Duo X2 - Can't Launch Ms Dashboard

[Norrecito]

29 minutes ago, Ging3rguy said:

The duo as Dave mentioned in an earlier post comes with 1 bank a 1.6 and 1 for the rest when sold so the other bank has not been reflashed that is why it frags. If you have a pal box set to pal it should run your pal disks, try changing the video from ntsc to pal with enigmah. Are you using unleashx as your mod dash?
 

Just for clarification:

I have a PAL Xbox, it is set to PAL (I have verified this in UnleashX but the settings of the MS dashboard seems to say the same thing as I have no option to enable the high resolution modes) and all of my retail games are also PAL.

I turn the Xbox on with the "Eject" button so the modchip is disabled. The normal boot animation plays (NO evoX logo) and I am greeted by the MS dashboard.

I put in the retail disc of "Fable" and it plays without any problems. It is a PAL game. I put in the retail disc of "Dead or Alive 3"  and it gives me the "Invalid game region" message. Both games are PAL yet one of them plays and the other gives me this error message. I have tested a bunch of other PAL games (none of them were backups!) and only a small portion of them does not give me this mysterious error message.

I wanted to take this one step further so I have changed the region (with UnleashX) from "PAL" to "NTSC M" just for curiosity. (I hope this is the same thing that enigmah does) I started the Xbox with the modchip disabled but it has reseted back to "PAL".

I have read a little more about this modchip and the BIOS is listed as 2 x 512KB (512KB for each bank I guess). I was thinking whether the 256K BIOS I have flashed to it is the problem...but on the other hand, the same black screen issue happens with the modchip disabled so I am out of ideas right now.

With the modchip disabled, does the Xbox run with a retail BIOS?

[Ging3rguy]

9 minutes ago, Norrecito said:

Just for clarification:

I have a PAL Xbox, it is set to PAL (I have verified this in UnleashX but the settings of the MS dashboard seems to say the same thing as I have no option to enable the high resolution modes) and all of my retail games are also PAL.

I turn the Xbox on with the "Eject" button so the modchip is disabled. The normal boot animation plays (NO evoX logo) and I am greeted by the MS dashboard.

I put in the retail disc of "Fable" and it plays without any problems. It is a PAL game. I put in the retail disc of "Dead or Alive 3"  and it gives me the "Invalid game region" message. Both games are PAL yet one of them plays and the other gives me this error message. I have tested a bunch of other PAL games (none of them were backups!) and only a small portion of them does not give me this mysterious error message.

I wanted to take this one step further so I have changed the region (with UnleashX) from "PAL" to "NTSC M" just for curiosity. (I hope this is the same thing that enigmah does) I started the Xbox with the modchip disabled but it has reseted back to "PAL".

I have read a little more about this modchip and the BIOS is listed as 2 x 512KB (512KB for each bank I guess). I was thinking whether the 256K BIOS I have flashed to it is the problem...but on the other hand, the same black screen issue happens with the modchip disabled so I am out of ideas right now.

With the modchip disabled, does the Xbox run with a retail BIOS?

Use enigmah in your apps folder, hexen should have put a copy there if not use hexen to install it. Once you have set that to ntsc, reboot and load the m$ dash via unleashx, navigate to video and make sure you have the option to use 480 and 720.

[Ging3rguy]

Just now, Ging3rguy said:

With the modchip disabled, does the Xbox run with a retail BIOS?

Yes

[Norrecito]

3 hours ago, Ging3rguy said:

Use enigmah in your apps folder, hexen should have put a copy there if not use hexen to install it. Once you have set that to ntsc, reboot and load the m$ dash via unleashx, navigate to video and make sure you have the option to use 480 and 720.

I have just tried this. Black screen and I am returned to UnleashX. (Yes I have launched the game from the MS dashboard)

Just for curiosity I have turned on the Xbox with the modchip disabled and this time it has shown the high resolution options here as well. I have put in Splinter Cell (which did not work previosly) and it is still not working by saying "Invalid game region" but now this is at least fair as my Xbox has been switched to "NTSC" region.

What's strange however is that when I have put in "Fable" it did not give the same error message but simply launched it. The image was garbled up but I could still see the game playing. I expected an "Invalid game region" message here as I tried to launch a PAL game from an NTSC region Xbox.

Something is very wrong here. I wonder whether they messed up something during the installation of the chip. I might be able to take some pictures of the back side of the motherboard on next weekend.

Edited August 9, 2020 by Norrecito

[SS_Dave]

When you boot the Xbox do you get a logo on the top left of the screen?

