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HDShadow

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HDShadow last won the day on May 21 2023

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  1. I've dozen dozens of 'homebrew' Doom WADs on the Xbox of one sort or another and not really had any serious performance problem, at least nothing that you would not expect. But if you're just wanting to play Doom I/Doom II and their various iterations (Ultimate Doom and the Doom II Master Levels) on the original Xbox at its best then get Doom: Resurrection Of Evil which includes them as bonuses. It is a fantastic package if you buy Doom III and Doom ROE, you'll be all Doomed out if you play through everything they contain. If you have a Xbox360 then the remastered Doom III BFG edition has all that and an additional set of Doom III missions too.
  2. My suggestion would be to get a new HDD, install it, then use an installer disc to put in a clean hardmod dash. My personal preference would still be to use an AID (Auto-Installer Deluxe) disc but then I'm old school and like things nice and simple. The OGXbox or TruHeXEn ones probably have all the bells and whistles of a more up to date installer but what you use is up to you. They'll all work. Doing this will give you a virgin set up you can play around with if you must. BIOS rule No.1 (Xbox or PC): don't flash a new BIOS unless you know what you're doing and you really need a feature of the new BIOS. Just updating it because there is a new version is pointless because every time you do it you're risking bricking your machine. If you've flashed CerBIOS you're probably wanting to use a larger HDD than you are already so it makes no sense trying to fix whatever mess you've made by softmodding the existing HDD. Chances are that it is unlocked and you can get everything important off it and transfer it to the new HDD one way or another.
  3. Interesting question. Indeed with XBMC4Xbox you can add the Screenshot and/or other picture folders as Sources under the main Pictures menu. In fact you don't even need to do that because the sub-menu > Slideshow option will display using your designated Screenshot folder content However if the Pictures main menu option was removed does XBMC4Gamers include a Favourites option? If so that might work if you add your picture containing folder(s) to that. There used to be a number of gallery plugins you could use (no experience of doing this myself) but they were installed under Pictures from the main menu too. Rather than mess around with XBMC4Gamers wouldn't the simplest solution just be to install XBMC4Xbox as an app for when you want to manage/view pictures?
  4. Did a quick Google on the Xenium matter and from this link I see it can be installed just as an app. Also it appears, its menu has an eeprom backup option too.
  5. Nothing is out of date, if it works it works. So just replacing a dash or 'updating' the BIOS is a question of personal choice not necessity. Why a "Backup" eeprom option is missing is probably because the evox.ini (the dash's configuration/settings file) has been customised for safety reasons. The Flash BIOS option too I'd guess is also likely missing (DO NOT MESS WITH THAT IF IS STILL THERE). But in any case as yours is a hardmod the eeprom backup is less important than if it was a softmod. It is still a good idea to back it up to PC. Check the HDD lock status, being a hardmod you'd expect it to be unlocked but if it is locked then the eeprom backup becomes a little more important. 1). If your EvoX dash does not have a eeprom "Backup" you can either edit/replace the evox.ini but, safer, to install ConfigMagic, an Xbox app, that will do that for you and also put in a safety net in the form of a master password. There are disc based installer tools that will also backup the eeprom for you. Your choice which you choose. 2). No need to delete XBMC or Avalaunch. They're alternative dashboards installed as apps which can be useful, you might even prefer XBMC to EvoX and decide to replace it as your main dash. Ask here for advice before attempting to do that yourself. 3). Not ever seen Xenium installed as an app - possibly a Xenium chip was previously fitted. That's just a guess, somebody here who knows more about Xenium and chip stuff than I do will know doubt be able to help with that. 4). The BIOS is completely separate thing from the dash. UnleashX and XBMC4Gamers are just other dashboards, they do not need a BIOS update to be able to use either. If the chip is a standard Aladdin type it came with a pre-installed universal EvoX M8+ which is perfectly good enough in most circumstances. The golden rule with BIOS, Xbox or PC, is never update them unless you are a 100% sure it will provide some new benefit or a problem fix you're actually going benefit from. Otherwise don't. You can replace your primary dash with a new dash and I'd suggest any one with a built in file manager is a better choice than EvoX.
