Megoosa
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Posts posted by Megoosa
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I've reflowed all the 4 RAM chips by adding flux and resolder it without adding new solder. The board still boots and passed the 128MB test in XBlastOS.
Now I've reassembled the whole Xbox and I think the only thing I can do now is use it for playing games and see if the problem will come back the next weeks/months.
Is it possible that the RAM chips itself are bad and acting up sometimes? Is there something like Memtest98 for the Xbox to extensively test the memory for longer time?
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I looked at it with the naked eye and it seems like the legs are not really pulled up, but there's no solder on top of the legs. The legs are stuck to the pads, I can't move them.
In the weekend I'll flash XBlastOS to it and try to resolder the chips with more flux added.
I used a conical tip. I have one chisel tip, but that one is way too big, touches up to four legs at a time. The conical one is the only one I have that's small enough to touch one leg at a time. If I touch multiple of them, they bridge, no matter how much flux I use.
The problem only occur once in multiple weeks or even months. I think it's difficult to boot XBlastOS when it's not booting. Because it can't be flashed when it's not booting, but flashed with XBlastOS I can't use it.
Edit: It seems like there are no flat tips available for the (old) soldering station I have. Only chisel and conical tips.
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Is saw this problem occur both when it was connected with a third-party component cable to a plasma TV and when it was connected to a CRT using a original Microsoft-branded "Xbox Advanced SCART cable". Only reattaching the cable didn't work.
I don't know exactly at which point of disassembly it turned back working. One time I only removed the disc drives to look at the board, the other time I removed the whole board to look at the other side of it. It even works most of the time when I only take the console out of the TV furniture and move it to the bench to test it on a monitor.
The amount of solder on the RAM chips are more then on the original ones. It was hard to solder them, "drag soldering" didn't work and I ended up did it pin by pin. For the first one I used some old bad flux, for the other 3 I used a new syringe of Amtech 559 ASM flux. Before soldering XBlastOS was flashed to test each chip before soldering the next one. Only the last one worked the first time.
This is the same chip from other perspective:
The AV connector doesn't look bad:
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2 hours ago, Chungaloid said:
Does it happen to boot into Xblast or Gentoox? The symptoms sound very familiar, as this is what happened to me when I tried to upgrade my 1.0 with 128MB. Admittedly, I noticed the effects of this almost immediately, but every BIOS I attempted to load through the LPC would give me a blank screen with a solid green LED, the exception being Cromwell based bios'. I was confused, because the 128MB ram checker on both Xblast and Gentoox showed all my chips passing everytime, but I've come to learn that cromwell based bios' are very forgiving when it comes to 128MB ram mods, while other bios' are not.
If I had to guess, it has something to do with that. When it's giving you a hard time and giving you blank screen w/ green LED, perhaps try putting a modchip in flashed with Xblast and see if it will boot into that. If it does, and it won't boot into anything else, my bet is on a weak solder joint on one of your added RAM chips.EDIT: If you have pics of top and bottom of mobo, it might help to have some more eyes on it. If something else is the issue someone might be able to spot it.
There's Cerbios flashed to the TSOP. When it doesn't boot, I can't flash XBlastOS to try. But when it boots, I can use XBlastOS and the 128MB RAM test just passes. Most of the times when it doesn't boot, it returns booting as soon as I move it for disconnecting and disassembly.
I've attached pictures of the board.
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I have a Xbox with 1.0 board, it got a 128MB RAM upgrade about one year ago. The first months this console worked fine. After that, sometimes it won't boot up, the video output stayed black and the LED solid green. Most of the time let it sit for a day or so, it returns back to a working state itself. Once it happened that the screen froze after starting a game and restart it resulted in the black screen/green LED. But the next day it was fine...
The problem can never be reproduced intentionally. If I disassemble it immediately when it's not booting to see something is wrong, it boots... and if it boots I can left it on for hours without any problem. Tapping the unit when it's running doesn't make it crash.
Some time ago I swapped the PSU with another 1.0 unit and the problem still exist. There are no bulging capacitors on the PSU or mainboard.
I left the unit on a storage shelf for weeks and now putting it on the bench and connect it... and it boots and plays fine. I have the feeling that the problem mostly only occurs when I have placed it in the TV furniture and do not want to move it again.
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1 hour ago, KaosEngineer said:
What size is the F partition on the drive(s)? The older kernel most likely only supports LBA28 - max hard drive size of 137GBs, not the newer LBA48 patch - more like LBA32 - not full LBA48 support.
The source drive with the games is 80GB so the F is around 70GB.
