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Let me share some context: The past year, I read about the clock capacitor, so I decided to open my xbox to check the clock capacitor status and I found there was some leakage, but fortunatelly it didn't corroded other components nor traces. So I removed the clock capacitor and cleaned the area with isopropyl alcohol. Then proceeded to softmod the console with Rocky5 tools and I also updated the harddrive to a 2TB SATA HDD. Then I played almost all Rally Sport Challenge 2 cups (except the last one) to test it and after that I moved the console to the living room. Another day, I started the console to continue playing and, as soon as I started it, I heard a strong crack inside the console and some burned electronic smell, so I turned it off. Then I opened the console and I found a small tube moving around, so I started looking for its original place until I found it was one of the PSU capacitors, the one rated as 25V 47uf in a delta PSU. Then I ordered a couple of new PSUs from ebay, a delta and a minebea. As soon as they arrived, I replaced mine with the Delta one and the console can be powered on, but there was a strong burned electronic smell, so I quickly turned it off. By looking at the CPU capactitors, there was some brownish color, so I changed the 5x 1500uf 6.3v by 3x 3300uf 6.3v Panasonic FM, then turned the console on again and it was FRAGed and the smell it's not longer strong, BUT I still can smell a light "funny smell", this time it smells like "new" electronic. Please help me to throubleshoot this issue, I really would like to repair this xbox as it is the one I used 20 years ago. If you need pictures of anything please let me know.

Hey Guys, Im currently working on trying to fix a FRAG'd motherboard that I bought sometime last year. While normally I would just ditch the motherboard in a normal FRAG circumstance, this motherboard is special. Its a board that has the MCPX X2 chip instead of the retail X3 and has only 64mb of RAM. Im not entirely sure on what its history is, the person who I bought it from on Ebay didnt seem to know either so whether he is 2nd owner or even further down the line, im not sure. Either way im trying to do all I can to diagnose and fix the board so that I can turn it into a proper debug board that could maybe run stock un-modified Debug ROMs. Just a nice small little thing. Anyways, I had recently posted about this around a year ago asking if anyone had any X2 bioses and whether there was any main difference between a BIOS for a X2 and X3 other then the secret boot portion. After all that I built a Couple OpenXenium modchips and went to town on trying BIOS's. Ill note, the original 1mb ROM chip was FRAG'ing and at the moment i've pulled it and put it on a breakout but havent gotten around to reading it out. Anyways right now i've made a dumb variant of the Xenium firmware so that instead of doing all the smart stuff, it just boots and mirrors the first 1mb 16x across the memory space. I've also attached a stackable header to one of the chips so I could attach a logic analyzer I bought to read things out. So onto the results. While I haven't decoded the LPC address requests yet, based upon my initial inspection, it seems the system is requesting a set of data, and then just stopping. The clock still runs untill the PIC comes in and restarts the system since it didnt receive the special code. I've attached a photo to show what I mean. Im trying to work up a decoder for the analyzer so I can see what address its requesting and what data gets sent back. From what I see and speculate, it almost seems like a memory failure or something along the lines of that maybe? Im just thinking if the MCPX is requesting the first reset vector worth of data for the CPU but then nothing is getting transferred into ram, then it might not execute? Then again I didnt think things got transferred into RAM until the 1bl is loaded, and from what I figure from the capture, only about 16 bytes is getting transferred ( 16 LFRAME signals). If anyone has some suggestions, im all ears right now. I'd like to try and get this board up and running, but a FRAG state is hard to figure out and diagnose. If I cant get the decoder up and running in a bit here, i may just hand calculate the LPC transactions. And for those wondering, the bios im running is a patched 3944 bios. Patched as in I tossed the security 256 bytes into it. The dumb firmware works as I've tried it on a retail machine and it boots fine. If anyone is curious or wants a specific picture of the LPC capture, just ask and I'll see what I can do. Thanks in advance.

