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V1.0 - Frag


tmcwboards
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Hi,

I have a v1.0 that has recently started fragging, tries to start 3 times, and on the 3rd attempt, flashes red and green. No video. The hard drive spins up. A few weeks ago, it fragged a few times, but eventually it did start up, but now it won't.

I got it about 10 years ago, clock cap had leaked, so it was removed, and the board was cleaned up with vinegar and IPA. No damage to the traces as far as I could tell. It performed well in the years since. I've tested it with a second hard drive that was prepared and works in it normally, but same result.

I have tested the voltages on the 12 pin connector, and I'm only getting 11.49V on the 12V line. Also, seeing 2.54V on the PowON pin when the Xbox powers up; apparently it's supposed to be 3.3V. Other voltages are ok, 4.98 on the 5V, and 3.27 on the 3.3V.

Would these abnormal voltages cause the Xbox to FRAG?

Does anyone know what the PowON pin/line is for, is it a voltage from the mainboard back to the PSU?

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The power on should be ok at that as it's telling the power supply to start and the other voltages are a tad low but still ok

It the Xbox Mod-chipped,Flashed or Soft-modded?

I would be checking the caps near the 20 pin power connector, post a high quality pic of the main board.

 

Cheers

SS Dave

Those that can Hard-Mod. Those that can't Soft-Mod.

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Thanks for the input. So I shouldn't worry about the voltages?

The unit is soft-modded, no mod-chip, and never flashed.

It's a v1.0, so it has the 12 pin power connector, PSU is the Foxlink FTPS-0002 Rev. B.

I don't have a great camera here, but I've included a couple of closeups of the clock cap area and cpu area.

The caps look ok, but I know that doesn't always mean they are ok. I have a v1.2 that had bulging and leaking caps (below the CPU, 3 IIRC), but it was working fine before and after they were replaced.

Clock_Cap2.jpg

CPU_Caps1.jpg

Mainboard1.jpg

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It could be a symptom named "Xbox Coma Console".

This FRAGing occurs when the 1MB TSOP flash memory chip holding the stock BIOS has corruption in one of the 256KB banks.

The now defunct web site llamma.com has a tutorial for repair if it is a flash memory chip problem.  Look at their post captured by the Wayback Machine titled:

Coma Console Fix found

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Alright, I managed to follow the tutorial for all 3 combinations, but it didn't change anything.

Though the soldering was tough, I triple checked the jumper before and after, and fairly certain that the work was ok for all 3 combinations.

Am I right in thinking that if this didn't work, a modchip is unlikely to resurrect it either? And that the problem lies elsewhere?  Unless the TSOP is completely borked, but what are the chances of that?

If the TSOP is corrupted, is it possible to flash to it when the Xbox is in this state?

Edited by tmcwboards
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5 hours ago, tmcwboards said:

Am I right in thinking that if this didn't work, a modchip is unlikely to resurrect it either? And that the problem lies elsewhere?  Unless the TSOP is completely borked, but what are the chances of that?

If the TSOP is corrupted, is it possible to flash to it when the Xbox is in this state?

If that didn't fix it, a modchip may if in fact it is a BIOS problem.  If the problem lies elsewhere most likely not.  Chances of completely borked TSOP, possible.

Reflash now, not likely.  Remove the chip from the motherboard, flash it with an external programmer and reinstall it.

I'd try a modchip just to make sure it is not a TSOP BIOS loading problem.  The path to load the BIOS using the TSOP (parallel reading from the flash memory chip for v1.0-1.5 Xbox consoles) or a modchip (LPCbus) are different.

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Any mod chip with the cheapest been a Aladdin chip but there will be a wait because china has a small problem at the moment or any 2nd hand would be ok and last but not least the Open Xenium chip designed by one of the forum members Ryzee119 and if you go that way you might as well leave it in the Xbox.

Have a look on ebay for one

https://github.com/Ryzee119/OpenXenium

 

Cheers

SS Dave

Those that can Hard-Mod. Those that can't Soft-Mod.

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Ok, I got an Aladdin Advance today, and followed the instructions for installation. Had a bit of a job clearing the LPC pads of solder, but got there in the end.

Soldered in the header pins, the D0 to the LAN LED, and the BT jumper on the modchip, but the Xbox is still fragging.

I've uploaded a few pictures of the work.  Anything there I should be suspicious of?

Also, is there a guide for checking if the continuity is ok? For example, I'm getting continuity between pins 2 and 12 on the LPC header, but don't know if that is normal.

BT.jpg

D0.jpg

D0_LAN.jpg

LPC.jpg

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Thanks for looking and helping. It seems I misunderstood an installation guide I was reading.

I connected the D0 to a ground, and the Xbox is booting, but not quite there yet.

The splash screen is the usual Xbox one, but with an Evo X icon in the top left of the screen. However, after it goes through the splash screen, the screen goes blank, and the light on the front is solid orange. And it's a blank screen, not no signal. It also seems that if the power has been disconnected for a short while, and the Xbox rebooted, when the screen goes blank, the light will cycle through all three colours, but if it has been powered up, and switched off, and switched on again, solid orange light and blank screen.

I disconnected the hard drive and got that service screen with error "07" displayed. I tried with another hard drive I have for this Xbox, and it gives the same results. Any idea what might be wrong now?

Edited by tmcwboards
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Yes, it's been softmodded before. I'll have a go with the Hexen disk to see if I can figure that out, I've found that the processes from those disks are usually very straightforward.

