Landsraat Posted March 6, 2021 Report Share Posted March 6, 2021 (edited) Hello. I wanted to upgrade RAM on my Xbox. First I TSOPed Cromwell inside and it booted. Then I soldered 4 RAM chips from China and Xbox started reboots and showed errors: Green, Green, Green50%-Red50%. After which I desoldered new RAM, but FRAG was still there. I guessed something was wrong with TSOP chip. When I got this Xbox it had some noname modchip from 2003 which I can't even guess clone what of. Anyway, error code switched to: Green, Green, Orange50%-Red50%. Which is RAM error, I guess. Now I think I should have tested it with each new RAM chip soldered. I only left original 4 RAM chips inside right now, but it still FRAGs. What can I do to repair it? Edited March 6, 2021 by Landsraat Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SS_Dave Posted March 6, 2021 Report Share Posted March 6, 2021 How did you solder/desolder the extra Ram Soldering iron, Hot air station, Heat gun? You possibly have a splash of solder shorting some were on the board. Cheers SS Dave Soft modding is like masturbating, It gets the job done but it's nothing like the real thing. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Landsraat Posted March 6, 2021 Author Report Share Posted March 6, 2021 (edited) 54 minutes ago, SS_Dave said: How did you solder/desolder the extra Ram Soldering iron, Hot air station, Heat gun? You possibly have a splash of solder shorting some were on the board. I used hot air station. I had a thought that I could accidently reflowed GPU because empty RAM slots location is pretty close to it, but I hope it isn't so. Not so skilled to be able to reball it. Capacitors near CPU were swollen, so I changed them (3x 6.3v/3300uf). What I found odd is that there are continuity between legs of said capacitors. Also, is it normal to have continuity between big ceramic capacitors like C5E2 near one of the RAM chips? Could I have fried some chip on board? Sorry for my camera is very bad. Upd: just for test I replaced all RAM chips with chinese ones and still got the same result: Red-Green on tsop, Orange-Red on modchip. Edited March 6, 2021 by Landsraat Added Upd Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SS_Dave Posted March 6, 2021 Report Share Posted March 6, 2021 Some things I see here are The way this chip is fitted looks like the soldering work is not that good Where the black arrow is normally a ground (pin 2) so it is relying on the screw at the red arrow to ground it so try soldering that 1/2 circle to the screw hole. If you disconnect the wire at the yellow arrow it should boot from whatever BIOS is in the TSOP. It also looks like possible short in the green square. When I do ram upgrades I always have Xblast on a modchip and fit 1 chip then test it before I do the next chip. Cheers SS Dave Soft modding is like masturbating, It gets the job done but it's nothing like the real thing. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Landsraat Posted March 6, 2021 Author Report Share Posted March 6, 2021 45 minutes ago, SS_Dave said: Some things I see here are The way this chip is fitted looks like the soldering work is not that good Where the black arrow is normally a ground (pin 2) so it is relying on the screw at the red arrow to ground it so try soldering that 1/2 circle to the screw hole. If you disconnect the wire at the yellow arrow it should boot from whatever BIOS is in the TSOP. It also looks like possible short in the green square. When I do ram upgrades I always have Xblast on a modchip and fit 1 chip then test it before I do the next chip. Cheers SS Dave Soft modding is like masturbating, It gets the job done but it's nothing like the real thing. Modchip is actually lifted with help of some pins, my camera can't capture it but modchip is grounded by 0.2mm wire (it was the same white one before, but I changed it for something more soft). White wire is D0 and it makes contact with the same trace as ground (I checked with a meter). I actually got tired of soldering it back and forth and just inserted it inside via which connected to ground. RAM isn't shorted, I rechecked that spot and nothing shorted there, it's just a little misaligned, but there's no short. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Landsraat Posted March 6, 2021 Author Report Share Posted March 6, 2021 I think maybe some power IC got fried, but I have no idea what IC to check and how. When Xbox starts it first reboots three times and first two with blinking Green light. Does Green here means whatever it checks is Good? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SS_Dave Posted March 6, 2021 Report Share Posted March 6, 2021 Green Flashing is a possible bad EPROM image. In this pic it looks like the chip need to be moved to the right. The 1/2 circle should line up with the screw hole. What happens if you boot with the D0 wire disconnected? Why does it look like all the original/factory ram has been soldered? Cheers SS Dave Soft modding is like masturbating, It gets the job done but it's nothing like the real thing. