Question About X-Changer Modchip

[NikoAE86]

Hi everyone I just have bought an Xbox with this modchip but I´m a little bit confused about what can I do with this modchip.Is there any modified dashboard or I have to install it myself?what are the functionalities of X-Changer? a little bit of help would be appreciate it

[KaosEngineer]

Any modchip holds at the minimum a modified BIOS that removes several of the security checks made by a stock BIOS.  Some modchips have their own OS that boots to allow the user to flash a BIOS to it, format a new hard drive making it ready to have files installed to it, FTP files to and from the Xbox's hard drive, backup the configuration EEPROM, etc., etc.

IIRC, the X-Changer requires its own Windows flashing software to write new BIOS(es) to the many banks it can boot from. Unlike other modchip, you cannot use the Xbox and Evoxdash or other LPC flashing programs to write a BIOS to it.

I'll gather together a few links to the Wayback Machine's captures of information on the X-Changer chip and post them soon.

[KaosEngineer]

Do you know which version of X-Changer modchip you have?  I believe there's a version 2 and 2.5.

[KaosEngineer]

Take a look at the all the information available through the Wayback Machine's captured content of teamxchanger.com's web site.  Some content may be missing but there's a lot of useful content available.

http://web.archive.org/web/20060106010757/http://www.teamxchanger.com/

[Poll300]

I wanted to ask I have xbox 1.1, dual bios with X-Changer installed, from what I have already read, it is not possible to upload bios by placing the bios on the \ bios partition, as it is done only from the CD or via the Internet, yes? and this disc should be a cd or dvd? and I record bios as on an album?
I recently discussed the issue of uploading the OC bios that I can not upload on a regular console with TSOP, apparently it must be a modchip installed in the console, I will be grateful for confirmation and some link to the topic in advance, thanks for your help

[KaosEngineer]

3 hours ago, Poll300 said:

I wanted to ask I have xbox 1.1, dual bios with X-Changer installed, from what I have already read, it is not possible to upload bios by placing the bios on the \ bios partition, as it is done only from the CD or via the Internet, yes? and this disc should be a cd or dvd? and I record bios as on an album?
I recently discussed the issue of uploading the OC bios that I can not upload on a regular console with TSOP, apparently it must be a modchip installed in the console, I will be grateful for confirmation and some link to the topic in advance, thanks for your help

According to the information I found, Evoxdash can flash the X-Changer modchip like you would any other modchip.  However, you have to a add line to the its configuration file, evox.ini, for it to recognize the flash chip on the X-Changer modchip:

In the [BIOS] Section, add:

Flash = 0x20e3,"XChanger",0x40000

Edit: There were several different X-Changer modchips so this information may not be for your exact revision of the modchip.

NOTE: XBlastOS will not work since it does not have the X-Changer's Flash Memory chip ID  in its list of devices it knows how to program.  Since XBlast OS is based on the Gentoox Loader, I believe it too will not work to flash a BIOS to the X-Changer modchip.

Which version of the X-Changer modchip do you have?

 

Edit: Before adding the line above to evox.ini, use Evoxdash's Flash Bios menu option to display the Manufacturer ID and Device ID of the X-Changer modchip's flash memory chip.  Post a reply with the value displayed.  Thanks.

[KaosEngineer]

On 8/14/2022 at 5:48 AM, Poll300 said:

I recently discussed the issue of uploading the OC bios that I can not upload on a regular console with TSOP, apparently it must be a modchip installed in the console, I will be grateful for confirmation and some link to the topic in advance, thanks for your help

I forgot to post a reply about FTPing to the console. 

You can transfer files to and from the Xbox's hard drive using an FTP (File Transfer Protocol) client to connect to the replacement dashboard's FTP server. UnleashX, XBMC4Xbox and it variants, Evoxdash and many other replacement dashboards for the Xbox to run an FTP server.  The stock Xbox dashboard does NOT.

The main reason to not flash an OC modified Xbox BIOS to the motherboard's TSOP:

What happens if it doesn't boot? You are SOL.  You can't write a different BIOS to the TSOP to get the console booting again.  Not all modchips have multiple BIOS banks (e.g., the Aladdin XT aka XT4032 modchips only have one bank). It the one BIOS refuses to boot, you are again SOL.  Unless you have an external programmer to remove the chip from the socket and reprogram it.  

With the TSOP, you would have to unsolder it from the motherboard, reflash it in an external programmer with a working BIOS, then resolder it or install a ZIF (Zero Insertion Force) TSOP socket on the motherboard.

If you are testing BIOSes, best to use have a modchip installed that supports booting multiple BIOSes so you always leave a known working BIOS in one of the banks to boot from it just in case something goes wrong with an OC BIOS.

 

 

[Poll300]

2 hours ago, KaosEngineer said:

I forgot to post a reply about FTPing to the console. 

You can transfer files to and from the Xbox's hard drive using an FTP (File Transfer Protocol) client to connect to the replacement dashboard's FTP server. UnleashX, XBMC4Xbox and it variants, Evoxdash and many other replacement dashboards for the Xbox to run an FTP server.  The stock Xbox dashboard does NOT.

