Original Xbox mod.

[WHITE 4ND N3RDY]

About a month ago I picked up a Xbox on craigslist for 20$ and did a softmod now I'm in the process of decking it out.

I heated the Xbox jewel logo off and stripped the green paint off of it to make it clear for a led mod. I've also striped apart all the innards (guts) and will be doing a blue power button led swap from stock green. I just laid down my first layer of paint on the shell as well.

I've decided to take it slow as I'm a noob when it comes to painting. I'll be updating this thread as progression takes place. I also hope to do a hot swap of the hard drive to something like 700 GB. Here are some pics of my progress so far.








Its going to matte white and oasis blue. The X will be white on my second go around with paint. I'm also planning on doing some black air brush stencil work for final touches and then I will clear coat it. Im thinking of doing a blue ring led on the jewel and throwing in a top buzz led fader with it. If I do the hot swap, I plan on doing a fan mod under the hard drive so it dosent overheat during big downloads.

I'm pretty excited to see how this all comes out as this is my second console mod I've ever done (besides Dreamcast VGA mod and over clock). Again I'll keep u all posted when theirs further development!

[Rodent]

Looking good so far. I believe i sent you some links for the hdd swap , also King Mike_OS does them with 2 TB Hard Drives

also here is link for swapping the front ring of light mod
https://www.acidmods.com/forum/index.php/topic,27425.0.html

[WHITE 4ND N3RDY]

Finished my main paint job. I still have some stencil work to do on the console. Here are the pics!




I'm waiting for a disk drive bezel and bi color red/blue 3mm 3pin LEDs to come in by mail. I'm going to throw in a xecuter 2.6 CE mod chip and been debating on doing a 128mb ram upgrade.

I have a spare motherboard and know I can do the job, this is the main reason I'm getting a mod chip so I can re flash the bios to support the 128mb ram upgrade.l still doubt I'll go that far though.

I still have to make a 8 led jewel mod. I have to research where I'm going to draw my power from and what resistors I'll need to wire up 8 0805 smd LEDs. I was going to use a PC fan and gut the LEDs out of them but I read that they get real hot and could potentially damage the jewel or melt the glue that holds it in place.

I'll keep updating this till I complete this build. I'm in no rush to get this done, I'm just moving on this whenever I get the free time to do so.

Update: 4:12 pm (pacific time)

I used a stencil machine that's like a c&c machine and cut out a vinyl stencil. I used a airbrush to paint over the stencil but ran into issues.(back side of vinyl wasent that sticky and the air from the airbrush was lifting my stencil up.) Being dedicated at this point I pushed through to the end. I now know that I should buy a spray adhesive to help the vinyl bond to the surface better.

The end product wasent so bad and I can live with it. It defenantly has a airbrush affect to it be that a noob touch but it looks good to me. So here are updated pics of my paint job.








I'm sure I stated that I Dont paint and have very little knowledge about it but I feel like this isent that bad of a job. Sure theirs a lot of blemishes to it but I like it and that's all that matters.

[Rodent]

AWESOME JOB!!!!

[WHITE 4ND N3RDY]

Yes I'm still working on this project. I've orderd a bunch of stuff and am waiting on them to come in. I have a xecuter 2.6 mod chip + programmer, 4 brand new ram chips for 128 mb mod (matching ram chip # F series) , sata ide converter board & segate barraccuda sata 2 tb hdd. I also have slayers evox 2.7 iso CD and all programs for chimp. Plan on doing 128 mb ram upgrade flashing all the required bios of course and a 2 tb hotswap of the HDD. My main goal is to have a media hub of DVD movies and a pletheria of emulators/ ROMs. The 128 mb upgrade is mainly for surreal 64 and arcade emulators. Also would be nice to have vitural cop 3 with light gun of course! Anyway I'll update picd when my parts get in!

[WHITE 4ND N3RDY]

Xecuter 2.6 CE mod chip & programmer just came in today!!!!!
Now I'm waiting on my new 128 mb ram chips and new hard drive / converter board. About time I get this project going yea.

[Rodent]

Xecuter 2.6 CE mod chip & programmer just came in today!!!!!
Now I'm waiting on my new 128 mb ram chips and new hard drive / converter board. About time I get this project going yea.

where did you get these chips from? interested

[WHITE 4ND N3RDY]

This is where I got mine. Its a store in Canada. Link: http://www.gocybershopping.com/home.php?cat=220

Its almost impossible finding instillation diagrams bit I found one that's in French. I'm translating it out into English right now. If u can't find one I can link the schematic I found as well.

