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XBox V1.1: F-Variant Memory Chips Incompatible?


Oldnice
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Hi everyone,

I recently did a 128MB mod on an Xbox 1.1, which was successful. Console booted nice, and ran for hours while gaming, even with a small NV & FSB overclock. I decided I didn't hate myself enough, and decided to go even further and replace all the K4D263238M-QC50 on the board, with the Samsung K4D263238F-QC50-variant, which is said to be tad bit more efficient. Thought this might allow for even more OC (never enough, right?), but now I've run into issues after replacing all the memory chips on the board: The console boots, but only runs for 5-30 seconds, before the screen starts to glitch heavily, with the system freezing as well. If rebooted after a glitch, without a small pause, the system will not boot, and will flash a green light.

I've tried to do the following:

- Reflow all 8 memory chips 4 times in total. No improvement.

- Removed the extra 64MB memory, retaining only the original 64MB, just with the new F-variant memory chips. No improvement.

- Replace the remaining 4 memory chips with another, fresh, F-variant memory chips. No improvement.

Each time I complete a step, the end result is exactly the same: XBlast runs for the same 5-30 seconds, before glitching and freezing. I can run the memory test for the extra 64MB (when I had it installed), which always completes successfully, if I manage to run it completely before the system starts to glitch. If I connect a HDD, I can even boot iND bios with UnleashX, and everything works and shows correctly, before the system glitches and freezes. Always the same screen glitch effect, before freezing.

The Xbox is modded with an Aladdin XT+, with the XBlast enchanced 49LF080A-chip.

I can solder, remove or reflow the chips with confidence, with clear and clean solder jobs. I can share pictures, if required, but I'm pretty sure at this point that the solder job is not to blame. Have I nicked some important component somewhere with my solder iron? Are the F-variant memory chips simply incompatible with the 1.1 board? Anyone got any leads?

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5 minutes ago, Benur75 said:

Hello,

did you go back original frequency in your bios ? 233 Mhz for GPU and 733 Mhz for CPU ( did you change thermal past, are all you capacitors ok, is your psu 5V properly set around 5.05 ? )

bye

- Typically it already crashes in XBlast, which shouldn't be using any OC frequencies, and reports stock CPU speed.

- Thermal paste has been changed, and fan modifications have been made to the case. typical CPU & MOBO temp was 57C after 4h of gametime, for the last working 128MB configuration with OC.

I have not checked the capacitors, nor the PSU 5V line voltage. I can do both of these once my new multimeter/oscilloscope arrives. Are faulty capacitors or wrong voltage typically a cause for this issue?

...I'm this close to ordering new M-variant memory chips from Utsource, should I? Or should the F-chips verifiably work?

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13 hours ago, neighbor said:

not sure, my speculation is one of the RAM chips was overbaked. I would remove the chips which are on the board now, and plant by soldering the additional ones, which you removed earlier.

I already did this, twice. First I soldered all 8 F-chips. Then I removed the 4 extra, with an SMD rework station, and later on replaced the remaining 4 F-chips. All soldered chips were fresh ones, ordered from Utsource. I still got about 40 chips left, because I was going to use these for other projects as well. I tested the board after each chip installation, with absolutely no change.

For now, I'm going to order and replace all capacitors on the board. After this changes nothing (strong hunch), I'm going to order and replace the memory chips with M-variants. I'm really feeling like either the F-chips are not a compatible replacement for the original M-chips, or the board is broken in some other way. I'll update this thread with any new results.

 

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Failing capacitors can cause all sorts of problems and sometimes the cap looks fine.

The power supply would also be something I would also look at as adding the extra ram is putting more load on it let alone the overclocking

As an example I tested a unmodded version 1.0 MB  5 volt supply current and with no hard drive it had a peak of 7 amps on boot and the power supply is rated at 13 amps on the 5 volt rail I think your pushing it past it's limit..

 

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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2 hours ago, SS_Dave said:

Failing capacitors can cause all sorts of problems and sometimes the cap looks fine.

The power supply would also be something I would also look at as adding the extra ram is putting more load on it let alone the overclocking

As an example I tested a unmodded version 1.0 MB  5 volt supply current and with no hard drive it had a peak of 7 amps on boot and the power supply is rated at 13 amps on the 5 volt rail I think your pushing it past it's limit..
 

 

I'm actually glad to hear that it might be something other than memory incompatibility. I've ordered a 300 watt ATX power supply, along with N64 Freak's ATX->Xbox adapter. I've also ordered replacement for all the radial caps on the board (Panasonic).

Hopefully I won't have to replace the SMD capacitors as well, since there's a million of them on the board, but If all of this doesn't work, I'll wait for the oscilloscope to check pretty much everything on the board.