My V1.1 Xbox is triple fragging, this happened after I tried swapping out the 40 Pin IDE cable for a 80Pin one. I've done a bit of debugging and found that the LPC header pins 3 and 5 aren't reporting correct voltages both reading below 1v What I think has happened is when I installed the 80 Pin IDE cable I without knowing freed up one of the solder joints on the switch that's on the XeniumICE which switches it into recovery mode(I have resoldered the broken joint and it didn't change anything and yes the switch is in the correct position, though I've tried both positions and still a frag) and somehow that's caused something to get fried but I'm not sure what exactly Uploaded some pictures of my LPC header soldering and D0 point for shits and giggles I have done continuity tests to the alternate points and they're all reading with continuity https://imgur.com/a/rBbAdlR

So I done a ram upgrade which resulted in a freeze, red/orange then frag (wasn’t able to test 1 by 1), removing all 4 chips didn’t fix the issue. Attempting it again with another board, first chip was a success with xblast, second chip was installed by the cpu, xblast then froze when checking that chip and now that console is fragging, again removing that one chip doesn’t fix the issue. Are the boards dead or is there things I can try?

Hello everyone, Yesterday i was trying to repair my Xbox (wich is a 1.4/1.5, manifactured in 2003), i removed the clock capacitor and everything was fine (i dont care to put the date every time i plug it in) but from point blank it shut down and never came back. when i plug it in it FRAGs and i'm not getting out of this. This is my motherboard : https://imgur.com/a/ZycVKLW i have a modchip installed (not by me, but by someone in the early 2000s), but not a softmod as my xbox read only backups in DVD as far as i know. i made a post on reddit but i had no luck. i tried connecting my HDD to a PC with an adapter and it get recognized by the Devidce Manager but xboxhdm23usb and xplorer360 doesn't seem to detect it and i cant figure out why. i don't care to lose my data, but i just want my xbox back up and running, any suggestion is welcome, but i don't have a EEPROM reader nor a backup and neither a pc with serial port. help me getting this bad boy back to life

Hello. I wanted to upgrade RAM on my Xbox. First I TSOPed Cromwell inside and it booted. Then I soldered 4 RAM chips from China and Xbox started reboots and showed errors: Green, Green, Green50%-Red50%. After which I desoldered new RAM, but FRAG was still there. I guessed something was wrong with TSOP chip. When I got this Xbox it had some noname modchip from 2003 which I can't even guess clone what of. Anyway, error code switched to: Green, Green, Orange50%-Red50%. Which is RAM error, I guess. Now I think I should have tested it with each new RAM chip soldered. I only left original 4 RAM chips inside right now, but it still FRAGs. What can I do to repair it?

Hey all. Sorry if this has been posted, but I searched and couldn't really find anything. I have a 1.0 Xbox that was handed to me by a friend. He said he couldn't remember much about it, but that him and his kid tried to mod it a long time ago, and now it isn't working. Upon opening it, I found a pin header, no modchip, tsop points soldered, and the underside D0 pad ripped off. When I try to start the xbox, it cycles power 3 times then frags out. I'm assuming this is due mainly to the ripped D0 trace. I've tried repairing the trace, and bridging the two pads connected by the green line, but I can't seem to get the solder to stick. Is there any other way to repair this, or is this the only way? Relatively new to xbox modding so any tips would be appreciated. Thank you!

Hi, I'm having a really strange issue with some OpenXenium I've built that is driving me crazy. Basically, after flashing XeniumOS with Xenium Tool and hotswap method, on the first boot the modchip works fine: XeniumOS is loaded, I can flash other bios (and I can boot them!), so everything works as intended. However, if I reboot the Xbox the chip doesn't work anymore and the console FRAG. If I reflash XeniumOS it works again at first boot, but - as before - when rebooting xbox everything I get is a FRAG. I tried turning on with eject button or recovery switch, but nothing change. I tried different dump of XeniumOS and used also the official release of 2.3.1 XeniumOS. It simply acts as a modchip without any bios. It's really something strange because this is happening with all of the five chips I've assembled, with exactly the same behaviour. Thinking of a bad batch of Xilinx or flash I bought another set, but even with them I've the same issue. I really can't understand what's going on. It's like the flash get corrupted after every first boot of XeniumOS. The Xbox boots without any issues with Aladdin Xblast (which I use to do the hotswap method), so I don't think it's something related to the console. I've upgraded RAM to 128MB, but I don't think it's a problem for openxenium. I program the CPLD with a DIY Xilinx Parallel programmer and Impact (using .jed or .svf) without any error and CPLD works fine, it's recognised by xenium tools, I can change the colour of the LED etc. Any suggestions? I've searched on the internet, but could not find anything useful. Thanks

