week back, rabbit hole led me to Macho Nacho's youtube

Ohh I thought you meant one of those rabbit hole or iceberg style videos. I worked with Tito on that video.

[Orange/Red Error Light Documentation Confusion]

Excellent. I also just bought a mobo from ebay with a short circuit and FRAO after fixing the short.

They somehow managed to solder a wire under the ram chip, shorting 5 pins together!

[256MB RAM upgrade release and tutorial]

5 hours ago, steve1 said:

amazing i hoped it wood work like that definitely handy to have i wood like to do this 256mb mod i have dun about 30 normal 128 mb boards and 2x1.6 but i am not  the best at sm parts 

In my opinion they're as hard as the normal leaded RAM chips. Soldering the BGA, however, is a different skill. Let me know if you want to buy any modules - 8 modules for $90.

5 hours ago, Tim said:

Just purely coincidental, I saw this mod mentioned on a YouTube rabbit hole, and here I am realizing I was actually on this forum already at some point and I could come in and say: SIR, you're a damn hero!

Thanks! What's that video? I'd like to take a look

5 hours ago, Tim said:

If you're put of by having to buy a microscope (any decent ones cost a fortune), a microscope can be avoided by just using the "poor man's method." Solder mem chips as you'd normally do fine soldering, take a photo with a smartphone in macro mode, and zoom in on the legs to see if you made leg bridges, fix if needed, retake photo.

Did a couple of dozen OGs 64>128 that way myself back in the day, so just mentioning case the microscope puts people off from trying. 

Hmm interesting idea! A bit like old folks using their phone camera instead of putting on glasses.

Getting a microscope has been huge for me. Makes fine work super easy and intuitive when you can see how flux and solder behaves. Bi- or tri-nocular is also important to be able to see depth. I lucked out and rescued one from a local university's dump.

[256MB RAM upgrade release and tutorial]

8 hours ago, steve1 said:

hi out of intrset can the Xblast OS 0.63 RAMTESTER be used on a normal xbox to find a dead ram chip 

Yes! I just fixed an xbox I got from ebay with a failed RAM install. Make sure to use XBlastOS_0.63_RAMTESTER_Stock.bin on a Xbox with the normal RAM chips.

[256MB RAM upgrade release and tutorial]

PCBWay made mine. They allow up to 16 layers so I'm not sure why you're having that issue.

[256MB RAM upgrade release and tutorial]

8 hours ago, Andrew smith said:

Here is the url for what I ordered and received

https://www.digchip.com/datasheets/parts/datasheet/297/MT46V2M32.php

I see a 64Mbit chip. It's 8 MB, 2x smaller than the stock chip. Sorry for your loss.

Microsoft might have used 8MB chips early on because there are xcodes in the BIOS to handle it.

[3 Reboots and flashing red and orange 128mb attempt]

So it means that there is still something wrong with either the chips, LPC, or the soldering.

[256MB RAM upgrade release and tutorial]

7 hours ago, Andrew smith said:

I placed an order for chips that are 32mb each but with all the same specs as the stock chips do you think soldering 4 of these on to the open banks would work with your modded xblast ? 

I have 8 to try just don't wanna bother if it's gonna destroy a motherboard.

The specs are exactly the same as the stock chips on a 1.0 but are 32mb each chip instead of 16mb

What's the full name of the chip? I never found any that are like what you describe.

[3 Reboots and flashing red and orange 128mb attempt]

1 hour ago, Gold_Phoenix said:

Just realised that it should be flashing red and orange because i have currently 96mb of RAM installed, im so confused

That's normal for stock BIOSes. Are you trying to launch xblast though?

[Orange/Red Error Light Documentation Confusion]

I've done some tests and I can confirm that Flashing Red And Orange (FRAO) can be caused by bad RAM or by bad BIOS.

The SMC expects two bytes to be written with command 0x13 and 0x12. The BIOS is supposed to write these with special values after doing a RAM test. If the values are wrong, you get FRAO. If there are no values, you get FRAG.

Curiously, the v1.0 SMC accepts more values (of the 2 bytes) compared to the v1.6. I don't think it's worth looking into deeply but still interesting.

[3 Reboots and flashing red and orange 128mb attempt]

43 minutes ago, BreadFang said:

That is an extremely cool bios. We can more or less confirm orange/red errors on stock untouched Xboxs being RAM related or not.

Wish I had this before I made my orange/red system a parts unit...

Thanks  that's right

40 minutes ago, BreadFang said:

Can it be flashed onto a regular Aladdin modchip? I have a bunch of those on hand and want to use one as a RAM diagnostic thing.

Yep. The only kinds of chips it won't work on are ones that run an OS first, like Xenium, or if you run PrometheOS.

