Modchip options for TSOP recovery

[Mu.]

My 1.2 has had a borked TSOP for the longest time, I've been using an Aladdin XBlast to make up for it but I know someone who could make better use of that modchip while I would rather go back to a flashed TSOP.

I know that some chips have features for TSOP recovery such as the XBlast Lite, but I haven't seen any of those for sale in a local capacity. Does anyone know what other options I may have here?

[Bowlsnapper]

37 minutes ago, Mu. said:

My 1.2 has had a borked TSOP for the longest time, I've been using an Aladdin XBlast to make up for it but I know someone who could make better use of that modchip while I would rather go back to a flashed TSOP.

I know that some chips have features for TSOP recovery such as the XBlast Lite, but I haven't seen any of those for sale in a local capacity. Does anyone know what other options I may have here?

I'm not sure.... programming the eeprom manually maybe, but that requires tools. As far as I know, the TSOP recovery doesn't work as described or as people think it might...
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TSOP recovery feature is available for 1.0-1.5 Xbox consoles. It allows you to flash the TSOP of your Xbox when booting from a modchip. TSOP recovery requires to have a working DVD drive and a DVD-R to boot from, like "heimdall's HeXEn xbox engineering disc" or "Auto-Installer Deluxe Disc".

 

For information, the Xbox console has 2 way of booting a BIOS: from onboard TSOP and from LPC port (where the XBlast Lite is). Depending from which one your console boots, the other one will not be accessible by conventional means. So if you boot from your TSOP, you cannot flash your modchip and if you boot from your modchip, you cannot flash your TSOP.

 

TSOP recovery also requires that you flash one of the BIOS bank of your XBlast Lite with a special hacked BIOS called "tsop_m7.bin" and boot from it. This BIOS will enable booting from LPC port while giving access to flash the on board TSOP.

 

 To summarize the mechanism, the special BIOS, coupled with a XBlast Lite, will start booting the console from the LPC port, then reset and restart booting from on board TSOP and finally switch back to LPC, mid-boot, to load the kernel of the hacked BIOS. So the feature rely on the fact that the TSOP to recover contains partially valid data to work. If you TSOP is blank or too corrupted, the TSOP recovery feature will not work. Also, if your TSOP is already flashed with a "modern" hacked BIOS (like Evox M8+, X2 5035 or others), there is a strong possibility that this feature will not work, at least with the special BIOS tsop_m7.bin. As of writing this manual, no special BIOS can recover a TSOP flashed with Evox M8+ or X2 5035 due to their different boot process compared to stock or more "traditional hacked" BIOSes. Technically, it is possible to create a special BIOS that would enable TSOP recovery for M8+ and others but such BIOS has not been created yet. TSOP recover feature will work all the time when a stock BIOS is already programmed on the TSOP.

 

For users who use the TSOP splitting feature of the XBlast Lite, please refer to the XBlast OS manual for more information on the "TSOP recover force bank" feature prior to attempting to do a TSOP recover.

 

The procedure to do a TSOP recover on XBlast Lite is as follow:

0- Ensure TSOP write-enable flash points as well as A15 signal are all soldered before attempting this procedure.

1- Flash a user flash bank with the special BIOS tsop_m7.bin

(optional for TSOP split feature users)Configure the "TSOP recover force bank" feature in the "Tools" section.

2- Insert a burned DVD-R to boot from in your DVD drive

3- From XBlast OS main (icon) menu, boot the bank on which you flashed "tsop_m7.bin"

4- If the operation is successful, you should see the following boot screen(there is no flubber animation before the big “X” screen shows up)

[pic of tsop_m7.bin boot screen]

5- The DVD-R should boot like normal. (Note that both Auto-Installer and HeXen discs take a really long time to boot on some consoles, seeing the top_m7.bin boot screen for some minutes is possible and expected).

6- Use your favorite Xbox program to flash your TSOP with a new BIOS. 

 

Tip: XBlast OS.xbe, Evolution-X dashboard, raincoat all support flashing the TSOP.

Tip: TSOP split feature users should use XBlast OS to flash their TSOP as it will detect the TSOP split and give you the option to flash the bank you want.