 

Cheers

SS Dave

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

[Norrecito]

33 minutes ago, SS_Dave said:

When you boot the Xbox do you get a logo on the top left of the screen?

 

Cheers

SS Dave

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

When I start the Xbox with the power button then I do have the evox logo on the top left corner of the screen. If I start it with the eject button then I have no evox logo (this is what I mean by saying turning on the Xbox with the modchip disabled)

I have tried it both ways...the only difference is that with the chip disabled, I at least got an error message that could indicate why the game could not be launched. ("Invalid game region")

I could not launch most of my PAL games even if the Xbox has been set to PAL region with enigmah. It does not make any sense.

Edited August 9, 2020 by Norrecito

[SS_Dave]

That's why I link the BT on the chip to pin 9 (3.3 volt) so the chip is always on then it won't matter if you power on with the Eject or Power button.

If you see the Evox shield the chip and BIOS is working so don't do any more with the chip.

What size hard drive are you using ?

 

Cheers

SS Dave

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

[Norrecito]

5 minutes ago, SS_Dave said:

That's why I link the BT on the chip to pin 9 (3.3 volt) so the chip is always on then it won't matter if you power on with the Eject or Power button.

If you see the Evox shield the chip and BIOS is working so don't do any more with the chip.

What size hard drive are you using ?

 

Cheers

SS Dave

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

That is true but If I had removed the option to start the Xbox with the chip disabled then I would never see this error message I will keep it this way for now to help troubleshooting the problem.

The HDD I got is a 80GB maxtor drive. I have a hardmoded 1.4 Xbox with the same HDD model. I could do the same new HDD install with the Hexen disc on that one as well. That should verify whether the content of the HDD is the problem. (I don't think it is that simple though )

[SS_Dave]

I don't understand why you want to see a error message as error messages are bad and seeing error messages is not helping diagnostics.

 

Cheers

SS Dave

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

 

 

[SS_Dave]

If you have a working hard drive in a different Xbox try putting it in the Xbox thats not working.

 

Cheers

SS Dave

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

[Ging3rguy]

When you removed Rocky5’s softmod did you reformat the drive and do a new hdd install? 

[Norrecito]

7 hours ago, Ging3rguy said:

When you removed Rocky5’s softmod did you reformat the drive and do a new hdd install? 

Yes, Hexen started the process by formatting the HDD.

[SS_Dave]

Put the Hexen disk in the DVD drive and power cycle the Xbox

Then select TSOP/Modchip.

Then Chipped

Then New NTSC disk and enter the password AYBX

 

That should do a new install on the hard drive

 

Cheers

SS Dave

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

 

 

 

[Norrecito]

7 hours ago, SS_Dave said:

I don't understand why you want to see a error message as error messages are bad and seeing error messages is not helping diagnostics.

 

Cheers

SS Dave

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

 

 

Yes it would be better to not have this problem at all and so there would be no error message 

However as a Software Developer I clearly disagree that error messages are not helping the diagnostics.

UnleashX does not give me any clues why these games are not working. I am simply returned to the menu. I suppose there is a crash in a background or something but I am not sure how UnleashX works and whether it has a log or something that I could check. (Maybe I could look into this) This error message however (which comes with the chip disabled) at least gives me something that I could start on. Error messages could be misleading because the same message could be displayed for multiple different faults but they are still a lot better than nothing at all.

 

[Norrecito]

7 minutes ago, SS_Dave said:

Put the Hexen disk in the DVD drive and power cycle the Xbox

Then select TSOP/Modchip.

Then Chipped

Then New NTSC disk and enter the password AYBX

 

That should do a new install on the hard drive

 

Cheers

SS Dave

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

 

 

 

This is exactly what I have done when I did the new HDD install with the exception of choosing a PAL Xbox instead of NTSC.

[SS_Dave]

The error message when you boot using the eject button has nothing to do with games not loading

The error when powering on the Xbox with the eject is because the harddrive is not locked and while the chip is active the drive is happy to work in the  unlocked state and even a stock Xbox unlocks the hard drive as part of the boot process.

Are  the games your trying to play PAL or NTSC ?

Is the Xbox set to PAL or NTSC.?

and what games are giving you problems?

 

Cheers

SS Dave

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

[Norrecito]

13 minutes ago, SS_Dave said:

The error message when you boot using the eject button has nothing to do with games not loading

The error when powering on the Xbox with the eject is because the harddrive is not locked and while the chip is active the drive is happy to work in the  unlocked state and even a stock Xbox unlocks the hard drive as part of the boot process.

Seems like I have the habit of choosing the wrong terms when I try to explain my issue.

By "error message" I did not mean the screen with the error code that comes up when the Xbox could not boot for some reason. I have no such thing.