So a friend handed over his old no longer working Xbox 1.0. Basically your typical frag..2 to 3 reboots then the Red - Green lights with no video or audio. I opened it up..sure enough the clock cap was still there so took that out and here are some pics of the top and bottom of the MB: So I'm concerned with the first pic...is that trace rot along the lower edge of the mother board? I think thats exactly the bottom part of where the clock cap was...and there was a bit of acid there which I cleaned up before taking the pic...so could this be the cause of the FRAG? If so what are my options to bring this back to life? By the way this box has never been opened or softmodded.

Hello guys, This post will be somewhat long because I want to include as much relevant information as possible. I have a v1.1 NTSC-U Xbox console, which I purchased brand new back in 2003. I modded it with a Xecuter 2.0 Pro mod chip sometime around 2004. It worked great for 2-3 years with no issues whatsoever. Then, out of nowhere, it started to intermittently FRAG. Sometimes it would boot just fine, but other times the Xbox would flash red and green and require me to reboot it 10 times in a row before it would boot to dashboard. Also, sometimes the Xbox would boot just fine and work for 2-3 hours straight and then, for no apparent reason, lose the video output. Interestingly enough, it would lose the video output only, but not audio. I tried different BIOS versions as well as different banks on the Xecuter 2.0 mod chip, but to no avail. After all that, I decided that it was too much trouble and just stopped using this FRAGging Xbox. Fast forward to 2020, and I decided to connect this old v1.1 Xbox to my TV and test it out. It worked great for the first two weeks, but then started FRAGging just like 14 years ago. It behaves exactly the same way as it used to – it might boot just fine 10 times in a row, or it might FRAG 20 times in a row. I reflashed the BIOS again, but to no avail. I also noticed a few more things. First, the removal of the DVD drive and/or hard drive does not seem to affect the FRAGging at all. The console can still FRAG with both drives completely disconnected. Also, if the Xbox boots to dashboard with no issues, I can easily make it lose the video output by knocking on the table on which the Xbox is sitting or by touching the AV cable. If I reboot the console immediately after that, the Xbox would usually FRAG. Bad AV cable, right? Nope. I tried four different AV cables/adapters and this is happening with all of them. All said cables work perfectly with my v1.0 Xbox and no amount of knocking on the table or touching the cables can make this second Xbox lose the video output. Here is the list of AV cables that I tried with the same result (i.e. intermittent FRAGging on my v1.1 Xbox and no issues on my v1.0 Xbox): 1. OEM Microsoft Composite cable 2. OEM Microsoft AV pack 3. OEM Microsoft HD AV pack 4. Third party HD AV pack Here are a few more things that I did: * Sprayed the AV connector in the Xbox with DeoxIT D5 and inspected it for damage * Reflowed all solder joints on the AV connector, twice * Inspected the traces on the motherboard near the AV connector Here is a list of things that I could still do (but would rather not): * Stop relying on the AV connector. Instead, solder the wires to it and add component video and coaxial audio jacks to the back of the Xbox console. Unfortunately, there is no guarantee that this will solve the FRAG issue. This Xbox was used by an adult and was never dropped or abused. At this point, I am not sure what else I can do besides soldering wires to the AV port and adding audio and video output jacks to the back of the Xbox. Does anyone have any idea of what might be happening? P.S. The pictures of the motherboard are attached to this post.

So I’ve got an Xbox 1.0 that was opened before me when I got it. It flashes red and green after 3 reboots and I get no video please help!! 3 reboots and no video. I’ve changed a couple caps near the clock cap hoping it would be that but no luck. I removed clock capacitor cleaned the whole board with ipa and tested it and still no luck. Bought an Aladdin off eBay hooked it up and still nothing worked. Could someone have done a bad eeprom flash? I’ve ruled out the power supply already and even with the HDD and dvd drive unplugged it still doesn’t work. As far as I can tell the tsop points are not bridged . What else can I try to fix this?