The main reason to not flash an OC modified Xbox BIOS to the motherboard's TSOP:

What happens if it doesn't boot? You are SOL.  You can't write a different BIOS to the TSOP to get the console booting again.  Not all modchips have multiple BIOS banks (e.g., the Aladdin XT aka XT4032 modchips only have one bank). It the one BIOS refuses to boot, you are again SOL.  Unless you have an external programmer to remove the chip from the socket and reprogram it.  

With the TSOP, you would have to unsolder it from the motherboard, reflash it in an external programmer with a working BIOS, then resolder it or install a ZIF (Zero Insertion Force) TSOP socket on the motherboard.

If you are testing BIOSes, best to use have a modchip installed that supports booting multiple BIOSes so you always leave a known working BIOS in one of the banks to boot from it just in case something goes wrong with an OC BIOS.

 

 

Thank you for any information, of course, it is a pity that the console did not turn on after uploading the bios, I just have 3 consoles and I wanted to spend one on testing
and I will ask immediately because I do not understand http://teamxchanger.com/?page=flashbios 3. Burn it with a dummy file of ca. 100 MB, at "Downloads" on a CD (for most XBox Drives CD-RW, please use normal ISO not UDF). Should I record the image.bin image as a regular file and should I add something else to such a cd or just the bin image itself?

[KaosEngineer]

You create a data disc with the BIOS's dot bin file renamed to image.bin and add at least 100MBs of filler content to the disc so the Xbox's DVD drive will have a better chance of reading the disc.  Name the filler content file(s) such that they are listed in a directory listing before the BIOS file - image.bin. The filler, dummy content, doesn't have to be the dummy file they mention just any file(s) that are over 100MBs in size.

 

To me, it is much easier to connect your Xbox to your home network to use the Network flash option.  No CD/DVD to burn.

[Poll300]

13 hours ago, KaosEngineer said:

You create a data disc with the BIOS's dot bin file renamed to image.bin and add at least 100MBs of filler content to the disc so the Xbox's DVD drive will have a better chance of reading the disc.  Name the filler content file(s) such that they are listed in a directory listing before the BIOS file - image.bin. The filler, dummy content, doesn't have to be the dummy file they mention just any file(s) that are over 100MBs in size.

 

To me, it is much easier to connect your Xbox to your home network to use the Network flash option.  No CD/DVD to burn.

great thanks to KaosEngineer thanks to your information I recently managed to upload a new OC bios from the x-changer level via the network a short while I thought it did not work and suddenly flash started.
The console is stable for now, the question is because the Xboverclock information shows 755.9mhz and the console information 754.26mhz? does it show ok? sorry if this is a stupid question but i don't know

Below are the stock values of the CPU FSB and GPU:
- nv233 (nvidia default gfx clock 233MHz)
- fsb133 (CPU FSB default clock 133MHz)

Here you see the default command line to edit your bios:
"xboverclock -nv 240 -fsb 140 -o OCbios.bin bios.bin"

[Poll300]

On 2/8/2020 at 9:28 AM, KaosEngineer said:

Do you know which version of X-Changer modchip you have?  I believe there's a version 2 and 2.5.

I don't know how to check which version I have? at the very bottom of the window it says 2005 x-xchanger

[KaosEngineer]

2 hours ago, Poll300 said:

I don't know how to check which version I have? at the very bottom of the window it says 2005 x-xchanger

Easiest way I know is to take a look at it.

Xbox-Scene.com X-Changer v1 Pictures

Xbox-Scene.com X-Changer v2 Pictures

TeamXchanger X-Changer v2.5 Picture - two other pictures in the gallery only appear as broken images.

 

Edit:

I found the gallery archived with all three pictures at a different Team Xchanger web site:

TeamXchanger.com Gallery Web page

 

[Poll300]

Strange, I uploaded the bios to the xchanger bios oc, the system showed 755.xx mhz after restarting the console again in the settings in the system information shows me 732.xx mhz?  Why!!  In xchanger I updated bank A: 256kb.  

Edited August 18, 2022 by Poll300
Text error

[Poll300]

On 8/16/2022 at 3:47 PM, KaosEngineer said:

Easiest way I know is to take a look at it.

Xbox-Scene.com X-Changer v1 Pictures

Xbox-Scene.com X-Changer v2 Pictures

TeamXchanger X-Changer v2.5 Picture - two other pictures in the gallery only appear as broken images.

 

Edit:

I found the gallery archived with all three pictures at a different Team Xchanger web site:

TeamXchanger.com Gallery Web page

 

So it turned out that I have a 2.5 xchanger

[Poll300]

10 hours ago, Poll300 said:

Strange, I uploaded the bios to the xchanger bios oc, the system showed 755.xx mhz after restarting the console again in the settings in the system information shows me 732.xx mhz?  Why!!  In xchanger I updated bank A: 256kb.  

so I entered the chip settings and chose the boot from bios A and now the console sees 754.xx mhz but it's strange that the console does not start immediately with this bios oc !!! do I have to load the bios in the same way every time?

[sweetdarkdestiny]

As far I remember the XChanger has a quick boot option which will boot the 512kb bank when used. 

So expand your bios to 512kb, flash it to bank 2 and enable quick boot. 

POWER BUTTON: Takes you straight to the X-Changer Menu 
EJECT BUTTON: Quick boots up with your ‘Modded’ bios

Edited August 19, 2022 by sweetdarkdestiny