The destination drive is 250GB and when mounted "df -h" showed the right amount of space.
But even with only the 80GB connected, all the file names and directory structure are corrupted with the older version.
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I only have one set of P-ATA to USB2.0 interface. And I have a Promise Ultra133 TX2 PCI card with 2 P-ATA channels, but not supported in Windows 10.
If the only option is to install Windows 10 and buy another adapter set, I'll use the slow FTP method instead...
I don't really like the idea to need modern tech/equipment to do something for a classic console. Something as little as file transferring. Also, I don't like modern tech (like modern PC's/phones/consoles/cars) at all.
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Where can I borrow a Windows 10 PC with two P-ATA channels? How many of those exist?
I have a lot of PC's and the fastest one with 2 P-ATA channels is a Pentium 4 socket 478 with 2GB RAM. Definitely too slow to run Windows 10.
My Core2Duo and Athlon II systems only have 1 P-ATA channel. And the Core i5's have none.
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49 minutes ago, nikeymikey said:
Ah well ok... If you insist on using Linux then you are out of luck and will have to stick with the old hacky XBHDM etc. Surely you could just borrow a windows pc with a couple of vacant SATA ports and get the job done super quick. If you had windows you would be done and dusted and moved on to your next project by now.... just saying
My hard drives are P-ATA, not S-ATA. There are not much Windows 10 PC's with two P-ATA channels.
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19 minutes ago, nikeymikey said:
One word for you....
FATXPLORER.
That app will let you mount XBox drives directly in windows if they are unlocked OR you can supply the eeprom or hdd key from the console.
https://fatxplorer.eaton-works.com/
This is the go to way to manage xbox hdd's in 2025. Make a QOL change and start using it
I don't want to use FatXplorer because it only supports Windows 10 and newer. I'm a Linux user.
Also, PC's I have with two P-ATA channels are too old to run Windows 10. Connecting it with a USB-PATA adapter would require 2 sets of adapters and my PC's only have USB2.0, which is slower then native P-ATA.
I found this too, but compiling it on Debian 10, it skips some parts, ending without the fatxfs executable for mounting...
https://github.com/mborgerson/fatx -
I want to copy large amounts of data from one Xbox OG HDD directly to another by connecting them both on a PC with two P-ATA channels.
With the older XboxHDM 1.9 and 2.2a (which are essentially Linux distro's supporting FATx booted from CD) I can mount the F-partition of both drives using "mount -t fatx /dev/hda55 /media/source" & "mount -t fatx /dev/hdc55 /media/dest". But the problem is that these versions show corrupted file names.
But with XboxHDM23USB all the file names are correct. I can even use both of my drives if I launch it manually. But because it's running in QEMU the copying is very slow
Now the FATx driver is in the kernel and 1.9 and 2.2a uses the same kernel. Only 2.3USB has a newer kernel, maybe that's where the problem is. So I wanted to boot this 2.3USB version on real hardware.
I took the "kernel" and "initrd.gz" and tried booting it using ISOLINUX and PXELINUX, but it just stuck at "Uncompressing Linux... Ok, booting the kernel.".
How can I make the kernel and initrd.gz from XBoxHDM23USB booting on real hardware?With 1.9 and 2.2a on real hardware all filenames are corrupted:
With 2.3USB it works, but is very slow because it runs in QEMU:
But I can't get the 2.3USB version to boot on real hardware using ISOLINUX of PXELINUX:
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The traces of the power/eject button are already repaired/bypassed on this one. Also, the PSU should give 3,3v if the button traces on the mainboard are broken.
3 hours ago, big F said:You can hook up a pico ATX PSU then run the power to it via a bullet connector and external mains to 12v psu That’s how we do it on the slimmed OGXboxes
But I have read some thread on this forum saying a pico PSU actually doesn't have enough power on the 5v and on some Xbox boards capacitors are removed to make it boot? Also, without additional hardware the pico PSU is set to always-on so the Xbox board also get power when it's off. That doesn't hurt the board at the long time?
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7 hours ago, coldasijs said:
find a 2nd hand 1.4 from marktplaats. Will definitely be cheaper then the shipping costs from US
That's true. But I feel bad at the idea of stripping a good console to repair another one. I tried to find a 1.2-1.4 with a dead mainboard but didn't found one yet.
In the meantime I have another Xbox OG to play games on. It's a 1.0 with the Foxlink power supply which has the weak soldering points. I resoldered it and hope it will last long.
3 hours ago, big F said:Usually the transistors go or the control chip. Either way it’s dead Jim.