For now, I'm just waiting for the replacement caps, M-variant memories, oscilloscope, power supply and ATX-adapters... All of these would've already bought me a working DreamX back in the day, but I'd be lying if I said I wasn't having fun with this...

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I would say test with the new power supply 1st.

This is my test power supply for version 1.2-1.4 and I am waiting for a 12 pin single row connector to make an adaptor for the 1.0-1.1

It required 2 mods the 5 volt standby to 3.3 volt and a transistor to invert the power on signal from the Xbox with both built in the case then repin the 20 pin connector to suit a Xbox.

IMG_20200327_091613.thumb.jpg.3f29fa8818a2209ad37c50acec510549.jpg

 

When I was testing the current drawn by the version 1.0 I had to find heavy duty leads for my multimeter as the voltage drop on the standard longer leads I normally use was causing the Xbox to fail to boot or frag sometimes due to voltage drop 4.8volt at the power connector on the motherboard.

When I have done the ram upgrade I plan on testing the current draw again, That should happen in the next day or 2 as I need to be in the mood to that sort of work unless someone is paying me to do it.

I will come back to this thread and post the new readings when I have them.

 

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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If it's still fragging, (red/green), try to install the original ram chips, only the 4, don't do anything else until it's booting again. the console will only boot with the 64mb installed.

It's very easy to fail to install the memory chips, i upgraded already 2 xboxes and as I have aladdin xblast with blast OS I could test one by one each RAM chip installed and even this way I failed several times to install some of them causing the console to frag. The ram pins are very tight together and shorting is easy, also, if you are using the hot air method, try to apply with some pliers a bit of pressure in the middle when the solder is melted and let it cool holding it, then go with a fine tip in your soldering iron, apply some flux to the chip and go along the pin, pin by pin with the tip. In the end get a tooth brush, a lot of isopropil alcool (96% or more), scrub all the flux and absorb with toiled paper.

Also, with so much heating you might have caused a small crack in the PCB/traces or killed some memory chip. Don't go over 400ºC and pre-heat the surroundings first so it doesn't warp too much.

 

good luck.

 

Edited by VSpeed
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  • 4 months later...

Update for this issue: It's been "fixed", and the Xbox is running again. The Xbox is currently fitted with 8 * K4D263238K-UC50 memory chips, flashed 1MB TSOP with 2 SPDT switches for bank control, an Aladdin Xblast modchip, and has currently no outstanding issues, booting or otherwise.

Here's the detailed process to success, with accounts of my frustration included:

I've been back and forth with this board for a few months now, and never had it properly working. If it booted, it would crash within 2 minutes, and not boot again, until cut from the power for a few minutes. This was the best case scenario. At times, it just wouldn't boot, and would flash red and orange, or FRAG, or other similar issues.

Nothing seemed to work, so during the last few days, I had had enough. I decided to wash the area around the memory chips, by completely soaking the board with Isopropyl Alcohol, and brushing the board very heavily using a toothbrush. After drying for about 12 hours, the board actually booted, and remained steady for the duration of the day! Best I've seen from the board since at least a year. Of course, I again "broke" the board when unlocking the TSOP, by soldering the key points... No further cleaning helped. But it seemed that either the board had It's one last shout before dying completely, or there was some merit to the Isopropyl Alcohol process...

So I cleaned the board over and over, here and there, which did nothing. Until I finally removed the CPU & GPU heatsinks from the board, soaked the area with Isopropyl Alchohol, and brushed as much as I could, including under the CPU & GPU chips (Brushing the BGA on the chip edges). After a thorough spraying and drying, using cans of compressed air, the board booted again, and I haven't been able to break it since.

So apparently there was something conducting electricity and causing issues, near or under the CPU/GPU BGA, which the utter alcohol & toothbrush apocalypse succeeded in removing! I'm suspecting my shitty Weller solder flux, which tends to spray a lot of flux around when soldered, is probably throwing tiny lead balls around the board. I've had a lot of "bad luck" with many soldering projects in the recent year, despite absolutely beautiful solder joints, and this might be at least one culprit.

TL;DR: Shitty solder flux is probably spraying tiny metal balls around my projects, making every electronics project in my life an endless parade of horseshit.

If you're confident with your soldering skills, and your projects are having a fit, it's not the solder joints causing the issue!

 

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12 hours ago, bolofski said:

i have attempted a 128mg upgrade twice over the past couple of years, both ended with fubar boards, i dont think my soldering skills/eyes are up to the job, if anyone in the uk wants any old xbox boards ive got quite a few :)

How many is quite a few?

 


Cheers

SS Dave


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

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  • 1 year later...

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