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Landsraat Posted March 6, 2021 Author Report Share Posted March 6, 2021 11 minutes ago, SS_Dave said: Green Flashing is a possible bad EPROM image. In this pic it looks like the chip need to be moved to the right. The 1/2 circle should line up with the screw hole. What happens if you boot with the D0 wire disconnected? Why does it look like all the original/factory ram has been soldered? Chip can't be lined up because it's elevated over board, I get ground from enameled wire 0.2mm - you can see it a little on that photo. What do you mean how ram is soldered? After first post I went and desoldered factory rams and soldered chinese ones just to test, haven't put factory ones back yet but result is the same, so I think even chinese chips are fine. If D0 is grounded I get Orange-Red (modchip has some ancient Evo bios), if not then it's Green-Red (tsop has Cromwell/XBlast). Modchip is working. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Landsraat Posted March 6, 2021 Author Report Share Posted March 6, 2021 (edited) 34 minutes ago, SS_Dave said: Why does it look like all the original/factory ram has been soldered? Sorry, I did not understand at first. I tried to test board with TSOPed Cromwell while desoldering original RAMs one by one. Still got FRAG with each one. And with modchip (Evo) it went to Green-Red instead of Orange-Red. When I put chinese RAMs inside it went back to Orange-Red. Edited March 6, 2021 by Landsraat Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SS_Dave Posted March 6, 2021 Report Share Posted March 6, 2021 14 minutes ago, Landsraat said: Chip can't be lined up because it's elevated over board, I get ground from enameled wire 0.2mm - you can see it a little on that photo. It just looks like it is 1 pin to thee right. Red/Green is a vague error .Green/Red Flashing The Xbox will restart twice, and then flash red and green. This is known as the FRAG and can be caused by many reasons. Typically when you receive this error you will not have any video. Possible reasons you may get this is a bad bios image, a bad bios chip, the Nvidia MCPX chip is damaged, broken/damaged traces or solder splashes on the motherboard. Orange/Red flashing Flashing Orange and Red (red and orange) usually means you have a lifted trace under the lpc pin header(the reset signal for pin5) - especially on v1.0 motherboards. Fixing red/orange tutorial: According to xbox repair guide, flashing red/orange error lights can also mean memory failure, but i would try this first. You do not have to remove the pin header; you can simply make both connections on the bottom side of the mobo to repair this and hopefully it will work for you. I have also seen ram IC's damaged from too much heat from using hot air stations set to high temperatures Cheers SS Dave Soft modding is like masturbating, It gets the job done but it's nothing like the real thing. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SS_Dave Posted March 6, 2021 Report Share Posted March 6, 2021 2 minutes ago, Landsraat said: Sorry, I did not understand at first. I tried to test board with TSOPed Cromwell while desoldering original RAMs one by one. Still got FRAG with each one. And with modchip (Evo) it went to Green-Red instead of Orange-Red. When I put chinese RAMs inside it went back to Orange-Red. Xblast will only work when you have 4 working original chip (stock 64 meg) Cheers SS Dave Soft modding is like masturbating, It gets the job done but it's nothing like the real thing. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Landsraat Posted March 6, 2021 Author Report Share Posted March 6, 2021 Just now, SS_Dave said: Xblast will only work when you have 4 working original chip (stock 64 meg) Well, I get Green-Red error on Cromwell with both original RAMs and chinese ones. 3 minutes ago, SS_Dave said: Nvidia MCPX chip Maybe it's him. Can it be sourced from somewhere or is it tied to motherboard? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Landsraat Posted March 6, 2021 Author Report Share Posted March 6, 2021 Oh, I forgot to mention that I have no video, so it's not an error with number. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SS_Dave Posted March 6, 2021 Report Share Posted March 6, 2021 1 hour ago, Landsraat said: Well, I get Green-Red error on Cromwell with both original RAMs and chinese ones. 1st I would remove the modchip and the pin header and clean the entire board, Then carefully inspect the whole board for solder splashes and have a look for damaged traces around the LPC. 1 hour ago, Landsraat said: Maybe it's him. Can it be sourced from somewhere or is it tied to motherboard? As far as I am aware that chip is not available as a part and you could get one from a salvage board but with out the correct reball tools you're unlikely to have any success changing it. Cheers SS Dave Soft modding is like masturbating, It gets the job done but it's nothing like the real thing. