Finally, I'm going to mod my Xbox..help?!?

[liveinabin]

OK, the lure of being able to play emulators on the TV has proved too strong, I'm going to mod the Xbox.

Now, I can't solder very well at all and one of the solderless options is looking really good to me, particularly the 'Spider' chip (as it also fits easily into a v1.6 Xbox, which mine probably is).

 

A couple of things I need to ask the experts here:-

1) Is that spider chip thing OK? If not, what?

 

2) I use Mac OSX exclusively, how easy it is to set this all up from a Mac?

I've got a router (which the Xbox is also connected to) so some ftp help would also be very cool indeed.

 

Thanks guys

[jeepnut24]

Go to xboxscene.com all your questions and then some will be answered.

[Starscream]

Do not even consider the Spider Chip. Poorly designed, frustrating, and overall junk. If you have a 1.6 and can't solder, then I would wait until the Xenium solderless Pro adapter. It should be out any day now and you can get it with the Xenium chip, which I believe, to be the best on the market. The whole deal is around $70 (US). For right now, no other solderless solution is available for 1.6's except the Spider Chip but as I said, avoid it. A link below is a good read on the Xenium adapter:

 

http://forums.xbox-scene.com/index.php?sho...howtopic=357608

 

You should be able to do everything from a Mac I would think except for Bios making and a few other programs that I do not believe are available to Mac users. No worries, there a few of us here that can help you out and if you aren't going to get into anything other than Emulators, movies and games, you should be able to do it all yourself

[hex65000]

Interesting. I was considering the Xecutor 3.0 kit myself. If only because they have had time to refine their unit. What research I've absorbed is that the X-crate modchip scene is pretty dang sophisticated. I mean first up, synthisis tools and FPGA blowers do not come cheap by a long shot. And the features are pretty extensive. When I start having some cash in hand again and (I hope-I hope) my victim XBOX kicks over I can start the customizing phase of the show. The replacement drive will be here in a week.

 

Hex.

[ Has seen grown men cringe when they fear that their one $11,000 FPGA has a bug from their code. ]

[Starscream]

Xecuter chips are fine. I have installed more of those than anything. I have an X3 in one of mine with the control panel, LCD screen, etc. Nice chip but not worth the $$. Install is a little more time consuming and it has a lot of bells and whistles (just for show though). The Xenium and SmartXX and X# all have onboard OS that make things so much safer and easier. I also have a SmartXX in one and would recommend that over an X# as well. The Xenium and SmartXX are cheaper, have plenty of flash-space, EEPROM recovery, safe modes, network flashing, upgradable OS, HD tools, and all kinds of other crap. Best thing is they disable without cumbersome switches. The X3 has all of those features but dollar for dollar, the other 2 are still less money and simple installs. Oh and one more thing.....seems an X3 on a 1.6 may not get along with Live too well

[hex65000]

The smartX I think was my second choice. My needs don't include XB-Live, so you gan guess how much I care about the disable feature at this point. I'm also doing a 1.0 unit (provided it works) I would recommend too that Liveinabin spend some quality time on Xboxscene. There is a _LOT_ of information to process. I'm hoping that it'll glue together nicely as I read through it more.

 

Hex.

[ Not an expert with modern consoles . . . ]

[liveinabin]

I see they do a solderless Xenium Ice. Any good? I'm not entirely sure I need everything that the pro does. I just want to run emulators on it, nothing else.

 

Also, which things can't I do on the Mac? And will I be relying on a kindly PC owner with a CD-RW burner to fill in those gaps?

 

Sorry for all the dumb questions. I have actually read through a lot of the stuff on Xbox-scene, however, not using Windows, there are great chunks of instructions that don't apply/mean nothing to me. Consequently, it's difficult to filter out the important stuff.

[hex65000]

Unless your hand isn't steady at all, I'd go with the solder in version. Your'e introducing a new point where resistance and moving the unit can get you in trouble. (My opinion.)

You get better mechanical and electrical stability out of a solder job. Also try the match the serial number to your system version pages. That'll help tell you if you have to fight with the joys of the 1.6 unit. (on xboxscene)

And seriously, as consoles age, knowing how to maintain and repair them is a good thing.

If you search the hardware forum you should be able to find some suggestions on soldering tools and so forth.

 

Hex.

[ Radar Runner... ]

[liveinabin]

Yeah, I might as well get my head around soldering. I think the problem I've had (after reading Xbox-scene's soldering tutorial) was that I had a soldering IRON and not a soldering pencil. No wonder I was making a mess

 

Just got my Xbox to read CD-RW's. Good, at least it'll do that.

[Avid Fan]

BTW, about soldering, I've seen an infomercial type commercial for this soldering pen that looks really easy to use. Does anybody know about these? It looked almost too good to be true, so I thought I'd ask around here

[Starscream]

The solderless Ice you are talking about is only solderless for versions 1.0-1.5. The 1.6 motherboards are totally revised and the LPC points are basicall inactive unless you "rebuild" them. The Pro solderless adapter I was talking about rebuilds the LPC points as well as aligns the D0 point, thus making it about a 20 second job to install the chip.

 

I do agree soldering is best and most reliable. If you have little skills in soldering, I wouldn't recommend learning on a 1.6. What's the manufacture date of your system? If it's after roughly march or after of 2004, it will more than likely be a 1.6.

