VCoupe376ci

It is EASY to solder when the right conditions are met. 1. Use a temperature controlled iron with a tip in good shape. 2. Clean your surfaces well. 3. Always make sure your tip and wires are tinned. 4. Use flux and plenty of it. 5. Take your time. Rushing is the fastest way to make a mistake when working with small points on a motherboard. I thought I couldn't solder for many years until I followed advice and bought a decent iron. The right tools made all the difference.

It makes absolutely ZERO difference when playing any original Xbox game. It makes ALL the difference with N64 emulation (can't speak for PS1 as I have never tried but I would imagine it is equally as beneficial). Donkey Kong 64 went from a stuttering freezing unplayable mess to a smooth running great functioning version of the classic. You won't be disappointed if emulation is your thing.

It's already been said, but the heat sink will come loose from the CPU without heat just by twisting it slightly. The GPU on the other hand will not and I would be afraid of damaging the board if force is used. A hairdryer for less than a minute is more than enough to get it to come right off with minimal effort. That being said, there is also plenty of proof that there is little to be gained if anything by changing the thermal paste. Many will say "if it isn't broken don't fix it". That being said, I did the paste on all 3 of my modded units. The first two were 1.4 and 1.6 motherboards before I knew it made such little difference and the third was because I was replacing the GPU and heatsink on a 1.0 to eliminate the noisy fan.

For Xbox games the 128mb upgrade is useless. The only place it made any difference for me was with console emulation, specifically the N64. Most N64 games would play horribly prior to the upgrade and quite well after. If you are mostly using the Xbox for playing Xbox games you aren't missing out on anything.

Had no idea this was a thing. I guess the feature was disabled on my 3TB drive. Thanks for the info!

Of my 3 consoles, I have a 3TB WD Green 3.5", 2TB WD Blue 3.5", and a 2TB WD Blue 2.5". All 3 have the Xbox Origins image from Arcade Punks on them and none have ever given me any issue. The 3TB WD Green drive was also a recycle from an old PC I was retiring, so was at least 3 years old when I repurposed it for the Xbox. All 3 are using the typically recommended Startech IDE-SATA and whatever 80 conductor 24" IDE cable was available on Amazon at the time. To add another detail, the WD Green console also has the IDE cable reversed (blue plug in HDD instead of motherboard) with no problem.

Outside of a few parts that were slow due to limited people seeding, my download was faster than many I see. On a 300mb cable connection I downloaded it in about 9 days of 24/7 downloading with no filters set that would limit me. I also had to start over once when I realized I made the bonehead move of starting the torrent on a mac which didn't have enough space and I somehow ruined the file moving it and couldn't get it to resume where it left off. Either way, well worth the download and have now used it on all 3 of the modded consoles I have.

The Origins image is exactly what you are looking for. 760+ OG Xbox games in that image plus thousands of emulator games from every platform imaginable. It uses Xbmc4Xbox as the dash as well. Benur75 was spot on with the app info after download. The history behind that image after I did some reading is that it was from a guy who put it together and was selling imaged hard drives. Someone took one of those drives and dumped it using HDD Raw Copy Tool and seeded it as a torrent. I found a thread (can't remember where anymore) where the dude that created ti was pretty pissed and talking shit that it was his "stolen" work (oh the irony of a software pirate complaining about having software he stole stolen from him) and said it was an early image and garbage. I honestly think that guy was just sour that the torrent would take business from him and talking trash because most everything I have tried to use/play works flawlessly. It is definitely worth a go if you have the patience to wait for it to finish downloading.

For the most part, yes. Temps may be slightly lower but negligible and the cooling fan is louder than any HDD I have ever put in an Xbox no matter 5400 or 7200rpm. The biggest benefit of an SSD which is speed is entirely lost on the Xbox because it is limited to the maximum speed of the PATA interface. Also, don't forget if you are going to go SSD you must use a SATA to IDE adapter and unless you can find a very old one an 80 conductor IDE cable is required for the drive to function properly.

Sounds like a Halo edition. I hear you on MAME also. I grew up when every mall had an arcade that was always packed and the graphics on those games were years ahead of what home consoles could offer. It gave me the chance to finish some of my favorite CoinOp games from my childhood that I never got to finish because I didn't have the funds to keep pumping quarters in until I reached the end.