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Landsraat Posted March 7, 2021 Author Report Share Posted March 7, 2021 5 hours ago, SS_Dave said: 1st I would remove the modchip and the pin header and clean the entire board, Then carefully inspect the whole board for solder splashes and have a look for damaged traces around the LPC. I don't think there's problem with modchip or pin header because when I first encountered Green-Red error I didn't even had chip installed. Chip was removed right after TSOP and perfectly worked for months, I only put it back for test and that's when error changed to Orange-Red, and I guessed TSOP chip became bad and something happened to RAM. 5 hours ago, SS_Dave said: As far as I am aware that chip is not available as a part and you could get one from a salvage board but with out the correct reball tools you're unlikely to have any success changing it. Well, sounds like it's not an option. I have one more Xbox with Duo chip and it's working, but it's 1.6, and it won't boot with Bank0 selected. Don't know how to flash Cromwell on it or if it is even possible with such chip. Maybe hot-switch it when I will be inside XBlast OS? But I fear something like that will corrupt Bank1 then. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SS_Dave Posted March 7, 2021 Report Share Posted March 7, 2021 The DuoX2 chip is shipped with a EvoxM8 bios for all versions of Xbox and a BIOS (X2 bios) that is version 1.0 - 1.5 only so that is why is is not working in bank 0 in your 1.6 If you want to flash bank0 boot from bank1 then load up your bios flashing program and just before you commit to flashing change to bank0 the flash away. Cheers SS Dave Soft modding is like masturbating, It gets the job done but it's nothing like the real thing. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Landsraat Posted March 7, 2021 Author Report Share Posted March 7, 2021 6 minutes ago, SS_Dave said: If you want to flash bank0 boot from bank1 then load up your bios flashing program and just before you commit to flashing change to bank0 the flash away. You sure it's safe to do and Bank1 won't be broken afterwards? Because I fear it'll be like 1MiB TSOP in 1.0/1.1 where it can't be flashed with 256KiB bios or it won't work. I previously used XBlast to TSOP Xbox 1.2 via network. To make sure: when I'll be in XBlast and start network flashing service, then I need to flip a switch on modchip and continue to network flash on PC? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SS_Dave Posted March 7, 2021 Report Share Posted March 7, 2021 1 hour ago, Landsraat said: To make sure: when I'll be in XBlast and start network flashing service, then I need to flip a switch on modchip and continue to network flash on PC? Yes So at this screen before you click Upload and Flash move the switch on the DuoX2 to bank0 then click the upload and flash Cheers SS Dave Soft modding is like masturbating, It gets the job done but it's nothing like the real thing. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Landsraat Posted March 7, 2021 Author Report Share Posted March 7, 2021 1 hour ago, SS_Dave said: So at this screen before you click Upload and Flash move the switch on the DuoX2 to bank0 then click the upload and flash This screen confuses me. It says for Bank0 I need 512KB bios, but in my XBlast zip I only have "crcwell.bin" sized as 256KB. Are you sure I should flash it as is or I need to find some 512KB combo-bios with Cromwell+EvoX8? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SS_Dave Posted March 7, 2021 Report Share Posted March 7, 2021 That screen is for a Xblast chip you are safe to flash the Cromwell.bin to the DuoX2 bank0 Just change the bank switch before you click upload and flash. Cheers SS Dave Soft modding is like masturbating, It gets the job done but it's nothing like the real thing. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Landsraat Posted March 7, 2021 Author Report Share Posted March 7, 2021 9 hours ago, SS_Dave said: That screen is for a Xblast chip you are safe to flash the Cromwell.bin to the DuoX2 bank0 Just change the bank switch before you click upload and flash. I flashed Bank0 successfully and Bank1 still works in 1.6. I installed Duo X2 inside Xbox 1.2, but nothing changed: with Bank0 (Xblast) I still get Green-Red, and with switch to Bank1 (EvoX8 for 1.6) it's Orange-Red. Exactly the same result. I think, I'll just give up on this Xbox 1.2. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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