The HDD is LOCKED and by pressing the eject button to start the Xbox, it boots up without any problems.

The "error message" in my definition was the message that comes up when I try to launch some of my PAL games from there:

"Invalid game region. Make sure the disc is an xbox game. Remove the disc to continue."

YES all of my games are PAL and even the Xbox is set to PAL yet for some of them, I got this message 

22 minutes ago, SS_Dave said:

Are  the games your trying to play PAL or NTSC ?

ALL of my retail games are PAL.

23 minutes ago, SS_Dave said:

Is the Xbox set to PAL or NTSC.?

PAL

23 minutes ago, SS_Dave said:

and what games are giving you problems?

Burnout 3

Splinter Cell

Dead or Alive 3

Kingdom Under Fire The Crusaders

Kung Fu Chaos

Mortal Kombat Deadly Alliance

The Elder Scrolls III: Morrowind Game of the Year Edition

Halo

Project Gotham Racing

Star Wars The Knights of the Old Republic

Doom 3

...there could be many more...I don't own a lot of Original Xbox games.

[SS_Dave]

Can you load the Hexen disk again and go to option 4 and install Xblast to E: drive

 

I tried a version 1.6 Xbox with EvoxM8 bios and using a 16gb drive I installed hexen Pal version

The Xbox is set to PAL region  and the video output is NTSC

My Splinter Cell PAL and NTSC versions both load up to the select mission screen from a DVD and it made no difference if I cold booted with the game in the DVD drive or used launch DVD from the screen.

 

Cheers

SS Dave

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

 

 

[SS_Dave]

I also just used DVD2Xbox to coy the PAL SplinterCell to F:Games and the launches fine as well

 

Cheers

SS Dave

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

[Norrecito]

6 hours ago, SS_Dave said:

Can you load the Hexen disk again and go to option 4 and install Xblast to E: drive

 

I tried a version 1.6 Xbox with EvoxM8 bios and using a 16gb drive I installed hexen Pal version

The Xbox is set to PAL region  and the video output is NTSC

My Splinter Cell PAL and NTSC versions both load up to the select mission screen from a DVD and it made no difference if I cold booted with the game in the DVD drive or used launch DVD from the screen.

 

Cheers

SS Dave

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

 

 

Okay I am planning to do just that. What should I do with Xblast once it is installed? Seems like some custom OS to me that allows different thing to be changed for a modchip. 

Unfortunately I could only do this on next thursday as my vacation has just ended

I've also tried to copy the "non-working" PAL games with "Dvd2Box" as they are recognized by the Xbox and even the files seems to be correct when looking at them from the file manager. The Xbox can copy them to the HDD just fine but I get the same black screen when trying to launch them from there.

I wish I had own at least one retail NTSC game so I could check whether this problem only happens for PAL games.

[KaosEngineer]

21 hours ago, Norrecito said:

I wanted to take this one step further so I have changed the region (with UnleashX) from "PAL" to "NTSC M" just for curiosity. (I hope this is the same thing that enigmah does) I started the Xbox with the modchip disabled but it has reseted back to "PAL".

Changing video mode / resolution / region settings in UnleashX only affects the operation of the Xbox while it is running UnleashX.  Once you exit UnleashX to run any other app or reboot, the settings revert back to those set in the configuration EEPROM.

[Norrecito]

1 minute ago, KaosEngineer said:

Changing video mode / resolution / region settings in UnleashX only affects the operation of the Xbox while it is running UnleashX.  Once you exit, the settings revert back to those set in the configuration EEPROM.

Correct Using enigmah to change the region rather than UnleashX solved this issue for me.

[SS_Dave]

Xblast can edit the EEprom.

 

Cheers

SS Dave

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

[Norrecito]

I finally had some free time to check things out.

I have installed "Xblast" and looked around the EEPROM.

There was one thing I have noticed here: even though my Xbox was set to PAL (with Enigmah), the "GameRegion" field still showed as "NTSC-U".

Without a better idea, I have changed this from Xblast's menu (I have NOT edited the EEPROM manually) to PAL.

Now I get a different message when I try to load my retail (PAL) games from the MS dashboard:

"You can't play this disc because of the current parental control settings. Remove the disc to continue."

I went over the settings and there isn't seem to be a parental control enabled so I am kind of puzzled about this.

Anyway I have attached a picture of the EEPROM which was made BEFORE I have changed the "GameRegion" to PAL. Could you see anything else that is wrong here?

[SS_Dave]

Now you need to get to the M$ dash as that where the parental control setting is.

Under the setting tab

What version Xbox?

Cheers

SS Dave

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