You can fix em but it will often fail again. As the caps take a hit from the bad voltages when things break.
That's sad
It seem to be possible to hook up a ATX power supply to it? But it's not practical, doesn't fit in the case.
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I don't have the knowledge to repair the power supply, unfortunately. And it's the only power supply I have for this Xbox.
I saw the units on Tinker-Mods, but I think the free shipping isn't for The Netherlands. And US power supplies not always support the 230vac used here as input.
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You mean the grey one (I have the PSU from Delta), the stand-by 3,3v? There's no purple wire on this PSU.
I tested it this time with the PSU connected to the mainboard and it's 0,0v
Without the mainboard connected it jumps to 0,05-0,1v when it's connected to the power outlet but drops to 0,0v within a second.
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My in January repaired 1.4 Xbox console is dead today, it didn't turn on
Both the power and eject button does nothing. It played fine a week ago.
I opened it up, disconnected the PSU from the mainboard and used a multimeter to check the voltage between the grey pin and ground according to the diagram below (Delta PSU). It only jumps to 0,05-0,1v when it's connected to a power outlet. It gives no 3,3v.
Does it mean the PSU is dead and not easily fixable?
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The drive is still working fine. I backed up the save games only. The EEPROM is already somewhere on the PC because I dumped it using a Raspberry Pi, I bought this Xbox with a broken hard drive back then. And I flashed Cerbios to the TSOP, so it should accept any unlocked HDD.
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Maybe the molex connector to the hard drive was a bit worn, because this Xbox was dissembled a lot by the previous owner and the connector can be pulled out with very little force. I tried the easiest fix first by bending the pins in the connector a bit tighter and the problem seem to be gone now. It's used for a couple of days already, the same game.
If the problem comes back I'll try to re-transfer the game using FTP.
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My Xbox with 1.4 board and Cerbios which was repaired some months ago has played many hours of games without any problems. Until the last 3 days. Every day when I play a game (NFS: Underground 2) the hard disk will click once (and sounding like it restarts) within the first 10 minutes of gaming. The game then hangs after a few seconds when it wants to load new data. I can power off and on the Xbox using the power button and then play the same game for an hour or longer without any problems. And the problem repeat itself the next day.
The most logical seems to be a faulty hard disk (it's a old 160GB P-ATA drive from Western Digital). But because it only happens once a day (when the unit is cold?), is there another possible cause like a power supply problem or even a worn power connector to the drive? I don't want to throw away a P-ATA hard drive too quickly. -
The optical disc drives are exchangeable. I've swapped the drives from a 1.0 (Thomson) and 1.4 (Philips) once and they both worked fine.
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I think the cheapest method will be the modchip if you just want to fix this one Xbox (and the only method if you want something other then the standard BIOS because it's a 1.6), but if you want to repair/mod more units a Raspberry Pi to read the EEPROM will be cheaper in the long run.
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The bracket is very expensive... €49,62 with the shipping included, without the fan
If I find a cheap heatsink on eBay one day I'll go for it. But for now the original fan is lubricated and back into one piece, the spokes are glued back in place
It isn't noisy anymore, maybe it will be ok for some time
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I updated my previous post, it's popped off now using a tool to pry it
I thought it was a coil in the blades part, but it's only a magnet.
But a third spoke broke... it's only attached now with 1 spoke and the spoke where the wires are
I think I must try to glue that first.
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I don't have a spare 1.1-1.6 heatsink and doesn't like the idea to buy a Xbox to scrap it for the heatsink. So I want to service/lubricate the fan.
The topic mentions: "it simply pops off if you force it gently with both fingers equal amount of pressure on fan blades as close to the base of assembly."
I tried this and it's not popping off. Instead, 2 of the 4 spokes which holds the fan to it's frame broke off. It seem like on the photo in that topic also 2 of the 4 spokes are broken, but he got the blades off
Mine are still attached
It looks like the coil is near the edge of the blades part so I can't use tools to pop it?
Edit: I got it off
But a third spoke broke too 
I must try to glue that...
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Board Life Status
Board startup date: April 23, 2017 12:45:48
Xbox 1.0 sometimes have a black screen, green LED.
in Repair
Posted
The TSOP is already reflashed "fresh" because I flashed it to XBlastOS before resoldering the RAM and then back to Cerbios.
But, it's running Cerbios 2.3.1 which is older. I saw this line in the changelog of 2.4.0:
"Fixed Booting / Freezing Issues with Some V1.0 Consoles"
Is it possible to have something to do with it?