[256MB RAM upgrade release and tutorial]

3 hours ago, Petrolhead said:

Just an idea for the longevity of the original xbox (that you can put in your info)

In the future we maybe cant get regular ram-chips when we wanna fix our broken consoles.

What other memory can we add to the pcb? 64mb/128mb.

(Didint mean to hijack your thread, it was just an idea i got)

Yeah good question. This kind of interposer, with some tweaks, could definitely be used to install more modern BGA RAM in the Xbox in the stock quantities of 64MB or 128MB.

20 minutes ago, Harcroft said:

Congratulations on completing you one of a kind project!

A couple of questions:

Did moving to a full flex PCB solve your lockup issues without loosening up RAM timings or slowing the cycle frequency?

Thanks  Unfortunately no. There's no discernible improvement in performance.

 

23 minutes ago, Harcroft said:

Does 128mb with 4 of these on a 1.6 console work with your patches? I understand the cost will be higher but do you see this as a viable easier 128mb install for 1.6 boards?

Thanks for your hard work! 

Haven't got around to trying it yet. My only 1.6 has my 128MB mod on it so ideally I'd have another 1.6 to test this on.

[256MB RAM upgrade release and tutorial]

I have about 6 xboxes worth of chips and interposers so let me know if you're seriously interested in buying them and doing this mod, and let me know your continent and we can work something out.

[256MB RAM upgrade release and tutorial]

PCB files and BIOS patcher can be found on github: https://github.com/Prehistoricman/Xbox256MB/tree/master

Upgraded Xblast OS can be found on bitbucket: README and Downloads

The new Xblast OS comes with a RAMTESTER variant that lets you test the stock set of 4 chips. This can be useful even for a typical 128MB mod when things go wrong and the Xbox won't boot normal Xblast.

MachoNacho already did a tutorial on installing this upgrade: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R2hvSL30Rlg

 

So here's a brief tutorial for installation.

Tutorial

Be aware this is an advanced mod and while it does grant quadruple the memory, there is a performance disadvantage. The memory clock speed must be reduced to make this memory stable (this is handled in my BIOS patcher).

Tools required:

1. Hot air station (recommended for removing stock chips)
2. Precision soldering station
3. Microscope suitable for soldering
4. Flux
5. Solder
6. Solder wick
7. IPA
8. Multimeter
9. Hardmodded Xbox
10. Spare Xbox to be able to reflash your modchip if necessary

Steps:

1. Flash the Xblast OS 0.63 RAMTESTER 256Mbit BIOS to your modchip
   1. If your modchip has only one bank, you can still access the normal Xblast menus by pressing eject to power on the Xbox.
   2. If your modchip runs an OS BIOS (like PrometheOS, Xenium or Xblast), patch it and flash it first
2. Remove the stock memory chips. Use hot air to desolder it - I like to place tinfoil on the board to protect the other components and plastic from the heat. Or just cut the pins if you don't care about the stock memory chips.
3. Solder in the new memory modules
   1. Start with bank 1 in the stock memory layout. See this diagram
   2. Precisely align the module on the motherboard
   3. Solder 1 pin in a corner to anchor the module
   4. Make sure you get the orientation right. There is an arrow in the corner of the module that should align with a dot on the motherboard. That's pin 1.
   5. Solder the opposite pin
   6. Check the orientation again! I got this wrong twice :(((
   7. Solder the rest of the pins on the module
   8. Power on the Xbox to test it with the BIOS
      1. If you got it right, the LED code will indicate that bank 2 has failed. See README for LED codes.
      2. If the LED code shows bank 1 failed, there may be a short circuit or open circuit. Check your soldering.
      3. If the Xbox powers off very quickly and doesn't reboot, you have a short circuit. Check your soldering.
      4. If the Xbox reboots 3x and FRAGs, there may be a short circuit or open circuit. Check your soldering.
   9. Repeat for banks 2, 3, 4 in order.
   10. Try booting Xblast using the eject button, or any other 256MB compatible BIOS.
   11. Install the rest of the banks, using the memory test in Xblast OS's Tools menu to check if they are working.
4. Flash a 256MB compatible BIOS
   1. X2 and X3 BIOSes are known to work and have the full 256MB usable
   2. Cerbios support is not good yet, but they are working on it.
   3. EvoX will boot, but needs additional patches to be able to use the extra memory.
5. Do nothing with the additional memory

Interposer assembly

One way to do this upgrade is to buy the loose memory chips and interposer PCBs and assemble them. You need to be confident with BGA soldering.

The memory chip is HY5DU573222F-28 which you can find on Alibaba and maybe other places too. The -28 is the speed bin and I don't recommend going any slower such as -33.

