Aleter Posted January 18 Report Share Posted January 18 Hi to everyone. I have my original Xbox since when i was a kid and i remember of having it modified after some time. Some years ago i have removed the clock capacitor to preserve it, but recently i decided to change the hard drive and i discovered that i have several other bulged capacitors. For this reason, i want to recap the whole motherboard but then i discovered that the modchip is glued right under some of these leaking cap. From what i understand this is a very old modchip since it is soldered to a lot of points under the motherboard. What modchip could be ? It has also a switch to turn it off and booting strainght into the original dashboard. I was thinking of removing it to install a better modichip or to do a TSOP flashing. Do you think that i can remove it safely ? Before removing it, is it possible to use it to do a softmod or it is necessary to use a savegame exploit ? Otherwise what modichip could be a suitable choice ? I was interested in the OpenXenium project but these boards are pretty expensive here in Europe. The board should be a 1.4 revision since it has the Focus video chip. Thanks for all the Help. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
nikeymikey Posted January 18 Report Share Posted January 18 27 minutes ago, Aleter said: Hi to everyone. I have my original Xbox since when i was a kid and i remember of having it modified after some time. Some years ago i have removed the clock capacitor to preserve it, but recently i decided to change the hard drive and i discovered that i have several other bulged capacitors. For this reason, i want to recap the whole motherboard but then i discovered that the modchip is glued right under some of these leaking cap. From what i understand this is a very old modchip since it is soldered to a lot of points under the motherboard. What modchip could be ? It has also a switch to turn it off and booting strainght into the original dashboard. I was thinking of removing it to install a better modichip or to do a TSOP flashing. Do you think that i can remove it safely ? Before removing it, is it possible to use it to do a softmod or it is necessary to use a savegame exploit ? Otherwise what modichip could be a suitable choice ? I was interested in the OpenXenium project but these boards are pretty expensive here in Europe. The board should be a 1.4 revision since it has the Focus video chip. Thanks for all the Help. Holy shit thats been there a LONG time!! You should be good to just carefully desolder the wires and remove it. Use a temp controlled iron and plenty of flux and you should be able to get it off without issues. A hot air gun will be perfect for softening the glue so you can gently prise it away from the motherboard. Before you do remove it get a backup of the EEPROM/HDD key using Config Magic or Evolution X dashboard. This will be handy to have. The drive is likely locked so the console boots when the chip is disabled. You can use FatXplorer on a PC to unlock/lock/manage the HDD using the eeprom backup. After that you could just TSOP flash it instead of installing a chip but a chip is also an option. Personally I would only softmod it as a means to booting a disc with TSOP flash abilities. Once the TSOP is flashed, uninstall the softmod. Rocky5's softmod is the best to use as it has a nice installer and offers an uninstaller too. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Aleter Posted January 18 Author Report Share Posted January 18 (edited) Thank you very much, yes i have a temp controlled soldering iron and some experience with soldering, i will carefully remove all the wires. If i understood correctly this is a very early chip with 29 wires. Regarding the backup i'm quite afraid of turning on the Xbox right now because of the bad capacitors (the 3300uF are very bulged and are leaking). In order to change the cap i have to at least remove the glue from the board and move the modchip. I was thinking that maybe the best solution for me is a modchip, it is easy and i don't risk to mess something with the TSOP. I found an Italian stores which sells the Aladdin XT plus 2 with the Evox M8 BIOS flashed on for 20 euros shipped, is it worth it ? Edited January 18 by Aleter Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
nikeymikey Posted January 18 Report Share Posted January 18 2 hours ago, Aleter said: Thank you very much, yes i have a temp controlled soldering iron and some experience with soldering, i will carefully remove all the wires. If i understood correctly this is a very early chip with 29 wires. Regarding the backup i'm quite afraid of turning on the Xbox right now because of the bad capacitors (the 3300uF are very bulged and are leaking). In order to change the cap i have to at least remove the glue from the board and move the modchip. I was thinking that maybe the best solution for me is a modchip, it is easy and i don't risk to mess something with the TSOP. I found an Italian stores which sells the Aladdin XT plus 2 with the Evox M8 BIOS flashed on for 20 euros shipped, is it worth it ? The aladdin will do the job, just be wary that you probably wont be able to reflash the aladdin with another bios. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