  6. Good to know. I was just wondering what extra wiring I might need. As I understand it the top of MB red wire going to the transistor leg is for a 5v supply to power the chip on LED. I don't know if the Black Ice chip I've just bought (still in transit) even has an LED but I assume it does. So that wire will have to have the plug removed and be re-soldered somewhere. I'm also not certain what to do about the Xecuter 2.6 CE's switch array. It's super-glued in place so it has to stay. The Bank select and Write Protect switches will be redundant (?) but it might be useful to be able to switch the chip On/Off and, although less important, just the chip LED. Both are catered for in the Xecuter's switch array but can it be adapted to make those functions work with the Black Ice? Anyone know how?
  7. You could test the theory of that being the problem by temporarily removing 25 to 30 of the largest file size icons you've installed and seeing if doing that reduces the effect you're seeing. It is less work than uninstalling them all, reducing their size and reinstalling them and, as said, it could be something else. I remember doing a new softmod a few years ago (UnleashX dash install) and being surprised just how 'zippy' navigating through the UnleashX menus was using this new uncluttered HDD compared to my primary Xbox. That has about sixty games, a couple of dozen apps, and I'd guess a total of at least fifty emulators and homebrew games plus CD music rips installed, most with my own custom (<50KB) icons.
  8. I'm a little confused now as to what the green and red wires under the MB are there for. Likewise the D0 wire which I thought the LPC rebuild board meant it was not required with a v1.6. The YT videos I've seen show an Aladdin chip installed on a v1.6 with an LPC rebuild board working without any additional wiring that I could see.
  9. That sort of problem seems to affect UnleashX particularly; it could be something else but the trouble is usually caused by some unwritten maximum total icon file size cache limit. It seems to kick in between 900MB - 100MB total. Roughly about 200 <50KB icons and what happens is not just that icons do not display, the menu items themselves go missing from the menus. So if you have installed a lot of games, emulators and apps and/or they have a lot of large custom sized icons that could be what you're experiencing. This is why I've always kept my custom icon size down to 256x256 and used various other 'tricks' to reduce the icon file size to <50KB. That might mean using JPG rather than PNG but with PNG you can 'optimise' it using graphics programs settings to reduce the file size eg. using 8 bit palette only rather than standard 24 bit R G B sometimes making the file smaller than a JPG.
  10. ^ I've often thought about getting one of those types and I actually have a Xbox related job where being able to clone the HDD directly to another could be useful.
  11. I don't think is a specific USB3 issue; if the housing/adapter uses a particular chip you can have problems with certain attached storage devices whatever the USB version. My previous primary USB housings (which are not Startech) which are USB2.0 dual IDE/SATA refused to work with a Crucial MX500 SSD so I never even had the chance to test it with FATXplorer. I bought a very basic Startech SATA > USB3.0 adapter (USB3S2SAT3CB) and used with the same SSD it worked perfectly and I cloned my desktop's primary HDD to it successfully. Not tried it with FATXplorer but I thought it might be worth a go as they appear less sophisticated than the combi-type you're using and pretty cheap too. However something I noticed just now, when checking its spec, and the advice provide is that particular adapter will only work with 2.5" drives of any sort, SSD or HDD. Why is not explained but for both 2.5" and 3.5" SSD/HDD Startech themselves point potential buyers at the SATA only USB312SAT3 adapter rather than the USB3SSATAIDE one the OP is using. That will of course depend on whether he is using a a SATA or IDE HDD but I'd guess it is most likely now we are talking here about a SATA HDD. Whether it works, judging from Startech user feedback, with particular combinations of equipment appears to be a matter of suck it and see. Not very helpful.
