Xecuter 2.6 CE Failing?

[HDShadow]

I've had a Xecuter 2.6 CE chip fitted Xbox v1.6 since around 2005, bought pre-installed and flashed with two banks each a custom Evox M8+ BIOS I've never needed/wanted to change. AFAIK the second BIOS is exactly the same but with the logo removed.

All was working fine until last summer when I started to get occasional fragging on reboots/restarts. I found that if I swapped the banks it would usually boot correctly for weeks then suddenly the problem would reappear. I'd swap to the second bank and that would get it working again. So both BIOS are working but something else must be going on to cause this trouble.

Fast forward to last weekend and after six months without a repeat the problem has reappeared but this time nothing I've tried to fix it has worked, at least not fully. I left it for several days and I was surprised to find on restart it booted as normal but when I used the IGR the fragging started again.

I've dismantled the Xbox but haven't taken out the MB yet. The chip is surprisingly clean, almost dust free and seated firmly on the LPC. The top of MB soldered connections look perfect and are very firm and clean too. So maybe it is one of the underside connections.

Is there anything with those connections I should be looking for that might cause this behaviour?

It seems reasonable to think it could be a partially broken connection. Maybe a soldering point has dried out/cracked but if so why, until now, did swapping the BIOS banks get it working again?  It is getting on for 19 years old and has had a lot of use and I'm worried that the chip itself might have developed some serious problem.

Should also mention that with the chip off the Xbox boots without issue to an error 05 as you'd expect with an unlocked HDD. So that is more evidence it is just the chip.    

[Bowlsnapper]

4 minutes ago, HDShadow said:

I've had a Xecuter 2.6 CE chip fitted Xbox v1.6 since around 2005, bought pre-installed and flashed with two banks each a custom Evox M8+ BIOS I've never needed/wanted to change. AFAIK the second BIOS is exactly the same but with the logo removed.

All was working fine until last summer when I started to get occasional fragging on reboots/restarts. I found that if I swapped the banks it would usually boot correctly for weeks then suddenly the problem would reappear. I'd swap to the second bank and that would get it working again. So both BIOS are working but something else must be going on to cause this trouble.

Fast forward to last weekend and after six months without a repeat the problem has reappeared but this time nothing I've tried to fix it has worked, at least not fully. I left it for several days and I was surprised to find on restart it booted as normal but when I used the IGR the fragging started again.

I've dismantled the Xbox but haven't taken out the MB yet. The chip is surprisingly clean, almost dust free and seated firmly on the LPC. The top of MB soldered connections look perfect and are very firm and clean too. So maybe it is one of the underside connections.

Is there anything with those connections I should be looking for that might cause this behaviour?

It seems reasonable to think it could be a partially broken connection. Maybe a soldering point has dried out/cracked but if so why, until now, did swapping the BIOS banks get it working again?  It is getting on for 19 years old and has had a lot of use and I'm worried that the chip itself might have developed some serious problem.

Should also mention that with the chip off the Xbox boots without issue to an error 05 as you'd expect with an unlocked HDD. So that is more evidence it is just the chip.    

What I have started to just BARELY see is the beginning of these flash chips just going bad. Have you tried reflashing the banks and writing fresh data to them, as opposed to just switching banks?

[Marty]

Pics

[HDShadow]

^ ^^Thanks for the response.

As I've just posted in message to someone else here, the Xecuter 2.6CE chip, so I've read, needs special treatment. You can't just flash one bank with a new BIOS. The info I have is that you need to create a single 1MB file made up of 2 x 512KB BIOS and flash both the banks together in one go.

I neither know how to create that 1MB file nor care to risk blitzing the existing BIOS particularly when the evidence suggests that both the BIOS are OK. 

I'll try to get some pics up once I've unscrewed the MB and had a look underneath tomorrow. 

Edited January 30 by HDShadow

[Bowlsnapper]

16 minutes ago, HDShadow said:

^ ^^Thanks for the response.

As I've just posted in message to someone else here, the Xecuter 2.6CE chip, so I've read, needs special treatment. You can't just flash one bank with a new BIOS. The info I have is that you need to create a single 1MB file made up of 2 x 512KB BIOS and flash both the banks together in one go.

I neither know how to create that 1MB file nor care to risk blitzing the existing BIOS particularly when the evidence suggests that both the BIOS are OK. 

I'll try to get some pics up once I've unscrewed the MB and had a look underneath tomorrow. 

https://www.se7ensins.com/forums/threads/xecuter-2-6-bios-tutorial.11829/

Build the bios with X2BM:

https://mega.nz/file/8uFSFJaD#iXLBWx5LjSZxqfKGXd2QdLWE5AqZHdyw3y4ENyNhgQ8

Just there if you want them.

[fox]

I have 2.6ce that did the same thing, then it just croaked.

[Fringle]

The command you'd use to combine or merge two 512mb bios would be "copy /b 512BIOS1.bin + 512BIOS2.bin NEW1024BIOS.bin"  but remove the quotes.  File names used are just an example but the output file would be a 1mb bios consisting of two 512mb bios files.

Edited January 30 by Fringle

[HDShadow]

11 hours ago, fox said:

I have 2.6ce that did the same thing, then it just croaked.

Well that's comforting :(.

Photos of chip/MB etc. Apologies for average quality but I do not have a close-up lens for the camera I was using so had to use digital zoom. However I think they show the sort of detail required.