herooftheday Posted January 18 Report Share Posted January 18 (edited) 2 hours ago, Aleter said: I found an Italian stores which sells the Aladdin XT plus 2 with the Evox M8 BIOS flashed on for 20 euros shipped, is it worth it ? Hi I would go to ali and also have a look there. I get them there usually for 10€ there are also flashed with evox but you could re flash them. I could also sent you an jafar chip with xblast on it. Edited January 18 by herooftheday Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bowlsnapper Posted January 18 Report Share Posted January 18 5 hours ago, Aleter said: Hi to everyone. I have my original Xbox since when i was a kid and i remember of having it modified after some time. Some years ago i have removed the clock capacitor to preserve it, but recently i decided to change the hard drive and i discovered that i have several other bulged capacitors. For this reason, i want to recap the whole motherboard but then i discovered that the modchip is glued right under some of these leaking cap. From what i understand this is a very old modchip since it is soldered to a lot of points under the motherboard. What modchip could be ? It has also a switch to turn it off and booting strainght into the original dashboard. I was thinking of removing it to install a better modichip or to do a TSOP flashing. Do you think that i can remove it safely ? Before removing it, is it possible to use it to do a softmod or it is necessary to use a savegame exploit ? Otherwise what modichip could be a suitable choice ? I was interested in the OpenXenium project but these boards are pretty expensive here in Europe. The board should be a 1.4 revision since it has the Focus video chip. Thanks for all the Help. ... dude, that is an entire IC soldered to teh board. That's a new one for me. I'm not even familiar with what those solder points are! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
KaosEngineer Posted January 18 Report Share Posted January 18 9 hours ago, Aleter said: Hi to everyone. I have my original Xbox since when i was a kid and i remember of having it modified after some time. Some years ago i have removed the clock capacitor to preserve it, but recently i decided to change the hard drive and i discovered that i have several other bulged capacitors. For this reason, i want to recap the whole motherboard but then i discovered that the modchip is glued right under some of these leaking cap. From what i understand this is a very old modchip since it is soldered to a lot of points under the motherboard. What modchip could be ? It has also a switch to turn it off and booting strainght into the original dashboard. I was thinking of removing it to install a better modichip or to do a TSOP flashing. Do you think that i can remove it safely ? Before removing it, is it possible to use it to do a softmod or it is necessary to use a savegame exploit ? Otherwise what modichip could be a suitable choice ? I was interested in the OpenXenium project but these boards are pretty expensive here in Europe. The board should be a 1.4 revision since it has the Focus video chip. Thanks for all the Help. That's a old so called 29-wire, more than 29 connections to the motherboard, OWNMod design. There are more than 29 wires - 32 I believe. But 29 are signal lines, address and data bus, the others are power and ground. It uses a 256KB EPROM or FlashROM to hold a modified Xbox BIOS. See: https://web.archive.org/web/20151009063717/http://www.xbox-scene.com/modchips/ownmod_diagrams.html Edit: It can easily be removed if you have experience soldering. Desolder all 29+ wires that connect to pads on the motherboard. I would leave all of the wires soldered to the EPROM/FlashROM.. Edit: Where do the wires from the switch connect to? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
KaosEngineer Posted January 18 Report Share Posted January 18 4 hours ago, Bowlsnapper said: ... dude, that is an entire IC soldered to teh board. That's a new one for me. I'm not even familiar with what those solder points are! They are the parallel Address and Data lines that run to the TSOP/OWNmod ROM to load the BIOS into the CPU to run the machine language code stored on the chip. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bowlsnapper Posted January 18 Report Share Posted January 18 12 minutes ago, KaosEngineer said: They are the parallel Address and Data lines that run to the TSOP/OWNmod ROM to load the BIOS into the CPU to run the machine language code stored on the chip. Okay. I was gonna say, it looks almost like a TSOP hardwired to the board. Do you happen to know what this chip is being used? EDIT: Oh you posted it. Nevermind and thank you! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Marty Posted January 18 Report Share Posted January 18 6 minutes ago, Bowlsnapper said: Do you happen to know what this chip is being used? I've always heard it referred to as the "29 Wire Mod". Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Aleter Posted January 19 Author Report Share Posted January 19 (edited) Thanks to everyone, so, as far as i understand, the modified bios is injected every time i power on the console, for this reason i can remove the chip without the risk of bricking the system. Regarding the chip itself there are no markings, i think that maybe the model is on the other side of the IC. I will post some photos after removing it. At the moment i'm still thinking about the right modchip to install. I really like the idea of something like the Xblast or the openXenium (project stellar is out of budget) but they are expensive and some shops neither ships to Italy. On the other hand the Aladdin XT is pretty cheap, but i can't change the firmware and there is no guarantee that these clones works properly. EDIT: i don't know where the switch wires are connected i will check and let you know. Edited January 19 by Aleter Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Aleter Posted January 20 Author Report Share Posted January 20 This morning i removed the old modchip, i used a lot of flux and a pair of tweezers to remove carefully each wire. All pads seems ok, but i will also check everything with the microscope. As for the chip itself, luckly was keeped in place with just some double sided tape so, with a tootbrush and a plastic spudger i manage to remove almost all the glue. Here are some photos where is visible the chip and the switch before the work, and after all the cleaning process. The flash memory is marked AMD and i took a photo. At the end i decided to buy a Jafar Xblast Modchip with a recap kit from Wired Opposite. I hope that everything arrive soon so i can finish the job. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bowlsnapper Posted January 20 Report Share Posted January 20 15 minutes ago, Thairanny said: Blessed to not be living in whatever age this is from. Sooo much more work that what we have now XD Seriously. I got an anxiety attack looking at the pic in the OP. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SylverReZ Posted January 30 Report Share Posted January 30 On 1/18/2024 at 11:26 AM, Aleter said: Hi to everyone. I have my original Xbox since when i was a kid and i remember of having it modified after some time. Some years ago i have removed the clock capacitor to preserve it, but recently i decided to change the hard drive and i discovered that i have several other bulged capacitors. For this reason, i want to recap the whole motherboard but then i discovered that the modchip is glued right under some of these leaking cap. From what i understand this is a very old modchip since it is soldered to a lot of points under the motherboard. What modchip could be ? It has also a switch to turn it off and booting strainght into the original dashboard. I was thinking of removing it to install a better modichip or to do a TSOP flashing. Do you think that i can remove it safely ? Before removing it, is it possible to use it to do a softmod or it is necessary to use a savegame exploit ? Otherwise what modichip could be a suitable choice ? I was interested in the OpenXenium project but these boards are pretty expensive here in Europe. The board should be a 1.4 revision since it has the Focus video chip. Thanks for all the Help. That is a 29-wire Ownmod, uses a similar diagram to the Enigmah and Xtender chips. I highly recommend you swap this out with something more modern and clean, such as an OpenXenium chip. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Aleter Posted January 31 Author Report Share Posted January 31 21 hours ago, SylverReZ said: That is a 29-wire Ownmod, uses a similar diagram to the Enigmah and Xtender chips. I highly recommend you swap this out with something more modern and clean, such as an OpenXenium chip. Hi, thank you, I have already removed the modchip and I'm waiting for the recap kit and the new modchip. I have opted for an Xblast which I will be flashing with Cerbios. Hopfully within the next week everything will arrive. 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
big F Posted February 5 Report Share Posted February 5 Cant be many of this kinda mod chip out there anymore. Very early mod chip method. Total history there. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Aleter Posted February 12 Author Report Share Posted February 12 (edited) Last week all components arrived and this weekend i managed to work on the console. Almost all capacitor replaced, I didn't replace the SMD ones because i don't have the right solder to do the job and i'm afraid of ripping away pads, also some of the smaller ones are still original but i have checked the ESR and all seems fine. Next I installed the Xblast modchip, and I make a rapid check of all traces near the leaking caps with the microscope. First boot without issues straight into Xblast. Then i followed the fantastic guide of Modzville USA to flash Cerbios and preparing the new sata hard drive. Here I found the first problem: the green SATA to IDE adapter didn't work, I reflowed all the joints but the adapter still dind't want to work. I managed to find an old 80GB IDE hard drive just to see if the formatting was right and if i was able to load any games. It worked perfectly, i've tested XBMC4Gamers and launched an .xiso game without any issue. The only drawback is that it is painflully slow (especially for games trasnfer) and very noisy (I don't know how many hours have that drive), for these reasons i have already ordered the startech adapter on Amazon and should be here today. Edited February 12 by Aleter 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
big F Posted February 12 Report Share Posted February 12 Good progress, and one more rescued from the abyss. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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