RSMT modded Xbox rebooting in a loop

[JasperVanCleef]

Hi all,

 

I had originally posted in softmods regarding a softmodded Xbox that would throw an Error 07 whenever booting from a newly cloned drive.

Now, I can't even boot properly into the dashboard with the original HDD because it will just reboot constantly so I think this part of my problem might be more at home here.

Revision is a 1.1 (Kernel 4817). Softmodded with Rocky5's Softmodding tool (use SC Pal save exploit from a USB stick) - all went flawlessly.

Before putting the xbox all together, I thought I'd clean the underside of the motherboard and while I was at it, remove the old thermal paste and repaste. I used a hair dryer on low with a couple of temp spikes to speed up the process on the GPU.

After my problems with the new cloned drive, I gave up and thought I'd just use the console as is for now, cause I can still play my physical games. However, I'm confronted with a new problem :

It will do the boot animation and then 2 scenarii :

1) If I'm on my new Tv with my component cable (had to resolder everything cause I misinterpreted the schematics as being from the back but it now works properly as I see the boot sequence -s can this badly soldered cable have shorted omething?) : I get a black screen with the occasional flicker.

2) Now, on my LCD PC monitor I'll have either a) it boots and I can go about the menu and all, played a game (too scratched to really start but menu was there, buggy music but working).                                                         

                                                                         or b) the picture flickers and I catch a glimpse of the boot menu for a split sec and it disappears. I tried going to applications and enigmah to change it back to pal, but my monitor seems unbothered by that (recognises ntsc fine) and every time I press down, thinking I'll be in applications, next flicker I see of the menu, it's back at the top, meaning it's actually rebooted in the meantime.

Here's a video to visualise it : https://imgur.com/a/EmA5mmy

I've managed to have a stable boot and changed Enigmah back to Pal to be on the safe side.

Now, I checked for continuity on all traces, on MadMartigan's advice, and they beep effortlessly.

Here is a pic of both sides. I know top looks pretty gnarly but all was cleaned with 90% alcohol and cotton swabs. I didn't scrub it though. https://imgur.com/a/y72odPm The little transistor O7G1, right from the original clock cap on the second picture, looks a bit weird at the pads. Could this play a part? How would I test it?

 

Thanks in advance for your insights and time!

Cheers

 

 

Edited March 19, 2022 by JasperVanCleef

[MadMartigan]

You could possibly have something wrong with your AV outlet on the motherboard if you’re experiencing issues with different cables and monitors. 

[JasperVanCleef]

Hi all,

So I received the 80 wire cable from Chimeric and tested it out this morning. 

Didn't have much hope as the og cable should have worked with the og HDD.

It still flickers and seems to be rebooting when I boot into unleashx.

However I burnt Hexen on a dvd-r and it while it does flicker in the menu, it doesn't reboot and I can go about the menu. 

What's weirder is that enighmah doesn't flicker and works perfectly, so the video out looks ok?

 

Here are two videos :

https://imgur.com/a/kH1myvo

 

However, if I change it to NTSC my screen recognises it as NTSC446 instead of 60. 

I'm really at a loss!

Edited March 26, 2022 by JasperVanCleef
Added link

[KaosEngineer]

11 hours ago, JasperVanCleef said:

Hi all,

So I received the 80 wire cable from Chimeric and tested it out this morning. 

Didn't have much hope as the og cable should have worked with the og HDD.

It still flickers and seems to be rebooting when I boot into unleashx.

However I burnt Hexen on a dvd-r and it while it does flicker in the menu, it doesn't reboot and I can go about the menu. 

What's weirder is that enighmah doesn't flicker and works perfectly, so the video out looks ok?

 

Here are two videos :

https://imgur.com/a/kH1myvo

 

However, if I change it to NTSC my screen recognises it as NTSC446 instead of 60. 

I'm really at a loss!

In Hexen's UnleashX dashboard, go into the System > Settings > VIdeo Display page to disable / turn off PAL-60 mode.  Does the flickering stop?

 

Edit: I need to find the exact location of this menu option on the Hexen 2021 release.  Hexen is built upon UnleashX.  I think it is in the Xbox Admin section of the menu.

Edit 2:

Yes, it is there.  Xbox Admin > System > Settings > Video Display.  The sixth line:

• Enable PAL-60                           Yes/No

Press the (A) button to change the value. Next, scroll down to the bottom of the list to Save the settings then Exit the Video Display settings page.  Press (B) to go back one level in the menu.  Repeat pressing (B) until you get back to the menu level you want.