Got to agree as well so long as you are going the TSOP route. I hardmodded a skeleton 1.0 and clearing the solder out of the filled LPC port was not as simple as it should have been even with flux, a Weller temperature controlled iron, and proper Chemtronics solder braid. Easily took me well over an hour to clean all the solder out and then another 30 minutes or so cleaning all the flux from the process off the motherboard before getting to the modchip install pinheader and D0 which took about 5 minutes. I've only done one, and know how to solder so the one I did may have just been stubborn, but it would definitely steer me toward a 1.1 - 1.4 if I was going modchip and had a choice in the revision.

I wish they were a dime a dozen in the US. The only ones we typically get here are the ones that found their way over the border from Canada. The only translucent ones we find are the green Halo boxes and those aren't all that common anymore either.

Dude, I don't even want to know how the cat managed to soak that much of the xbox to cover 60% of the metal shielding in piss, but the mental image was pretty funny. As far as what to do, this suggestion will help with the xbox as well as anything else the cat has urinated on. My last cat started peeing outside of her litter box in her old age once her bad hips made it difficult to climb in and squat. For your use, I would remove the motherboard and shielding from the case, wipe down the shielding and case with distilled vinegar diluted with water, use a scotch bright pad (rough green side of most kitchen sponges) to get the surface rust off the metal, and wipe the shielding and case down with rubbing alcohol before reassembly. Being that there is no way the cat only pissed on the xbox, here are some suggestions from someone who has been through life with a cat with bad bathroom habits. On tile or hard surfaces, a mixture of distilled vinegar and water will neutralize the ammonia smell, baking soda will help absorb it from the surface, and hydrogen peroxide is a good disinfectant to let sit for a few minutes then wipe down. This will also work on white carpet or fabric, however use on any colored carpet I would highly recommend trying the peroxide on an area that is out of sight to make sure it won't whiten the material before using it anywhere that is out in the open. I suggest that because hydrogen peroxide can remove color from fabrics the same as bleach. Speaking of it, you may also be tempted to use bleach since it is great for cleaning and disinfecting, well, just about everything that isn't a colored garment. Don't ever use bleach to clean up cat pee as cat pee is high in urea that turns into ammonia. Read below for why along with a few very important things. WARNING: NEVER MIX VINEGAR AND HYDROGEN PEROXIDE TOGETHER AS IT BECOMES A CORROSIVE ACID THAT IS DANGEROUS TO BREATHE AND WILL IRRITATE SKIN. This is in higher concentrations, but the only safe way is to use them is in succession but avoid mixing them together entirely. NEVER MIX BLEACH AND AMMONIA (CAT PEE) AS IT BECOMES CHLORINE GAS WHICH IS HIGHLY TOXIC TO BREATHE EVEN IN SMALL CONCENTRATIONS. Trust me, I fucked up and found that out the first time the cat made a mess outside the litter box. Fortunately I was lucky and hadn't poured much before realizing the mistake when there was a pungent chemical smell and my eyes and nose started burning making me clear the room until I was able to ventilate everything out. In lower concentrations it can irritate the hell out of your eyes, nose, and throat and at higher concentrations it can send you to the hospital/kill you. Seriously dangerous shit. I know we are on an xbox forum and that is way off topic, but many people don't know how dangerous it can be to mix basic shit that's under the kitchen sink or use certain cleaners on certain messes and if I was going to suggest using stuff that can make harmful compounds if mixed together it would have been irresponsible of me not to mention the dangers. Hope all that helps.....

Never even seen that stuff before but it should do the trick without anything being visible. Thank you!