Equipment Softmodded 1.4 XBOX, clock capacitor removed, EEPROM snagged Hello everyone this my first post! I have gotten my hands on a FRAG 1.4 XBOX, now where this unit differs from any of the traditional FRAG symptoms Is that if you leave the system unplugged over night you are guaranteed to get video and audio on the first startup, Sometimes it successfully boots into the softmod and freezes after 10-120 seconds once you reboot it refuses to go beyond the FRAG loop( i have even successfully booted a original game from the softmod menu froze after a while), on other occasions it hangs during the start up animation and you get awful audio static, reboot the system and you are stuck in the FRAG loop for the day. Anyone ever encountered a unit with these symptoms? I'm thinking this unit might not be fubar, I changed the cooling paste on the GPU and CPU didn't do anything. Just asking around before I go shotgunning and randomly replacing capacitors, any specific ones which tend to go bad?

Hey guys! So 2 quick questions here. Recently got my 1.6 with the red modchip installed, flashed and working with F and G on a new hdd. Works great. Problem is when I do the 2 triggers plus back and start to reboot, it frags. Power down and back up again and we are golden. Any ideas? Also. Got a v1.0 Xbox and removed the clock capacitor.l for safety. After I removed it the Xbox refused to boot anymore. Literally does the reboot 3 times then frags thing. Any thoughts? thanks!

So i have a 1.0 xbox that doesnt stay on, 2 times it goes on off and then stays blinking. Tried to install a aladdin chip and it does the same. Any advice? What may be the faulty part?

Hello, I have an original Xbox (can't determine which version, looks like 1.4 or 1.5) modded with Aladdin Advance. It worked well until today - I decided to update the bios with EvoX D.6 EjectFix (checksum 74c6235497f474bf88b54b3fc52a20b2). Bin file with it was placed on my HDD so I presumed that it's ok to flash it. After flashing, my Xbox turned off and when I turned it on, it startet to FRAG (two green flashes, then green/red flash with no video). What have I done? How I can undone it?

Hey Everyone, weird issue. I got a xbox 1.0 off ebay, it needed a DVD drive, ordered one and installed. System worked fine, I was able to softmod with no issues. I then removed the clock capacitor, fixed 1 trace that was bad for the power button (power/eject button work perfectly now, prior to this, no power button, but eject worked) soldered the 2 points for TSOP write (1 onto of mobo 1 on bottom) and proceeded to tsop flash the system using truhexen 2019.I have a 1.0 so I'm assuming a 1MB TSOP if I understand things I've read online, and loaded a 512kb bios from the hexen disk that was for 1.0-1.5, IRC it was x2. bios with F only, I was only given 4 options, all 4 x2, F and F&G, F 420p & F&G 420p. After the flash, the system rebooted and worked fine. I powered off system, removed the HDD and replaced it with what I wanted to upgrade to, and now all I get is FRAG, put the original drive back in, same thing. it attempts to boot 2 times, then the 3rd time its a FRAG. What might I have done wrong? Thanks everyone in advance! ~John

I grew up playing FPS on the PC, so it never felt natural playing them with analog controllers. I recently bought a used XIM4 and for me it makes a HUGE difference in gameplay, it actually feels like the games were designed from the ground up to be played with a Keyboard/mouse combination, minus the console button hints on the screen I also have an original XBOX and a PS2, so I'm trying to find used SmartJoy Frags for each of them. I know it won't be as good as the XIM, but I'm willing to try them anyway, as I'm intent on playing all HALO games, and I want to start with HALO 1 and 2, then eventually jump to the X360's Halo 3, ODST, Reach and 4. Every SmartJoy Frag I found for sale so far didn't include any of the original content: the Quick Start Guide manual, the Game Presets Table manual and the quick reference card. I did found an external forum topic from 2011 which included pictures of the complete packages for both XBOX and PS2, which I attached to this post Does anyone have any of these manuals, and is there any possibility of scanning them for Internet posterity and future reference?