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But yes the lite is hard to find. I think you may need to desolder the TSOP and just have it programmed and then solder it back in, which isn't really a great option, of course. Your TSOP also might not even be writeable anymore and may have become damaged. No way to know that unless it gets hit with a programmer and then verified with the same programmer... as far as I know. Only other option I can think of is a new motherboard.

[fox]

9 hours ago, Mu. said:

what other options I may have

transplant a good tsop module from a working xbox? assuming your soldering skill is good enough

Someone please correct me on that if it's wrong, I've heard of tsop transplants being done. I know you can swap an eeprom module in an emergency (have done it myself).

[Bowlsnapper]

5 minutes ago, fox said:

transplant a good tsop module from a working xbox? assuming your soldering skill is good enough

Someone please correct me on that if it's wrong, I've heard of tsop transplants being done. I know you can swap an eeprom module in an emergency (have done it myself).

@sweetdarkdestiny Says he does them in 5 minutes. SO yes. It is done.

[fox]

31 minutes ago, Bowlsnapper said:

@sweetdarkdestiny Says he does them in 5 minutes. SO yes. It is done.

Thanks for verifying that, now I have another option myself in an emergency.

[MadMartigan]

6 hours ago, fox said:

transplant a good tsop module from a working xbox? assuming your soldering skill is good enough

Someone please correct me on that if it's wrong, I've heard of tsop transplants being done. I know you can swap an eeprom module in an emergency (have done it myself).

It’s more efficient to transfer everything to the working console, rather than brick it in hopes of fixing another.

 

15 hours ago, Mu. said:

I know that some chips have features for TSOP recovery such as the XBlast Lite, but I haven't seen any of those for sale in a local capacity. Does anyone know what other options I may have here?

Where are you located? 

[fox]

53 minutes ago, MadMartigan said:

It’s more efficient to transfer everything to the working console, rather than brick it in hopes of fixing another.

True, but it's really a matter of how much value he places on the borked unit. Some people may be sentimentally attached to a particular xbox.

[Bowlsnapper]

6 hours ago, MadMartigan said:

It’s more efficient to transfer everything to the working console, rather than brick it in hopes of fixing another.

 

Where are you located? 

You have XBlast Lites?

[sweetdarkdestiny]

18 minutes ago, Bowlsnapper said:

You have XBlast Lites?

ModzvilleUSA has some (not to sure if he's already set up to sell them), I have also still enough of them....

Point is, it heavely depends on the bios which is on that TSOP if a rescue is possible with an XBLast-Lite.

[Mu.]

16 hours ago, fox said:

transplant a good tsop module from a working xbox? assuming your soldering skill is good enough

Someone please correct me on that if it's wrong, I've heard of tsop transplants being done. I know you can swap an eeprom module in an emergency (have done it myself).

That's probably my best bet, its just a matter of finding a spare Hynix from a 1.2 board that's the biggest issue.

[sweetdarkdestiny]

54 minutes ago, Mu. said:

That's probably my best bet, its just a matter of finding a spare Hynix from a 1.2 board that's the biggest issue.

You can use any 32 pin tsop of any 1.2 - 1.4.

[Bowlsnapper]

4 hours ago, sweetdarkdestiny said:

You can use any 32 pin tsop of any 1.2 - 1.4.

THAT'S the beauty. If it's 256, you can use ANY 256.

Sweet, is the MCPX, or something else maybe programmed to work with a certain size TSOP, depending on what mobo revision it's in? What is it that restricts TSOP sizes to be the same size as the one they are replacing? Why can only that same size be used? Does it come down to the circuitry? Traces, etc?

[sweetdarkdestiny]

11 minutes ago, Bowlsnapper said:

THAT'S the beauty. If it's 256, you can use ANY 256.

Sweet, is the MCPX, or something else maybe programmed to work with a certain size TSOP, depending on what mobo revision it's in? What is it that restricts TSOP sizes to be the same size as the one they are replacing? Why can only that same size be used? Does it come down to the circuitry? Traces, etc?

Try to solder the 40 legs of the 1mb TSOP to the 32 pads on the later revisions. 

About the MCPX you should maybe ask Kaos. I would guess, that you could change the MCPX 1.1 -with a 1.4 and vice versa and the info about TSOP size etc. is just in the eeprom. That being said, I would think that you could maybe get a 256kb TSOP to work in a 1.0/1.1 but thats also just a guess. For the other way arround we wait till you managed to solder the 40 legs to the 32 pads.