[Rodent]

This is where I got mine. Its a store in Canada. Link: http://www.gocybershopping.com/home.php?cat=220

Its almost impossible finding instillation diagrams bit I found one that's in French. I'm translating it out into English right now. If u can't find one I can link the schematic I found as well.

thank you , i am sure they have one on xbox-hq

[WHITE 4ND N3RDY]

Ok feel way out of my league here. So I have my modchip installed and I'm going to do a 128mb ram upgrade. Looked online the bios everyone says to use is ide-bios 5003. Downloaded the BIOS and the flashbios v3.03. I downloaded evtool, x2bm 1.0.9 & dummyfile downloader. This is where things get sketchy.

When I try to load the flashbios v.3.03 or the ide-bios 5003 to evtool its say error no kernal. The info pops up but there's no kernal. I.d.k how to get the kernal on them.

I skipped this section then went to x2bm v 1.0.9 (I have a Xbox v 1.4) then in box 1&2 loaded the flashbios v3.03 256k bin in both 1&2. Then in boxes 3&4 loaded the ide-bios 5003 256k v.6 bin "not the v.67" in boxes 3&4. Then I saved the file as bios.bin. I then made a dummy folder that was 100mb size then combined the dummy file with the bios.bin file I made. Then I burned that info using a iso burner on a cd-r.

Now I could try to flash my xecuter 2.6 mod chip "setting it to bank 1 flash protect off" running it to burn from CD, bit I Dont want to brick my mod chip or Xbox.

If anyone knows how to do this appropriately (getting evtool to have a kernal under the bios I load to it) I'd love to hear from you. Also if anyone can confirm if the way I did this will work without bricking my chip or Xbox I'd appreciate thatvas well.

I find it hard to find any information online as to do this correctly. Most sites are ether down or the links are corrupted.

Please anyone who knows anything about this please put up a link tutorial on how to achieve this or just link sites on where I can obtain the appropriate bios and what tools or programs I need to do this. Thanks for reading all this and hopefully someone can shed some light on this.

If it helps I do have a programmer for the xecuter 2.6 chip (but no computer with a compatible port that the programmer uses) I also have slayers evox 2.7 but Dont know how I'd use it in the stock flash screen when u install the chip. Any help will be appreciated as I'm at a stand still a.t.m.

Here is a pic of the evtool error, x2bm v2.3 with the bios in them. Also in the upper right is the save folder from x2bm v2.3 named bios and the 100mb dump file. The bottom right is the iso burner program I use and it has both the bios & dump folder included. Hope this helps out.




Update. I found a m8 bios that works with evtool. Did the whole process and when I burned the bios and the 100mb dummy folder and when I select load bios from disk I get no bios update found.... Halting. Super frustrating.

[WHITE 4ND N3RDY]

Ok I believe I have this figured out now and I must say its been a headache. I have a programmer but no db25 port on my PC. I recently bought a USB rs232 db9 adapter for my eeprom reader. So I did some research and bought a db9 to db25 converter.

I should be able to connect this adapter to my rs232 adapter to flash my xecuter 2.6 to my xecuter programmer. Yea its been a headache dealing with old technology.

I have all the bios I need and soon will have all the equipment to flash it to my chip.

My 4 Samsung ram chips should be here soon. I'll update my progress "with pics" when I get my adapter and chips.

I can't wait to get this all put together. I still have the fun job of soldering all the connections of the small smd chips to the Xbox motherboard. It should go smooth though. I have a decent soldering iron and I have the appropriate soldering tips for the job. Now I just need to get some liquid flux for the job. End resault i hope to be running virtual cop 3 "only runs with 128mb ram upgrade" and show a screen shot of the ram upgrade in xbmc system specs screen!

Hopefully I can pull this off and not brick the motherboard which is a real big possibility. I've read this is by no means an easy job to pull off and has I high failure rate, but I've done my research and bought brand new ram chips with the same model # as the 64mb ram chips on my v 1.4 Xbox.

Its going to be a sweet Xbox when finished. So to recap, custom Xbox shell with clear jewel mod, 128mb ram upgrade, xecuter 2.6 modchip and 2tb ram upgrade.

Ive seen other consoles on eBay  "with same build specs without custom shells" go for up to 400$, low figure 350$. I bought my Xbox for 20$ on craislist. Spent 12$ on paint, 16$ on ram chips, 60$ on 1tb HDD and data to ide converter board & and 40$ for xecuter 2.6 mod chip & programmer. My total build cost is roughly 148$ (rounded some of my figures). I could easy make a 200$ profit on all this but honestly I'd never consider selling this.