Hi, I have a v1.0 that has recently started fragging, tries to start 3 times, and on the 3rd attempt, flashes red and green. No video. The hard drive spins up. A few weeks ago, it fragged a few times, but eventually it did start up, but now it won't. I got it about 10 years ago, clock cap had leaked, so it was removed, and the board was cleaned up with vinegar and IPA. No damage to the traces as far as I could tell. It performed well in the years since. I've tested it with a second hard drive that was prepared and works in it normally, but same result. I have tested the voltages on the 12 pin connector, and I'm only getting 11.49V on the 12V line. Also, seeing 2.54V on the PowON pin when the Xbox powers up; apparently it's supposed to be 3.3V. Other voltages are ok, 4.98 on the 5V, and 3.27 on the 3.3V. Would these abnormal voltages cause the Xbox to FRAG? Does anyone know what the PowON pin/line is for, is it a voltage from the mainboard back to the PSU?

Jargon Buster TSOP - IS THE ONBOARD CHIP THAT BOOTS THE MS BIOS , YOU WILL WANT TO BOOT FROM THIS FOR XBOX LIVE. LPC - THE HOLES WHERE THE MODCHIP CONNECT TO THE MOBO USING WIRES OR PINHEADER OR QUICKSOLDER METHODS. FRAG - FLASHES RED AND GREEN. THE XBOX IS TELLING YOU SOMETHING IS WRONG AND IT CANNOT BOOT POSSIBLY DUE TO POOR SOLDERING. BOOT - WHEN THE XBOX LOADS A BIOS AND STARTS UP THIS PROCESS IS CALLED BOOTING. BIOS - THE PROGRAM THAT IS STORED ON THE MODCHIP OR TSOP. IT'S EITHER MS OR HACKED (EVOX OR X2). PIN HEADER - 2 ROWS OF PINS THAT YOU SOLDER INTO THE LPC HOLES AND THEN SIMPLY PLUG YOUR CHIP ONTO IT. MOBO - SIMPLY MEANS THE XBOX MOTHERBOARD. D0 - THIS IS A LITTLE VIA ON THE TOP OF THE MOBO OR A SMALL PAD ON THE BOTTOMSIDE OF THE MOBO THAT WHEN GROUNDED PREVENTS THE TSOP BOOTING. VIA - A VERY SMALL LITTLE CIRCLE. YOU WILL NEED PRACTICE BEFORE YOU CAN SOLDER TO THESE. YOU CAN AVOID THESE ON EARLIER MODELS BUT NOT ON A V1.6 EVOX DASHBOARD - AN ALTERNATE DASHBOARD FOR THE XBOX THAT HAS A MENU TO LOAD GAMES , FLASH YOUR BIOS ETC. NOT TO BE CONFUSED WITH EVOX BIOS WHICH IS DIFFERENT AGAIN. EVOX DASHBOARD IS MADE UP OF A NUMBER OF FILES THAT YOU TRANSFER ONTO YOUR HARD DRIVE OR A CDRW. THE LATEST VERSION IS 3935. EVOX BIOS - A HACKED BIOS FOR THE XBOX , IT ALLOWS YOU TO PLAY BACKUP GAMES AND RUN COOL APPS LIKE EVOX DASHBOARD. THE LASTEST BIOS IS M8 PLUS. X2 BIOS - A HACKED BIOS FOR THE XBOX , IT ALLOWS YOU TO PLAY BACKUP GAMES AND RUN COOL APPS LIKE EVOX DASHBOARD. THE LASTEST BIOS IS 4983. HOT SWAP - THE NAME GIVEN TO THE TECHNIQUE OF BOOTING THE XBOX WITH ONE MODCHIP (WITH THE LID OFF AND THE DVDROM TURNED AROUND THE WRONG WAY) AND THEN UNPLUGGING THE MODCHIP FROM THE HEADERPIN AND REPLACING IT WITH A BLANK ONE OR ONE THAT HAS HAD A BAD FLASH AND THEN FLASHING THIS CHIP. FLASHING - PROGRAMMING A BLANK CHIP OR REPROGRAMMING A CHIP WITH A BIOS FILE. SPIDERCHIP AND ALADDINS NEED A 256K BIOS. DUOX2 NEED A 512K BIOS. ALSO V1.6 XBOX'S REQUIRE THE EVOX M8 PLUS V1.6 BIOS. OTHER MODELS CAN USE THE X2 4981 OR X2 4983 BIOS. FLASHBIOS - A SPECIAL BIOS THAT ONLY LETS YOU DO A FEW FUNCTIONS. (WONT PLAY BACKUP GAMES). ITS MAIN PURPOSE IS TO FLASH YOUR MODCHIP WITH A HACKED BIOS. LOCK - LOCKS A HARD DRIVE SO THE MICROSOFT BIOS AND DASHBOARD WILL BOOT. THIS IS NEEDED FOR XBOX LIVE. UNLOCK - UNLOCKS A HARD DRIVE FOR USE IN A PC. YOU MUST UNLOCK A XBOX HARD DRIVE BEFORE IT CAN BE USED IN A COMPUTER.