Lol.....I know and I was really hoping for a different answer than that. All 3 boards are set in the dim position (where the white mark is covered) and the picture below is the result. The controller ports are fine but the LEDs on the front button are insanely bright. The setting in XBMC when set to "OFF" dims it to a reasonable level, but the moment I start a game it goes right back to the original brightness as you would expect since the dash is no longer in control. If there is no way to control it through software or BIOS, I'm thinking about removing the front panel and using electric tape to cover the inside so that only the ring around the button allows light through. I have a feeling that may look like crap at most or drive my OCD nuts at the least. https://imgur.com/rEz1lsw

I wasn't sure where to put this, but here goes. I installed a XeniumICE massive bundle by Nemesis recently in a Halo blue console and a skeleton black (transparent gray). Everything is connected including the wires for the dim function on the controller ports. It looks absolutely awesome, but because the console is transparent the front panel LED's are brutally bright in a dimly lit or dark room. So bright that they distract from the TV while playing. This wouldn't be an issue if I was using a solid color console as the LEDs aren't directly visible, but that isn't an option. I found the demo too dim that was included in Nemesis' Xenium Essentials which dims during boot and in XeniumOS, and I found the setting in XBMC where the "Off" setting dims them, but the moment I load a game they are back to being staring into the sun bright. I know this is because once the game is loaded, XBMC is dropped until IGR is used to exit. I have searched endlessly and cannot find an answer as to how to dim the front panel LEDs all the time. Is this even possible? Any help at all would be greatly appreciated as I'm almost at the point where I'm going to remove the front panel and put electric tape in front of the LEDs, but I know that would look like hell and would drive my OCD nuts. Thanks in advance!

It is confusing why this worked when a hub was used. The only difference between a hub and a switch is a hub broadcasts all packets to all ports always and a switch will only broadcast until it locates the port with the other devices on it. Once the port the mac address of the device you are trying to communicate with known, packets intended for that device will only be forwarded to that port. If you only have two hosts on a network hub, everything will be fine. If you have 8 hosts on a hub you will see plenty of latency due to collisions where packets need to resent multiple times to reach the destination host. The host does not have any idea whether it is connected to a hub, switch, router, or directly with a crossover cable. The bottom line is short of a managed switch with some type of access control list applied, the network equipment should have no bearing on anything so long as you are sure everything on layer 1 (physical - nic, port, and cabling) is good. As someone early in the thread mentioned, I would be interested to see a Wireshark packet capture of you attempting a connection with both the failing setup and the setup that finally worked.

That's the one. Thank you!

Seems like the unicorn 1.5's are popping up everywhere recently. As far as upgrading, the chip or TSOP works as in you boot to a non Microsoft dash successfully?

Holy shit. Thought you were the same dude. Sorry about that! Lol.....I'm sure you do great work too, and part numbers would be awesome when you can. Trying to find anything on those websites without knowing exactly what you are looking for and how to search it out is pure agony.

Thank you for posting all that info Dave. That red board in the first shot looks like exactly what I'm looking for.

Even though Ryzee119 did an incredible job with the full kit with case, my OCD just kills me having all of that on the outside of the box. I snagged a Canadian crystal box back in 2005 off of eBay and ordered an X3CE and X3CP. The absolutely staggering prices those things are going for these days and how difficult they are to find has me not wanting to cut or modify any part of it as it is in pristine shape. I'm also not finding any "parts only" consoles that are at the right price point now either to source the controller ports from. I have a bunch of perf board from project kits I have from when I was learning to solder that would work perfect, just have no idea what kind of male and female plugs the controller ports use at the motherboard. I'm sure mouser or digikey has them, just having a hopeless time trying to find them there. Do you happen to have any idea what they are? Thank you much for all the help and unrelated, but thank you again for the OpenXenium kits! Your work on those kits I bought may as well have been done and sold by TeamXodus directly.

So I've been putting a lot of thought into internalizing the OGX360. Using a 2.5" drive would easily make enough room for everything in the hard drive caddy. My question is regarding the necessary usb wiring. Another post that mentioned the X3CP and that got me thinking. The Xecuter CP came with a board that had a header that plugged into the motherboard controller ports and split out into the two female type A ports. Would something like this be easy to reproduce to make it a plug and play solution as opposed to cutting and soldering? The board din't seem to have any components on it and simply split the ports and converted them to female type A connectors.

I've used PiPROM to read and write from two different 1.6 motherboards with no issue. ArduinoProm should yield similar results.How are you attaching the wires to the 3 pins on the LPC?

If your soldering skills are lacking, I would highly recommend installing the Alladin in the 1.0 box using the surface mount method as that eliminates the need to remove the solder from the LPC. EDIT: I see you already got it installed. Disregard.