I plan I ripping all my DVDs to my HDD and making it a media box of sorts. To top it all off I'll have a sweet emulator and be able to run arcade ROMs and surreal 64 way more smooth with the updated ram. 

More updates and rants to come

Edit sorry got a western digital blue 1tb hard drive not the 2tb Seagate. I was trying to research which one to get but went with the safe one as I know this hard drive is compatible with the hot swap and has had high reviews.

[WHITE 4ND N3RDY]

Just got my new ram chips today! As soon as I get my db25 connected and bios flashed I can solder up these smd chips.

[WHITE 4ND N3RDY]

Just finishing up my solder install of my 128mb ram upgrade. Got one more Samsung k4d263238f-qc50 ram chip to install!. Install is actually going really fast and smooth. I've checked all my welds and all are lookin great. I'll have to post back when I finish and see if everything workedbout smoothly.

[Rodent]

Just finishing up my solder install of my 128mb ram upgrade. Got one more Samsung k4d263238f-qc50 ram chip to install!. Install is actually going really fast and smooth. I've checked all my welds and all are lookin great. I'll have to post back when I finish and see if everything workedbout smoothly.

Nice job but how did you or what did you use to install these cause i could never get them to look that good!  using hot air station? or soldering iron?

[WHITE 4ND N3RDY]

I just used flux paste and a very fine soldering tip with a small flat tip. I didn't add any solder as the pads have enough solder on them. Unfortunately I had my heat up to high @ 400 and one pad lifted. I got it back down but I keep getting the frag green red flashing LED. I bought new chips and did everything to the tee. Even had my eye piece to get real close to check every joint. I used a razor blade to check in between the gaps of each pin. Everything seems as its supposed to be but no dice. I'm pretty beaten up about it and had high hopes for it. I'm going to take a break and think about my options. I'm hoping maybe I can heat gun off the chips I installed and hopefully it won't ram frag me. If not I'll just install my xecuter chip in another motherboard I have and forget all about the ram upgrade. Oh well gave it my all but still wasent good enough.

[Rodent]

I just used flux paste and a very fine soldering tip with a small flat tip. I didn't add any solder as the pads have enough solder on them. Unfortunately I had my heat up to high @ 400 and one pad lifted. I got it back down but I keep getting the frag green red flashing LED. I bought new chips and did everything to the tee. Even had my eye piece to get real close to check every joint. I used a razor blade to check in between the gaps of each pin. Everything seems as its supposed to be but no dice. I'm pretty beaten up about it and had high hopes for it. I'm going to take a break and think about my options. I'm hoping maybe I can heat gun off the chips I installed and hopefully it won't ram frag me. If not I'll just install my xecuter chip in another motherboard I have and forget all about the ram upgrade. Oh well gave it my all but still wasent good enough.

hopefully its a simple fix , and that you get it figured out. looking really good so far 

[WHITE 4ND N3RDY]

Its a weird deal. I turned it on this morning and it booted up. Then after about 5min I got green red flashing lights. Its almost like its overheating or something.

[RDC]

It only takes one of those 400 new connections to be frakked for it to fail, and it only takes a miniscule bit of distance to cause an open, smaller than you'd be able to see with anything but a microscope, that would cause the grief.

If it booted today and ran a bit, you may only have a solder joint that's just not quite making connection. Once it fired up and heated up, it expanded and broke connection. Even though you can't see it they do move, and it doesn't take much at all for that kind of thing to happen, or it could be on of your pads that lifted that are doing it if the traces broke. They will look good, but heat up, move just right next to nothing and open up.

You can try pressing a little bit on each RAM chip one by one and booting it up to see if you can try to pinpoint the bad one, but that literally changes the entire board when pressing in one place, so it's not a perfect means to find the culprit, or just resolder everything and give it a go again.

[WHITE 4ND N3RDY]

I'm afraid to reflow the joints as I've done it three times and had two pads shift on me. I'll more than likely just send it your way to see if u can fix it. It may be a while though. I'm in by no means in a hurry. Im sure I have it pin pointed to two particular pins. Ill throw some pics later today of what I feel are the problem spots.

[KingMike_OS]

if its was RAM cold Solder Issue it will flash Orange Not Red ,

Red is Bios Hard drive , end etc.  usually