 

As for what programs you may not be able to use on a Mac, I would thing just Bios tools, game save managers, and maybe just a few more that you may never need anyways.

[liveinabin]

I just had a look at the serial number and manufacture date on my Xbox.

 

I bought it new in December 2004, but the damn thing was actually made in May, 2002!! What a jip! Turns out my shiny new Xbox is a v1.0 !!!!!!!!!

 

Still, I got a free replacement power cord out of it, I'll use the old one for my iPod charger

[liveinabin]

By BIOS tools, do you mean programs to actually write a new BIOS (which, as I understand, I'll need to do) or programs to just tinker with it?

 

What I'm getting at is, really, can I take my Xbox from unmodded to chipped and playing emulators with just a soldering iron and a Mac?

[Starscream]

Well, if it's that old then you can order any current chip that has a solderless adapter with it if you want. On that version motherboard, the LPC holes are filled with solder and the only chip that will come with wires to install are the Xecuter chips. Otherwise, you will need to remove the solder from the holes and install the pinheader that is supplied with all chips.

 

Bios tools enable you to customize boot order and partition from which they boot from the HD. The tools also allow you to change bootup colors, in game reset, patch for HD's over 137 gigs, etc. I can help out with all of that though so no biggie. No matter what chip you install, it will need flashed with a hacked Bios to do anything. If you aren't doing a HD upgrade, then just run everything off of discs. Do you know which DVD drive yours has?

[liveinabin]

A Thomson. I've heard they're crap

[liveinabin]

If you aren't doing a HD upgrade, then just run everything off of discs.

 

I'd like to ftp stuff to the Xbox and have a bunch of emulators and ROMs kept on the HD. Is that unrealistic?

[Starscream]

Nope, you would have enough room on the E partition for emulators/roms.

 

Don't worry about the Thomson. If it dies, you can replace it with a new one for around $30 or a Philips for $40 or a Samsung for $50. If you burn anything to DVD, a Thomson will read + or - r's with no problem but I always use +.

[liveinabin]

Well it seems to like CD-RWs well enough so no problems there.

[liveinabin]

Right then, I'm going to get a proper soldering iron, a Xenium ICE chip (maybe solderless if I chicken out ) and do it

 

Thanks for the help, particularly Starscream I knew you'd come to my aid!

Oh yeah, I remember a while ago seeing a mod where the Xbox main menu looked like OSX. Was that you who did that? If so, how?

[Starscream]

That was an OSX skin for Avalunch dash I think. Macgurl has it on her's. Now that I think about it, I think they got OSX running on the XB. Can't remember though. Anyways, you will need to run a hacked dash of some sort so I would recommend XBMC or Avalaunch. With your space limitations of the original HD, go with Avalaunch and I can dig up that skin for you.

 

When you are ready to go, PM me

[liveinabin]

Cool thanks!

 

I was reading about that OSX install on the Xbox. It's called Pear PC, seems to recognise the Xbox as some kind of G3 based Mac. Wierd

[Shannon]

Use avalaunch... Unless they have changed XBMC drastically I found the interface VERY confusing to use.

 

The two hardest emulators to get going are the N64 emu (surreal) and the MAME emu. The others are a piece of cake. Although you are guaranteed to run into filenaming problems. Most of your ROMS will probably have to be renamed in some manner to accomodate FatX.

 

I'm not sure but I think more recent avalaunch versions have the ability to rename files FTP'ed over to FatX compatible format.

 

Hey starscream... have you heard anything about problems getting surreal to run on v1.6 xbox's? The one you helped me with has that problem, even when I have the chip enabled. Thing is I'm almost positive I read that certain BIOSes on a v1.6 have that problem.

 

Was just wondering if you heard anything. I have the modified surreal, but it is a few versions behind.

 

As for the thomson drive. I have a softmodded version 1 xbox as well and I've found if you use good quality CD's you will get decent results. Plus (believe it or not) the quality of your CD burner can make a big difference. I hard far less problems with my DVD's when I switched burners.

[Starscream]

Hey starscream... have you heard anything about problems getting surreal to run on v1.6 xbox's?  The one you helped me with has that problem, even when I have the chip enabled.  Thing is I'm almost positive I read that certain BIOSes on a v1.6 have that problem.

 

Was just wondering if you heard anything.  I have the modified surreal, but it is a few versions behind.

 

 

There's really only 1 Bios for 1.6's right now so it is possible. Yours was older though wasn't it? If yours is a 1.6, just a find a version of whatever you want that works and stick with it. Oh and make sure you have the newest version of the 1.6 Bios that has the memory fix in it. Ya know the one to accomodate the Hynix chips? 1.6b maybe

[Shannon]

For some reason my xbox will not run the latest surreal whether I run it thru the software exploit (mod-chip off) or with the mod-chip on. Some guy released an older version that runs on mine but it's pretty old. I cannot run the freak dave ones at all, and no one on the surreal team seems interested in figuring out what the one guy did to the older version.

 

But I also read somewhere that certain BIOS versions had trouble with surreal so I was wondering if that was it.

[PuddWakkr]

I run the newest Surreal no prob. Bios X2 4977.