The interposer PCB designs are on Github and I've included gerbers in the release suitable for ordering from PCBWay.

[3 Reboots and flashing red and orange 128mb attempt]

I made a variant of Xblast OS for testing the stock 4 chips which you can get here https://bitbucket.org/prehistoricman/lpcmod_os/downloads/

Get XBlastOS_0.63_RAMTESTER_Stock.bin, flash it, and run it and it will tell you about RAM issues on the front panel LED. See the RAMTESTER section of the readme https://bitbucket.org/prehistoricman/lpcmod_os/src/master/README.md

This BIOS will boot with only 1 working RAM chip so it can help to narrow down the problem.

[256 MB ram mod]

8 hours ago, nikeymikey said:

As you have said there will be edge case uses such as running XP and/or Linux but it's a tiny fraction of users who would want to do that. But right now it looks as if the only thing seemingly ready to actually make use of this in any way is unfortunately Stellar  

What will Stellar do with the extra memory?

[256 MB ram mod]

3 hours ago, nikeymikey said:

Are point 1 and 2 linked????? 

Have you seen https://x.com/MakeMHz/status/1809271943448916168?

No, but I did see on XS discord a couple of guys said they bought a bunch of the BGA chips.

4 hours ago, lopenator said:

dude you're a genius. if you do sell these I would buy from you to support. unsure if I should purchase these chips now or get from you.

Thanks. I'd wait it out until there is something real to purchase. You won't like the price of ordering the interposer PCBs for a single xbox anyway hehe

[256 MB ram mod]

Hi guys. Happy to see people are interested in this. The basic situation as of now is:

• I'm looking to producing and selling these, but I'm seeing that people are buying up loads of these chips so might give up on that
• If MakeMHz sells this hardware, I will see if my software works for it too
• The current state is that I haven't been able to get the memory running at full speed, so performance suffers
• 256MB is the absolute maximum as far as I know
• I'm going to release all the design files, software, patchers, etc. shortly
• Yeah I know this is useless but it's just for fun

[To cut Lframe, or not to cut Lframe.]

Correct

[To cut Lframe, or not to cut Lframe.]

49 minutes ago, Bowlsnapper said:

That's good advice! I actually have a 470 ohm resistor so I'll go ahead and use it for that... I'd rather have the chip be wireless if I can get away with it instead of hooking up D0.

Ah, but if you want the modchip to always be selected without a D0/LFRAME wire, then you should only cut the trace. Adding a resistor like I did restores the original function where a D0/LFRAME wire is required.

[To cut Lframe, or not to cut Lframe.]

5 hours ago, SakisTheDrifter said:

Cut the Lframe and add a switch between the 2 cuted terminals. That way you can disable\enable it as you wish

I cut it in a specific place close to the Xyclops and put a 470 ohm resistor between the two cut ends. This lets the Xbox work as normal with and without the modchip and reduces the current greatly.

1 hour ago, Bowlsnapper said:

Oh my FUCK... Okay. Thank you. I'll get it dealt with... If D0 on the chip is fuxored, what's the best way to cut a trace? I've done it with a blade, but I never been sure that it's been cut since the slice is so narrow... 

I didn't know they were trying to save with that hardware revision... They fucked off the LPC though, so I KNOW that was intentional. Lol

I always use a blade. You can do two cuts at slightly different angles to get a bigger segment out.

Yeah the 1.6 uses fewer caps, fewer chips, a more modern version of the GPU, and a less capable PSU (IIRC) all to reduce the cost.

[To cut Lframe, or not to cut Lframe.]

Oh, it's actually worse. Around 71mA on my box

So that draws 0.071 * 3.3 = 0.23W which is enough to burn small components.

The LFRAME grounding trick was another Microsoft oversight I suppose. The BIOS is in the Xyclops because it's convenient and cheap. The 1.6 is basically a cost-down Xbox and this saves them from including a flash chip like the previous models.

 

[To cut Lframe, or not to cut Lframe.]

1 hour ago, Bowlsnapper said:

Thank you for basically erasing my confusion about this. Right on. The only other thing I'm wondering about this is: should I go ahead and use the chip D0 or leave Lframe grounded to the pad I have it to? What is typically the current that a 1.6 drives on that circuit? Micro, or milli?

Also, I've heard the bios is stored on the video encoder chip on a 1.6. Is that true? 

Do you mean how much current does it take to drive LFRAME after it's cut? Grounding isn't required after it's cut.

Or how much current it takes when grounded and uncut? It's about the 30mA mark from memory.

No, the Xyclops is the SMC or system management controller and it contains the 1.6 BIOS. The video encoder isn't hooked up to the LPC at all so it can't possibly be used as BIOS storage.