 

[JasperVanCleef]

13 hours ago, KaosEngineer said:

Yes, it is there.  Xbox Admin > System > Settings > Video Display.  The sixth line:

• Enable PAL-60                           Yes/No

Press the (A) button to change the value. Next, scroll down to the bottom of the list to Save the settings then Exit the Video Display settings page.  Press (B) to go back one level in the menu.  Repeat pressing (B) until you get back to the menu level you want.

Hi,

Thanks for your help!

It did solve the problem of the VERY unstable picture, so the picture stopped jumping up and down, at least when booting from the Hexen disc.

I removed it and had a very stable run on the UnleashX dashboard, goofing around looking at saves and all. It restarted out of the blue and now I had again the weird jumping / rebooting problem on the dashboard.
It's now sitting idle on the Hexen disc menu and the temps seem pretty high for idle (56m/b and 52cpu!). It's about 20 degrees in the room (all celsius), so that might be part of the problem? I repasted with a noname kind of paste. I didn't think it would make a difference because the stuff that was there before was atrocious but maybe it does?

M/b is at 59c now, CPU 53. The top is removed but the disc drive is in its bay, where it's supposed to be (I think that's the part that redirects the airflow to the GPU right ?), HDD is off to the side.

What I don't get is that this monitor does support 60hz so why would it jump up and down like that? It's going through a cheap composite to hdmi adapter but there aren't any problems when Pal60 is disabled. Also, it straight up won't go past the Xbox screen after flubber when outputting through the 360 component on TV. I bought another Xbox yesterday (1.6, wanted the 1.0 they had but could see it was highly corroded by looking at the sides).

 

I'm going to try the component with Hexen, I'll edit this post to tell you if it worked.

I still need to figure out the reason it won't work with the cloned drive too.

 

 

[JasperVanCleef]

Sorry I can't edit anymore, I thought I did earlier but must have forgotten to submit the edit.

So basically, with hexen in the disc tray, I'm able to use the TV via component, it works fine. I even switched it to NTSC and, first of all, HD on a console this old is amazing, so gutted we didn't get to enjoy in Europe at the time.

When I rebooted it however, trying to boot to unleashX, it went back to the loop of black screen -> backlit screen -> black screen, etc.

Could it be the hard drive on the way out? It does seem to click. That could also explain why I couldn't have its clone work (though it said it was cloned successfully in Chimp).

[JasperVanCleef]

Hi all,

It seems at last my problem is solved.

I will be posting the same answer in the softmod forum as I had opened a similar thread there, and some people might find some answers in here.

So, here's how it got solved:

1) My first problem came from the cloned drive not working properly, though the cloning part was successful and the drive was locked. I had the startech adapter, so I thought it must have been the cables. I ordered Chimeric's cable, still had the same problem (error 11).

Everything was connected fine, the dvd drive was working.

After some tinkering, I must have screwed something up as the xbox would fail to boot to dashboard and was in a bit of a loop. Sometimes the dash would appear for a split second, and be gone the next.

On KaosEngineer's advice, I disabled PAL60 and the flickering was gone on game discs, but the dash still failed to load consistently. After some digging around (it was perhaps obvious but I didn't know), I read a post by Rocky5, talking about his safe mode (START + Y on startup), and this saved me. As he said when the utility was running, I was "in good hands", and I would need to "be careful next time".

That solved my dashboard not loading, done!

2) There still remained the question of error 11 when plugging the new HDD in. Since that error means the DVD drive was not connected, I thought I'd try a DVD or CD for shits and giggles. First disc around was HeXEN. Popped it in, no Error 11 and the disc worked fine. I go around it trying to find useful stuff and thought I might as well try ConfigMagic. I went in there and clicked on "LOCK DRIVE". Chimp had told me the drive was already locked but, might as well try, Configmagic did say "Drive is already locked??", but...

I exited and rebooted, and now it threw error 21, so I knew something was up with the dash, but at least it was the right path. Used START+Y and now everything's good!

I don't know if configmagic helped in any way, I just know it works now.

Anyway, thanks for reading this wild ride and having helped in any way, shape or form, especially to KaosEngineer and MadMartigan. And of course thanks to Rocky5.

Now I'm done with the 1.1, I'm on to the 1.6 I bought for €60 (with dvd remote, controller and memory card - had never seen one for real before) because I thought the 1.1 was toast. Why are Xboxes so expensive now... when I see guys picking those for $4 at Goodwill, I'm jealous. And I had bought a cheaper one there a couple hours before, but upon checking it more closely, I saw it was fully corroded on the side (salesman hadn't let me handle the console...). I brought it back and they let me buy the other one instead.

Wife is okay with it so now I have two Xboxes

 

 

PS: sorry about the corny formatting, but maybe those colours are gonna help someone someday