Noob needs help dealing with Duo X2 chipped 1.6(b?) console

[lastninja]

Howdy. 8 years ago I bought my OG xbox and tinkered with it a bit - but never really found the time to really delve into it. I was confused by how it would boot differently with the power and eject buttons, I think I had attempted to softmod it before I realised it had a modchip installed and that was why it was doing different things with the different front buttons. I think at the time it might have booted with both buttons but I can't fully remember as it was so long ago.

Cut forward to 2024 and I finally had some time to look into it so am trying to get help with the various issues I've encountered.

Firstly, it would only boot with the eject button. The power button would go to an EvoX logo but then a black screen. The eject button would load into UnleashX dash.

When inspecting the board I noticed some bulging and a leaky cap, so bought a cap replacement kit (as well as a clock cap) to do a recap. I've only a tiny bit of soldering experience so it's a little daunting but I hope I'll be fine with it. I've only soldered a wire in my old NES to make it region free so far, so a complete noob at soldering. I also had planned to replace the thermal paste, as well as the stock fan and run power off the HDD power cable, and upgrade the stock HDD to a 250GB PATA I have handy. I assume I need to redo the HDD to get rid of the softmod. But the fact that the power button doesn't boot worries me a little about that part of the process. I don't have a replacement fan yet so was going to do that later on.

Today I opened her up to begin the process of replacing thermal paste and attempting the recap, but I forgot that there was a wire connecting the front buttons to my modchip. I must have accidentally pulled this off the pad when removing the drives to access the motherboard. I have read that you suggest to solder this to the chip itself so that it is permanently enabled, however will this cause me issues down the track since my modchip wasn't booting correctly with the power button?

Also the wire used for this was SUPER thin. I have some thicker wire I used for NES to ground the pin on the region lock chip to disable it. Would that work ok to use instead, if I removed the existing wire?

Should I just re-solder the eject/power button first to reduce potential issues with testing it out after recapping, replacing HDD etc? I forget which pad it was soldered to. Top left corner of the back of the front panel buttons I think? I can't seem to find instructions online.

How should I go about trying to get the chip working - just try installing the new HDD and that should get rid of the soft mod? If I do need to flash the chip, how should I go about that?

Sorry for lots of questions, just completely new to this process.

[lastninja]

Update, I managed to replace thermal paste with no issue. I also recapped, poorly, using too much solder on the CPU caps. It wouldn't power on. So I tried reflowing some of the caps, and also added some solder to the clock cap as that was the only cap I didn't use 'enough' solder on I think. Booted after that. I soldered the cable onto the power button again so I could test both the modchip and the softmod separately.

Now I'm done with the hardware issues (well, apart from my DVD drive being a bit 'sticky', still need to buy a replacement o ring for the eject mechanism - it works after I manually pull it out with the blunt end of a needle).

So I'm now up to fixing up the modchip and replacing the HDD. Using the eject or power button both load burned games on DVD-R. But the power button loads EvoX logo then black screen. Does this mean I need to redo the bios for it? It has a purple EvoX logo so I presume it's the 'right one' for this console being 1.6b model. I haven't tried the switch on the modchip.

Also the eject button loads up the softmod, UnleashX. I think it was already in this 'double modded' configuration when I bought it, because it has save files for things I've never played before.

What DVD should I burn to update the bios on the modchip? 

I presume I should get the modchip working before swapping the HDD over.. unless I should prepare the HDD in my PC first? Otherwise what will happen if I change the HDD without the modchip booting into a dashboard? Could I just 'fix' it up with a boot off the DVD I'll use to update the modchip?

I don't care about save files or retaining anything on the existing HDD.

[lastninja]

I tried deleting all the files on C:\ to remove the soft mod, then installed MS dash and Evolution X, but the mod chip will only load the XBMC.

I assume I need to update the bios of the modchip?

[Bowlsnapper]

9 hours ago, lastninja said:

I tried deleting all the files on C:\ to remove the soft mod, then installed MS dash and Evolution X, but the mod chip will only load the XBMC.

I assume I need to update the bios of the modchip?

Please be a bit more detailed. What installer are you using? Which partition are you telling the installer to install your dash to? I would honestly not continue using this chip, as it's kind of a headache, to be honest. But that is only my opinion. Maybe consider an XBlast Aladdin or an OpenXenium.

I would try to flash Cerbios. Evox is outdated and not really as useful anymore. There is no reason to use it as your bios. I do not know the flashing process for the DuoX, but it may be able to be flashed with the XBE version of XBlastOS. 

 

 

[lastninja]

2 hours ago, Bowlsnapper said:

Please be a bit more detailed. What installer are you using? Which partition are you telling the installer to install your dash to? I would honestly not continue using this chip, as it's kind of a headache, to be honest. But that is only my opinion. Maybe consider an XBlast Aladdin or an OpenXenium.

I would try to flash Cerbios. Evox is outdated and not really as useful anymore. There is no reason to use it as your bios. I do not know the flashing process for the DuoX, but it may be able to be flashed with the XBE version of XBlastOS. 

 

 

I'm terrible at soldering, it was a struggle for me just to recap the CPU + clock caps, so I'd be loathe to replace the modchip.. 

I ended up just using https://www.hazeno.com/home/hdd-upgrade-2tb-and-under to install, on a new HDD. Which is working well. But I'd still like to update the bios so I could use XISO format and things like that. How can I tell what bios I am on? Or what bios is compatible with the Duo X2? You think Cerbios or XBlastOS might work? Could someone that knows the Duo X2 confirm? I'd hate to brick it. It does have two bios slots so I could try on the other one I suppose. But I'm not even sure how I would switch it while it's running etc

I got the xbox 8 years ago so the bios is *at least* 8 years old, if not even older

Edited April 14 by lastninja

[TelaKeppi]

I was able to flash my DuoX2 with XBlastOS XBE version with the Cerbios Bios Flasher Disc. I chose 256Kb version since if i remember correctly Chinese Duo X2 clones don't actually have 1Mb split in half (chosen with the physical bank switch) but instead 2 x 256kb, so better safe than sorry. By default the Duo X2's came with 1.6 compatible bios in bank 2 so you might want to double check what you have in those banks and then flash the one that does not work (boot with the one that works, then flick the switch and then flash), then you have a backup if something goes wrong.