One thing I noticed is that when the screen goes blank and the light goes solid orange, if I open the DVD tray, the Xbox will then go to the Xbox menu screen (memory, music, live, settings menu). Then putting in a disk will boot the game ok. Is this normal behavior?

I have a few more questions, if you don't mind. I'm very curious about what went wrong.

Based on what's been described, is it possible to know what exactly went wrong with this unit? Is it the BIOS, or TSOP that has gone bad?

Also, is it possible to reverse what went wrong? What I'm wondering is if the BIOS or TSOP chips have corrupt data, can they be restored with new data, and the modchip and D0 wire removed?

Or is the BIOS or TSOP chip irreversibly damaged?

And what would have caused the chip or data to go bad in the first place?

Thanks to everyone who helped here. It's great to see the unit come back to life, I thought it was curtains for it for a while.

 

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9 hours ago, tmcwboards said:

I have a few more questions, if you don't mind. I'm very curious about what went wrong.

Based on what's been described, is it possible to know what exactly went wrong with this unit? Is it the BIOS, or TSOP that has gone bad?

Also, is it possible to reverse what went wrong? What I'm wondering is if the BIOS or TSOP chips have corrupt data, can they be restored with new data, and the modchip and D0 wire removed?

Or is the BIOS or TSOP chip irreversibly damaged?

And what would have caused the chip or data to go bad in the first place?

 

The  million dollar question why deo electronic chips fail for no apparent reason.

I have had main controller IC's fail in car audio systems for no reason as well,  working one minute and not he next  after turning the unit off the on.with no sign of abuse.

It maybe possible to recover from a damaged TSOP chip

If you can get your hands on a chip writer remove the TSOP and reflash the BIOS to it then refit the TSOP chip.

Find a old main board of the same  version and swap the TSOP chip.

Both those options require above average soldering skills.

The last option is make or acquire  a recovery mod chip and that has a modified BIOS on it and links on the Xbox TSOP to ground to temporarily disable the TSOP and boot the Xbox ,The links to get removed at the correct time and order during the  boot process that will allow flashing the onboard chip providing the 2 flash enable links have been added...

 

Cheers

SS Dave

Those that can Hard-Mod. Those that can't Soft-Mod.

 

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SInce the eject ring turns Orange (usual indicator that a softmod is running), it needs to be removed for some configurations of a hardmod BIOS to work properly. You get a blank screen after the flubber animation plays and the eject ring changes to orange.  

Download, extract and burn HeXEn 2018 to DVD-R media and boot it.  Use the softmod cleanup option after TSOP flashing should fix things. Select menu option 3 then 5 then 2 - 3.5.2. Clean C partition after TSOP flash.

 

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1 hour ago, KaosEngineer said:

SInce the eject ring turns Orange (usual indicator that a softmod is running), it needs to be removed for some configurations of a hardmod BIOS to work properly. You get a blank screen after the flubber animation plays and the eject ring changes to orange.  

Download, extract and burn HeXEn 2018 to DVD-R media and boot it.  Use the softmod cleanup option after TSOP flashing should fix things. Select menu option 3 then 5 then 2 - 3.5.2. Clean C partition after TSOP flash.

 

Thanks for the info.

I tried that option, but I get a failure message saying...

"Batch process failed.

The last item was: No TSOP / chip dash found..

Action: rename"

I guess I don't fully understand what's going on, is the modchop acting as a TSOP or BIOS, or are they the same thing?

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The TSOP(Thin small outline package) is just the IC that holds the BIOS

So when people sat they TSOPed it what they really should say is the BIOS has been reflashed as the TSOP is a item not a procedure .

A modchip is also just a external TSOP chip that  overrides the on board TSOP chip and both hold a BIOS (Basic In Output System)

Is there any thing on the hard drive you really need ? If not use an option to setup a new drive.

 

Cheers

SS Dave

Those that can Hard-Mod. Those that can't Soft-Mod.

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54 minutes ago, SS_Dave said:

The TSOP(Thin small outline package) is just the IC that holds the BIOS

So when people sat they TSOPed it what they really should say is the BIOS has been reflashed as the TSOP is a item not a procedure .

A modchip is also just a external TSOP chip that  overrides the on board TSOP chip and both hold a BIOS (Basic In Output System)

Is there any thing on the hard drive you really need ? If not use an option to setup a new drive.

 

Cheers

SS Dave

Those that can Hard-Mod. Those that can't Soft-Mod.

Thanks yet again. I kinda thought it was as you've explained. I guess over the years, the description of the whole procedure/hardware/software has assumed its own way of describing itself, that its description has deviated from its actual meaning.

No, there is nothing on the drive that can't be restored from elsewhere, except maybe some game saves. I've already prepared a fresh drive for this unit, and it has a dash on it, ready for populating. If I really wanted to, I suppose I could unlock the hard drives, and then lock with a eeprom for a different Xbox, and use them in there, or transfer anything I needed out.

Or I could just TSOP (!) all my Xboxes, and use any hard drive as I see fit.

Just to add to your post #20, thanks for the info there, but that sounds a bit beyond my skills and equipment, so I reckon I will just leave it as it is for now. Main thing is that it works again, thanks to all the help here.

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That's good to hear that your on the home stretch to completing your Xbox rebuild. 

 

I unlock any and all my drive;s even the stock drive's that I am removing that way I can be used in any other modded Xbox or even a PC if you wanted.

With a hard modded (TSOP flash/ModChip) Xbox the Hard drive can be used Unlocked It's only softmod's than need it locked..

 

Cheers

SS Dave


Soft modding is like masturbating, It get's the job done but it's nothing like the real thing.

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