Need help. Red green flashing.

[ProudNFLDer]

Totally green here so be gentle. I've spent a couple nights reading your posts and I'm just more lost haha. I've pulled out my OG Xbox v1.6 after about 16 years storage. It has a mod chip and a 160Gb drive. However I've got the red green flash on the eject button. If I smack it hard enough while powering on I can get to the dashboard, sometimes. Maybe a loose connection, maybe a failing mod chip, I'd love to hear opinions. Also wondering if I should even try fixing it or is there something else I should head straight for, maybe a different mod chip, bios, etc. Reading through the posts it's clear I don't even know where to start, what do I have, what I should do next. Any suggestions or help pointing me in the right direction would be much appreciated. I have a 9 year old little boy who is dieing to play dad's old Xbox Cheers

[MadMartigan]

First thing I would recommend is to look for bad solder joints on the pin header, under the board. Even if you don’t find any, it’s probably a good idea to give them a good reflow with the use of flux. Flux is important being how old and dirty these things are. It also doesn’t appear to have any wires for the chip, only the header. If that’s the case then it’s very strange that banging the console allows it to boot sometimes. Where are you banging on it to be exact? 

Edited January 24 by MadMartigan
Clarification on solder joints to check

[Bowlsnapper]

2 hours ago, ProudNFLDer said:

Totally green here so be gentle. I've spent a couple nights reading your posts and I'm just more lost haha. I've pulled out my OG Xbox v1.6 after about 16 years storage. It has a mod chip and a 160Gb drive. However I've got the red green flash on the eject button. If I smack it hard enough while powering on I can get to the dashboard, sometimes. Maybe a loose connection, maybe a failing mod chip, I'd love to hear opinions. Also wondering if I should even try fixing it or is there something else I should head straight for, maybe a different mod chip, bios, etc. Reading through the posts it's clear I don't even know where to start, what do I have, what I should do next. Any suggestions or help pointing me in the right direction would be much appreciated. I have a 9 year old little boy who is dieing to play dad's old Xbox Cheers

Since there is so little info to go on... The only thing I could suggest is that the pin header may have unstable solder points and having a partially functioning LPC CAN result in a FRAG (Flashing Read and Green). I feel like it's a dumb suggestion, but maybe try reflowing the solder points on the LPC? Perhaps banging at the right time is allowing the LPC to work long enough to load a bios through it. I think @MadMartigan is suggesting pretty much the same thing. Reflow any solder points. Could be that D0 is working but the MCPX is not able to use the LPC to load a bios unless you hit it right. That will cause a FRAG.  

Although, I think whenever an executable is loaded, the bios is called upon again so I'm not sure if my suggestion really holds water. Worth a shot though!

[Fringle]

2 hours ago, ProudNFLDer said:

Totally green here so be gentle. I've spent a couple nights reading your posts and I'm just more lost haha. I've pulled out my OG Xbox v1.6 after about 16 years storage. It has a mod chip and a 160Gb drive. However I've got the red green flash on the eject button. If I smack it hard enough while powering on I can get to the dashboard, sometimes. Maybe a loose connection, maybe a failing mod chip, I'd love to hear opinions. Also wondering if I should even try fixing it or is there something else I should head straight for, maybe a different mod chip, bios, etc. Reading through the posts it's clear I don't even know where to start, what do I have, what I should do next. Any suggestions or help pointing me in the right direction would be much appreciated. I have a 9 year old little boy who is dieing to play dad's old Xbox Cheers

I can't help but notice your username and wonder if you're from Newfoundland.  As the others suggested it sounds like a cold solder joint/loose connection on either the pin header or the D0 point.  If you're from the Island, I may not be that far away and could possibly help you out if you're not comfortable with a soldering iron.

[ProudNFLDer]

20 hours ago, Fringle said:

I can't help but notice your username and wonder if you're from Newfoundland.  As the others suggested it sounds like a cold solder joint/loose connection on either the pin header or the D0 point.  If you're from the Island, I may not be that far away and could possibly help you out if you're not comfortable with a soldering iron.

St. John's, Newfoundland to be more precise and I really appreciate the offer of assistance. However I'm quite comfortable with a solder iron. I put that mod chip in many years ago, so many that I can't remember anything about Xbox mods haha. Can't remember what chip it is or any of the steps involved with modding, I did a bunch at the time. All my sources were on mIRC so that wasn't yesterday. Any chance these mods chips all use the same install technique? There's a couple jumper wires on the bottom side of the board but before I reflow them I want to make sure I know where they go. Two are in a cluster of vias and want to make sure I have they correct ones. 

[Fringle]

3 hours ago, ProudNFLDer said:

St. John's, Newfoundland to be more precise and I really appreciate the offer of assistance. However I'm quite comfortable with a solder iron. I put that mod chip in many years ago, so many that I can't remember anything about Xbox mods haha. Can't remember what chip it is or any of the steps involved with modding, I did a bunch at the time. All my sources were on mIRC so that wasn't yesterday. Any chance these mods chips all use the same install technique? There's a couple jumper wires on the bottom side of the board but before I reflow them I want to make sure I know where they go. Two are in a cluster of vias and want to make sure I have they correct ones. 

It's all good.  I'm actually a bit of a distance from St. John's.  Live in Cape Breton but work as an Engineer on the Ferries.  The chip appears to be a variant of the Akira modchip.  You can view the different chips on this site: https://consolemods.org/wiki/Xbox:Modchip_Identification 

The wires you are seeing on the bottom are probably part of the LPC rebuild since it's a version 1.6 and D0 is possibly also connected on the bottom side as well.  The directions for rebuilding the LPC should be all the same for a 1.6 as well as the underside D0 point so any instructions you can find should be accurate.  I found this diagram in another thread here.

This is the underside D0 and I'm pretty sure it just needs to be wired to GND.

[MadMartigan]

Yes, LPC rebuild is a very strong contender on being your issue. It's worth mentioning that you can get a small pcb board that rebuilds the LPC much more easily than the older ways with the jumper wires. You may already be aware of these. I use them on every 1.6 these days. 

 

[ProudNFLDer]

2 minutes ago, MadMartigan said:

Yes, LPC rebuild is a very strong contender on being your issue. It's worth mentioning that you can get a small pcb board that rebuilds the LPC much more easily than the older ways with the jumper wires. You may already be aware of these. I use them on every 1.6 these days. 

 

That's looks very cool and I wasn't aware thank you. I'll try to reflow everything first and see how I make out. It did work and I've got 16 years of soldering experience since then so shouldn't be an issue. It's funny going back to look at your old work, shameful  

[ProudNFLDer]

Thank you too all for your replies. Reflowed everything today and booted right up, no issues. I did move what I believe to be a ground connection from the top side to the bottom. Followed the LPC rebuild connections as below that I found on another post here. 

[Fringle]

1 hour ago, ProudNFLDer said:

Thank you too all for your replies. Reflowed everything today and booted right up, no issues. I did move what I believe to be a ground connection from the top side to the bottom. Followed the LPC rebuild connections as below that I found on another post here. 

Awesome, glad it's all working perfectly now.