I was hoping when I flipped the MB over I'd see an obviously disconnected or loose wire (D0 perhaps) but just like the soldered wire on top of the MB, which I think is the v1.6 5v supply, the soldering on the three wires underneath still look bright and clean with the connections very firm. So whatever the problem is it doesn't seem likely to be a simple loose connection issue.

Did a bit of cleaning afterwards and put the whole thing back together just to check it was still functioning as before and...............................the damned thing booted perfectly using the primary bank (Evox logo). I did not want to stress it by trying a reboot or shutdown and restart, I was just glad it was working OK again.

However I did take the opportunity to re-backup the eeprom although I have plenty of full backups of it and C:\, E:\ drive content archived, somewhere.

Should it fail again similarly I think the best thing would be to get a replacement chip. If I can find an Open Xenium or similar can I just swap in that without having to do any rewiring or are some of the Xecuter 2.6 CE connections (see pics) chip specific?

 

 

[Peppie]

I have kind of the same chip just missing the red connector on the chip. I bought the xbox with this chip just last week and it had the symptoms you describe. Very hard to boot but it would boot readily with the chip set of. It has three selector. first one is chip on/off. causing it to start with original bios or the chip bios.

What I did was reflashed both banks and problem seems over . But what I also did was gave the switsches/slectors somewhat of a clean and switched them all more than a dozen times to free them of any corrosion on the contacts.

These switches can be bad too.

I would clean the switches just bij switching them a couple of times. If that did not helpI would flash them with new bios. I diid that with cerbios (2x256 Kb and cromwell 2x 256Kb).

Edited January 30 by Peppie

[HDShadow]

Quote

I have kind of the same chip just missing the red connector on the chip.

The red one on top of the the MB? As I mentioned in the previous post that's only used with a v1.6 Xbox which needs a separate 5v power supply. If you look at the pic above which shows the underside of the Xecuter 2.6 CE you can see printed on the PCB itself (in red) an arrow and info about that 5v connection being only for v1.6 Xboxes.

BTW I found a YT guide where a guy was replacing a Xecuter with an Open Xenium on a v1.6 and he actually removed the Xecuter's LPC board and used the supplied Xenium one which, presumably, includes the additional v1.6 5v connection. Should I need to dump my Xecuter in the future I'd want to avoid having to do that which is why I asked about whether it was possible to use the Xecuter LPC board with the Xenium.

That must surely require a separate, wired 5v connection too - is that possible to do with the Xenium?

The YT video guy mentioned the Xenium comes with some Kynar wire so I was wondering if that is why it was supplied.

 

[Bowlsnapper]

2 hours ago, HDShadow said:

The red one on top of the the MB? As I mentioned in the previous post that's only used with a v1.6 Xbox which needs a separate 5v power supply. If you look at the pic above which shows the underside of the Xecuter 2.6 CE you can see printed on the PCB itself (in red) an arrow and info about that 5v connection being only for v1.6 Xboxes.

BTW I found a YT guide where a guy was replacing a Xecuter with an Open Xenium on a v1.6 and he actually removed the Xecuter's LPC board and used the supplied Xenium one which, presumably, includes the additional v1.6 5v connection. Should I need to dump my Xecuter in the future I'd want to avoid having to do that which is why I asked about whether it was possible to use the Xecuter LPC board with the Xenium.

That must surely require a separate, wired 5v connection too - is that possible to do with the Xenium?

The YT video guy mentioned the Xenium comes with some Kynar wire so I was wondering if that is why it was supplied.

 

When it comes to the LPC, sometimes people can damage their board trying to remove it. I have personally almost always just dropped in a 2X2 pin header next to the 2X6. Quick, easy, functional. However, I DO make sure that the 2x6 is already nice and flat and that the 2x2 section has pins that match in direction, otherwise there CAN be alignment issues. But usually it's totally fine.

[HDShadow]

I'm a little confused now as to what the green and red wires under the MB are there for. Likewise the D0 wire which I thought the LPC rebuild board meant it was not required with a v1.6.

The YT videos I've seen show an Aladdin chip installed on a v1.6 with an LPC rebuild board working without any additional wiring that I could see.   

[Bowlsnapper]

1 hour ago, HDShadow said:

I'm a little confused now as to what the green and red wires under the MB are there for. Likewise the D0 wire which I thought the LPC rebuild board meant it was not required with a v1.6.

The YT videos I've seen show an Aladdin chip installed on a v1.6 with an LPC rebuild board working without any additional wiring that I could see.   

Based on their placement, I would say that those are leads for LAN and HDD activity LEDs, as well as D0. This is exactly the same cable on the X3 that you see the results of on the Control Panel (including D0). I wonder why this bundle is present on the X2.6, though. Never noticed it before. Where would the LED output be? Can anybody help me with this?

@HDShadow D0 is still required, although it is referred to as "Lframe" on the 1.6. Little different, but still serves the same function.  There is no reason why you can't swap with an OX chip.

[HDShadow]

Good to know. I was just wondering what extra wiring I might need.

As I understand it the top of MB red wire going to the transistor leg is for a 5v supply to power the chip on LED. I don't know if the Black Ice chip I've just bought (still in transit) even has an LED but I assume it does. So that wire will have to have the plug removed and be re-soldered somewhere.

I'm also not certain what to do about the Xecuter 2.6 CE's switch array. It's super-glued in place so it has to stay. The Bank select and Write Protect switches will be redundant (?) but it might be useful to be able to switch the chip On/Off and, although less important, just the chip LED. Both are catered for in the Xecuter's switch array but can it be adapted to make those functions work with the Black Ice?

Anyone know how?

 

 

Edited February 9 by HDShadow