 

 

[ChriZz]

15 minutes ago, sweetdarkdestiny said:

Try to solder the 40 legs of the 1mb TSOP to the 32 pads on the later revisions. 

About the MCPX you should maybe ask Kaos. I would guess, that you could change the MCPX 1.1 -with a 1.4 and vice versa and the info about TSOP size etc. is just in the eeprom. That being said, I would think that you could maybe get a 256kb TSOP to work in a 1.0/1.1 but thats also just a guess. For the other way arround we wait till you managed to solder the 40 legs to the 32 pads.

 

 

Side cutter regulates

[Bowlsnapper]

1 hour ago, sweetdarkdestiny said:

Try to solder the 40 legs of the 1mb TSOP to the 32 pads on the later revisions. 

About the MCPX you should maybe ask Kaos. I would guess, that you could change the MCPX 1.1 -with a 1.4 and vice versa and the info about TSOP size etc. is just in the eeprom. That being said, I would think that you could maybe get a 256kb TSOP to work in a 1.0/1.1 but thats also just a guess. For the other way arround we wait till you managed to solder the 40 legs to the 32 pads.

 

 

Ah. That would make it a bit prohibitive, yes.

[sweetdarkdestiny]

When I think about it, it could also MAYBE possible to solder a 1MB TSOP to the 1.2-1.4. Since you can split the 1MB into 4x256, you would just need to find out the right legs you have to solder which could make it a bit janky but could wörk. Needless to say you have to use wires for the install.

[Bowlsnapper]

6 minutes ago, sweetdarkdestiny said:

When I think about it, it could also MAYBE possible to solder a 1MB TSOP to the 1.2-1.4. Since you can split the 1MB into 4x256, you would just need to find out the right legs you have to solder which could make it a bit janky but could wörk. Needless to say you have to use wires for the install.

Might be a fun experiment, but damn.

[Marty]

2 hours ago, Bowlsnapper said:

Sweet, is the MCPX, or something else

When the MCPX is gone....it's gone.

It's the hidden villain when people go poking around probing resistors....following traces....

A voltage spike will kill your motherboard and you'll have no error code or indication that it's the MCPX.

[Bowlsnapper]

15 minutes ago, Marty said:

When the MCPX is gone....it's gone.

It's the hidden villain when people go poking around probing resistors....following traces....

A voltage spike will kill your motherboard and you'll have no error code or indication that it's the MCPX.

Well that explains a lot. lol. Would you say that a faulty MCPX could be the reason that comas occur and the TSOP is no longer bootable? So only a partial load occurs, preventing a FRAG but also preventing a successful boot?

[Marty]

Yes.

But a failed MCPX isn't to be confused with a "coma console"....they're different things.

The MCPX is essentially the motherboard's northbridge chipset....it controls certain functions of the motherboard. If that chip fails, you'll probably not have error checking or error codes to work from.

[Bowlsnapper]

23 minutes ago, Marty said:

Yes.

But a failed MCPX isn't to be confused with a "coma console"....they're different things.

The MCPX is essentially the motherboard's northbridge chipset....it controls certain functions of the motherboard. If that chip fails, you'll probably not have error checking or error codes to work from.

If a failed MCPX causes a coma... then why would that not be considered a coma console?

[Marty]

1 hour ago, Bowlsnapper said:

If a failed MCPX causes a coma... then why would that not be considered a coma console?

The "coma console" is a very specific symptom. The term coma doesn't just mean "it won't boot".

In many cases, XBOX's that exhibit the "coma" signs can be recovered. Just like the term "FRAG" shouldn't be used for every XBOX that won't boot to the dash.

Edited November 13 by Marty

[Marty]

I wonder if some people don't know that FRAG actually stands for "flashing red and green"....

[KaosEngineer]

XBlast Lite or Chameleon

[Bowlsnapper]

On 11/13/2023 at 2:35 PM, Marty said:

The "coma console" is a very specific symptom. The term coma doesn't just mean "it won't boot".

In many cases, XBOX's that exhibit the "coma" signs can be recovered. Just like the term "FRAG" shouldn't be used for every XBOX that won't boot to the dash.

To me, it means booting with no video output and a solid green light, which to me, means that the bios has only partially loaded. So the only productive advice I can offer is to boot using a different flash device altogether.