Humor me here...

[Catalyst]

Ok, I've done this about 5 or 6 times now and I think I may be missing something.

These are the steps I take after I install a chip.

1. boot and get the blue screen (either 3.0.1 bios or 3.0.3)

2. If I don't I go to the other bank on the chip which holds the other bios. (3.0.1 for 1.0-1.6 and 3.0.3 for 1.6b)

3. I ensure my switches are set to on, on, off, off, off and flash the 3029 or 3108 bios off xbins...

4. Then I load the dash, skins, ect...

The reason I bring this up is because after 6 installs on various versions of xbox's (all with the X3 ce) I haven't had an instance where I'd flash the bios with 3.0.3 or anything other than the xbins bios. Is there a reason to do this?

Also I've never used the back-up bios. I think that it's a "hardwired" bios that can't be written to incase you really screw up your bios flash. My question with that is when we have a person who has incorretly flashed every bank on thier chip why can't they go to that back-up bios using the power and eject key at the same time and load a new bios off that?

I have to admit that it's always been smooth sailing for me so I'v enever had to get creative with my bios flashing and I want to fill in some blanks incase I ever get into trouble.

I guess after reading so many posts that deal with this I've gotten a little confused.

Lastly, I can flash the 3108 bios on my second bank (off, on, off, off, off) and still ahve 3029 right? Thanks!

 

[Martin C]

FlashBIOS.

The only reason you'd ever need to flash it to your chip is if you couldn't get it working to begin with (via a programmer or hotflash), or if you wanted to update the Backup BIOS due to owning a 1.6b (See Backup BIOS). If you're Xbox boots to a version of FlashBIOS, then best bet is to flash the *other* set of banks to preserve it. i.e FlashBIOS boots from Bank 1234 1MB but not Bank 5678 1MB. Therefore, boot to Bank 1234 and once in FlashBIOS, set switches to off on off off to flash Bank 5678 1MB.

Backup BIOS.

A 256k portion of your chip which is booted by pressing Power/Eject. This is only flashable via X3CL, making it nigh on impossible to screw up. It normally comes with FlashBIOS 3.0.1, but as above, flashing it with 3.0.3 if you have a 1.6b is a very sensible option. As usual FlashBIOS, once booted, set the switches to match which bank you want to flash and choose the Flash method.

Finally, you can have two different X3 BIOSes on Banks 1234 and 5678. However, the settings for each are centralized in X3 Config Live, so anything you change in one (flubber, fan speed etc) will be the same for the other.

Martin

 

[Catalyst]

Much appreciated.

That definatly cleared things up. Sorry if you were going over old info for my benefit. Thanks!