  12. The red one on top of the the MB? As I mentioned in the previous post that's only used with a v1.6 Xbox which needs a separate 5v power supply. If you look at the pic above which shows the underside of the Xecuter 2.6 CE you can see printed on the PCB itself (in red) an arrow and info about that 5v connection being only for v1.6 Xboxes. BTW I found a YT guide where a guy was replacing a Xecuter with an Open Xenium on a v1.6 and he actually removed the Xecuter's LPC board and used the supplied Xenium one which, presumably, includes the additional v1.6 5v connection. Should I need to dump my Xecuter in the future I'd want to avoid having to do that which is why I asked about whether it was possible to use the Xecuter LPC board with the Xenium. That must surely require a separate, wired 5v connection too - is that possible to do with the Xenium? The YT video guy mentioned the Xenium comes with some Kynar wire so I was wondering if that is why it was supplied.
  13. Well that's comforting :(. Photos of chip/MB etc. Apologies for average quality but I do not have a close-up lens for the camera I was using so had to use digital zoom. However I think they show the sort of detail required. I was hoping when I flipped the MB over I'd see an obviously disconnected or loose wire (D0 perhaps) but just like the soldered wire on top of the MB, which I think is the v1.6 5v supply, the soldering on the three wires underneath still look bright and clean with the connections very firm. So whatever the problem is it doesn't seem likely to be a simple loose connection issue. Did a bit of cleaning afterwards and put the whole thing back together just to check it was still functioning as before and...............................the damned thing booted perfectly using the primary bank (Evox logo). I did not want to stress it by trying a reboot or shutdown and restart, I was just glad it was working OK again. However I did take the opportunity to re-backup the eeprom although I have plenty of full backups of it and C:\, E:\ drive content archived, somewhere. Should it fail again similarly I think the best thing would be to get a replacement chip. If I can find an Open Xenium or similar can I just swap in that without having to do any rewiring or are some of the Xecuter 2.6 CE connections (see pics) chip specific?
  14. ^ ^^Thanks for the response. As I've just posted in message to someone else here, the Xecuter 2.6CE chip, so I've read, needs special treatment. You can't just flash one bank with a new BIOS. The info I have is that you need to create a single 1MB file made up of 2 x 512KB BIOS and flash both the banks together in one go. I neither know how to create that 1MB file nor care to risk blitzing the existing BIOS particularly when the evidence suggests that both the BIOS are OK. I'll try to get some pics up once I've unscrewed the MB and had a look underneath tomorrow.
  15. I've had a Xecuter 2.6 CE chip fitted Xbox v1.6 since around 2005, bought pre-installed and flashed with two banks each a custom Evox M8+ BIOS I've never needed/wanted to change. AFAIK the second BIOS is exactly the same but with the logo removed. All was working fine until last summer when I started to get occasional fragging on reboots/restarts. I found that if I swapped the banks it would usually boot correctly for weeks then suddenly the problem would reappear. I'd swap to the second bank and that would get it working again. So both BIOS are working but something else must be going on to cause this trouble. Fast forward to last weekend and after six months without a repeat the problem has reappeared but this time nothing I've tried to fix it has worked, at least not fully. I left it for several days and I was surprised to find on restart it booted as normal but when I used the IGR the fragging started again. I've dismantled the Xbox but haven't taken out the MB yet. The chip is surprisingly clean, almost dust free and seated firmly on the LPC. The top of MB soldered connections look perfect and are very firm and clean too. So maybe it is one of the underside connections. Is there anything with those connections I should be looking for that might cause this behaviour? It seems reasonable to think it could be a partially broken connection. Maybe a soldering point has dried out/cracked but if so why, until now, did swapping the BIOS banks get it working again? It is getting on for 19 years old and has had a lot of use and I'm worried that the chip itself might have developed some serious problem. Should also mention that with the chip off the Xbox boots without issue to an error 05 as you'd expect with an unlocked HDD. So that is more evidence it is just the chip.

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Board startup date: April 23, 2017 12:45:48
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