hi all, so i tsoped the 1.1 box i got with m8+ and it all went fine cleared out the softmod files and got it all set up to my liking. then tonight i installed xmbc for gamers to drive f as an app(just to try it), cleared the cache ejected the disk and rebooted, when i powered it up as the led lit you could hear an audible plop from the tv speaker it continued to boot, then stopped reset plopped again resarted as a frag but you can hear the harddisk running, the screen is just black. this box has been fine since i got it i have been using it softmodded since i got it just to see if it was stable, i just get it just as i want it then this happened out of the blue. does anyone know where i should start to look, thanks, aly (sinclairuser).

Hi, I have picked up a X3 CE that is fraging no idea of its history. I have tried to hotswap using an existing V1.2 box and working chip to load a bios. I have tried returning it to default settings and loading a X3 bios on 1-4 and 5-8. Also tried flash bios on 1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8 and backup. Also a 512 bios on 1-2, 3-4, 5-6 and 7-8. Tried ftping but no joy. Do you think it is worth trying to load a bios with disk? Any other ideas gratefully received. Thanks

I've got a v1.1 that I TSOPed with an x2 5035 BIOS and I installed a 2TB sata HDD. I was messing with the x2config file (to remove the stupid "Xecutor Rox my box" thing) and like an idiot, I checked "Disable CD boot". For whatever reason something about the config file results in a frag and I can't get the xbox to boot the hexen disc. Any tips? Xbox boots fine using stock HDD.

I have recently just installed a spare x3ce I have to an og xbox however some bits was missing, I dont have a switchboard or the cable to go to hdd/lan/d0 I have installed the pin header fine and connected the x3 and everything lights up fine i get 5v and 3.3v light ( I have soldered d0 on the back and connected it to the d0 pin on the modchip) however now the console frags. Im pretty confidant my pin header is installed correctly as I have ram upgraded the same board I just cant understand why the console keeps fragging. I have not connected the hdd/ lan but I didnt think that would make any difference? Also the console boots normally without the mod chip on but obviously hangs on the xbox logo due to the 128mb ram.

Ok guys got an issue that is getting on my wick. Slapped a 2.3b Lite into a 1.6, used a clone LPC Rebuild Kit and proceeded to boot the console. D0 was connected to the board and ground was connected to the screw hole as usual. As soon as you put power to the console it will boot up then reset 2 times before FRAGGING. Only when D0 is connected and chip is off. With chip on with M8 1.6 Bios I can get a boot with Evo shield but it hangs after that and still turns on as soon as a power cord is plugged in. Front panel doesn't work at all. Remove the chip or D0, and it'll boot fine to the original softmod it came from. I've reworked it with my iron, even given it a hot air rework. Which point is most likely the culprit? Apologies on the lead free solder. Was using a friends over my own.

I have a 1.0 Xbox that has the dreaded "Christmas Lights" flashing on the eject button. It tries to boot twice before doing its signature Red and Green flashing. Nothing is displayed on the TV so no codes are provided. It also makes a terrible noise when it fails to boot up. After tearing it down completely, cleaning everything top to bottom, removing the clock capacitor (which did not leak thank god), opening and inspecting the DVD drive then hooking everything back up I'm about 99% sure the condition and noise is being caused by a faulty HDD. My question is, assuming my diagnosis is correct, if I bought a SATA HDD (with the proper cables and converter) and installed an Aladdin XT Plus2 Modchip inside would it bring this Xbox back to life? Again, the theory is that the original HDD took a shat so I'm not worried about the DVD drive or motherboard. If there are any other steps I should take (EXCEPT softmodding and replacing the whole console) please let me know. If you require any other information I can also provide it for you. Thank you for your time and help on the matter!