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Hey everybody, just dusted off my old OG Xbox after I learned about the clock capacitor issue. That sent me down a rabbit hole learning about softmodding, TSOP flashing, etc... 

So now the plan is to softmod, TSOP flash, upgrade to a 2TB hard drive, and upgrade to a nice 80mm Noctua fan. Also picked up a set of Microsoft component cables (the nice ones without the breakout box), an optical S/PDIF cable, and 2 original S controllers (I must have thrown mine away at some point). My wallet is not happy with me right now, but oh well.

Wish me luck! Also I'm wondering how many posts I need on here before I can access the downloads section? I want to check out the game info list to see which games have Dolby Digital.

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13 hours ago, RBBT said:

Hey everybody, just dusted off my old OG Xbox after I learned about the clock capacitor issue. That sent me down a rabbit hole learning about softmodding, TSOP flashing, etc... 

So now the plan is to softmod, TSOP flash, upgrade to a 2TB hard drive, and upgrade to a nice 80mm Noctua fan. Also picked up a set of Microsoft component cables (the nice ones without the breakout box), an optical S/PDIF cable, and 2 original S controllers (I must have thrown mine away at some point). My wallet is not happy with me right now, but oh well.

Wish me luck! Also I'm wondering how many posts I need on here before I can access the downloads section? I want to check out the game info list to see which games have Dolby Digital.

You sound like you've got everything in order.  I would highly recommend that you replace the thermal compound for the GPU/CPU as well. 

Welcome to the forum.  If you need any help, don't hesitate to ask.

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59 minutes ago, TEK Nemesis said:

Do tell, @Magicaldave.  I'm a newbie when it comes to doing the TSOP but I only ever softmodded first.  Are you using a signed xbe instead?

There are a couple ways to do it from what I understand. Using a signed .XBE is probably the easiest way if you don’t use a chip. I don’t know enough about the softmod exploit to say whether or not that part is even necessary but I’d imagine it is.

What I do is hook up an RPi, dump the eeprom, then format and manually build the hard drive on my Pc, including a .cfg for IND-BIOS and desired dash. Reason for that part is that I can’t get latest xboxhdm to BUILD a drive but it will lock them just fine. So I format them and then dump the files in using Xplorer360. 

Then drop in a chip equipped with the M7 recovery BIOS and flash on IND. could be adapted pretty easily for whatever BIOS/dash you wanna use.

I probably wouldn’t recommend this given that it is admittedly far more complicated and signing an EvoX dash would probably work just as well. But I lost my copy of Splinter Cell and don’t have any other reason to buy blank DVDs for HeXen or something, so it’s just what I happen to be equipped to do, and since it works I see no reason to bother changing. 

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16 minutes ago, TEK Nemesis said:

Either it's too late at night and I can't read well or you haven't indicated when you are writing to the motherboard's TSOP.  Please clarify.  Thank you.

Of course I can’t find the thread from this site. KaosEngineer explained it much better than I can. 

Here’s one on assembler, though: https://www.xbmc4xbox.org.uk/forum/viewtopic.php?t=7081

The M7 recovery BIOS is more of a tool for when you’ve done a bad flash. Not sure of exactly how it works because normally the system will only ever write to the LPC when you boot off a modchip, but the BIOS fixes that issue and also forces the system to boot from nothing but the DVD. Depending on the use case I’ll run an old Slayer Cd I’ve had laying around and copy some files from a USB drive to do a manual flash in EvoX, or boot HeXen and forget about it. Haven’t had a HeXen CD until the last day or two when I needed to use the BIOS for it’s intended use XD 

 

This is mostly just a method I worked out to get it all done without a functional hard drive or exploitable game. Can’t really get around the need for a DVD drive in this case. It’s possible, I think, to do things a bit differently and actually go through with the softmod, then flash, but this isn’t something I’ve figured out because I have enough dvd drives not to worry about it.

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2 hours ago, TEK Nemesis said:

I'm sure this method is way easier than wasting time on a softmod.  LOL.

 

It is if your system didn't come with a functional hard drive :P

I try to buy the dead ones on purpose because purchase price and shipping usually adds up to $15. Seen some functional stock consoles with wildly varying prices. One in box was $200 on a site I was browsing recently!

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2 hours ago, Magicaldave said:

I try to buy the dead ones on purpose because purchase price and shipping usually adds up to $15. Seen some functional stock consoles with wildly varying prices. One in box was $200 on a site I was browsing recently!

Crazy sellers and prices!  (Or is it crazy buyers who buy them for such a high price?) 

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3 hours ago, Magicaldave said:

It is if your system didn't come with a functional hard drive :P

I try to buy the dead ones on purpose because purchase price and shipping usually adds up to $15. Seen some functional stock consoles with wildly varying prices. One in box was $200 on a site I was browsing recently!

They seem to range from $25 up here

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On 6/5/2019 at 10:36 PM, TEK Nemesis said:

You sound like you've got everything in order.  I would highly recommend that you replace the thermal compound for the GPU/CPU as well. 

Welcome to the forum.  If you need any help, don't hesitate to ask.

That's a good suggestion, I hadn't thought of that. I think I have enough thermal grizzly sitting around to do the trick.

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Here's a picture of the clock cap area after I removed it in case anyone's interested. It leaked pretty extensively and there's some nasty looking corrosion, but the Xbox is still working and hopefully it'll stay that way! I gave it a good scrub with vinegar followed by rubbing alcohol. I wish I had known about this 10 years ago, but better late than never I guess.

Also everything went well with the softmod and TSOP flash. I went with EvoX M8+ off the 2018 Hexen disc, but I think I want to reflash one with the Evo logo on the boot screen removed. The hard drive upgrade also went smoothly, but I had an overheating issue after I did the 80mm fan swap. Turned out that the fan was sitting a little bit too high and when I tightened the case bolts down all the way they were actually squeezing the fan to the point where it couldn't turn. So for now I'm just making the bolts on the back side of the console snug rather than tight and it's working okay.

Now I'm trying the download the XVGM.rar torrent because it looks awesome, but it could really use some seeders! One seeder got me up to 9.8%, but now I'm stalled 😟

Lastly I want to rant briefly about Thermal Grizzly Kryonaut thermal paste. I know this is supposedly the best-performing TIM aside from liquid metal products (which is why I bought it in the first place), but this stuff is a nightmare to spread. It's just so thick, and it seems to stick to the little spatula they give you better than it sticks to the chip, so when you try to spread it around you just end up scraping it off. I ended up running out of it before I could get good coverage on the GPU, so I went with some very old Thermalright paste instead. That stuff spread great 😄

IMG_0111.JPG

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Yeah the spreader with thermal grizzly is a PAIN but it’s worth it. Personally I just get a drop on the chip and smash the heat sink down; works fine. 

I don’t know if you’ve mentioned what rev console you have, but IF your TSOP will support a 512k bios X2 might work for you. It doesn’t have a big gross logo like M8+ but it does replace the MICROSOFT text with XECUTER 2. 

I’m partial to IND-BIOS myself, it’s intro logo is kinda nasty but you can skip the intro altogether and it’s highly customizable. Plus, being 256K, it’ll flash onto any chip. 

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