I think I'm retarded.

[Money25]

Hey guys,
I know this might be a total no brainer to some of you and to you guys I am truly sorry for putting you through this.

I just went and bought an xbox 2 days ago. I am assuming that it is a 1.6b ((that manufacter date is 5/8/2005)). The chip is a X3 and the version of flashbios that is installed was 3.0.0. I already had all the stuff to mod it out thanks to previous attempts, but that story is for another day. After thoses previous attempts I bought the XAPT3R 1.6 so this way I would not have to solder anything to this board. OK. Got it all installed and booted it up got the flash screen and booted with the latest BIOS ((3294))from XBINS. I made sure that the banks were set to the "on on off off off" after I booted to the screen (Does that matter?). I used the http method and it looked like it went though, with the exception I got the "programming failed" message. I rebooted my box and it turned on and off three times and then gave me the christmas lights. I then changed the bank to the "off on off off off" and flashed it with the Plus version of the bios. Same thing happened. Got the programming failed and the christmas lights on reboot. I did some research and read where I needed to press the eject and power button at the same time. I did that tried to boot with the on on off off off setting and got nothing. Stared at my box for a bit and changed the bank to off on off off off and the thing booted.

Now for the real questions.....what the hack happened? What bios am I using?? do I need to try to flash the on on off off off bank to make sure that I have a good bios bank?? Or do I need to be happy that it is booting and STFU?? Any and all help is appreciated.

 

[Catalyst]

Ok, you booted bios 3.0.0 with the settings on, on, off, off, off... then you tried to flash the latest bios to that same bank... that's bad ju-ju.

What happened is when your bios flash failed it corrupted the 3.0.0 bios you originally booted to. What you should of done is booted to the flash bios (blue screen) changed your bank settings and then flashed. That way if you screwed up, which you did, you could of just changed your bank settings back and been good to go.

But that doesn't help you now does it .

Booting with the eject and power pressed will boot to an alternate bios.... your xecuter 'x' should go purple. It's a copy of 3.0.0 that can't be written to just for people in your shoes.

If you can't get that to work then you can try booting to 3.0.3 and see if that works... which some people say it can... but I've never seen it. the switch settings are off, on, off, off, off.

If that doesn't work you can find a guy with a xbox 1.6b who will boot yours to 3.0.3 and then flash it with the right bios for you... make sure you get the right bios this time and that you're sure it's good for your version xbox. the manufacuring date isn't really good to go off of. If you go to xbox-scene.com there is a difinitive way of finding out what you have.

Finally, if that doesn't work you're going to have to get a programmer to fix the bios on the chip. That means more money and more time waiting to get that thing fired up

Good Luck!

 

[Money25]

Thanks for the reply.

I am able to use the chip now. It boots and I am able to use the xbox like it has been modded and everything. I am just wondering if the bios that the chip is using is a backup bios or what. I guess I can look at the bios settings to know for sure what bios I am using. Also to ask another stupid question, I have read on how to flash the bios, but is there an uber noob guide that goes like "step 1. Boot the box. Step 2. Change dip switch setting to "whatever". Step 3. blah blah blah". If there is one out there, I have overlooked it because I have looked, maybe not hard enough, but I have looked. Again, thanks for the help and all the posts. They have helped me get as far as I am now.

 

[rockclimber]

You can check for sure which version xbox you have here:
http://www.xbox-scene.com/versions.php
If it's a 1.6b you would flash as follows:
set switches to off.on.off.off.off and turn on.
when flashbios 3.03 is displayed on screen change the switches to on.on.off.off.off
move down to flash type you want, press green controller button.
After flashing is complete and xbox shuts down leave switches alone and reboot, it should now go into x3 configlive ( x3 bios screen ).

The reason for this is that a 1.6b needs flashbios 3.03 but this is only flashed to one bank on the x3 chip, the other bank and the backup bios both contain flashbios 3.01 which works on the majority of xboxs. Ie v1.0---v1.6.

What you need to do is download v3.03 and copy it to your xboxes c: drive then use x3 config live to update the backup bios, and then you have always got a backup plan.

If you are able to boot using off.on.off.off.off on your xbox now then you must have succesfully flashed with the right bios, but if you get a frag when using on.on.off.off.off then you need to first update the backup bios as above then boot from this by pressing power and eject to boot. Change switches to on.on.off.off.off and flash it with the right bios. This will only overwrite the bios on switch setting on.on.off.off.off.
The backup bios is in its own area on the chip.
on.on.off.off is bank 1234 (1mb)
off.on.off.off is bank 5678 (1mb)
So there are two 1mb banks on the chip plus one backup 256kb flashbios.
You can flash the same x3 bios or different ones to each 1mb bios bank.

 

[Money25]

I will give this a shot and then let you guys know. THANKS!!!

 

[Money25]

Ok. I went through the guide on how to tell what version box I have and it is a 1.6b. Thanks to rockclimber for the link.

 

[Money25]

Hey now!!

Sorry for the delay in getting back to you guys. I downloaded the Flashbios 3.03 and updated the previous version that I had through the X3 Config screen. It was a success. Then I updated the BIOS on the bank that had the FUBAR'd bios on it and it updated perfectly. SO I want to thank all of you for your help and I know where to go if I ever have any other issues in the future. THANKS!!!!!

 

[blairjustinb]

i have tried everything listed on the posts for this subject, and im still afraid that i'm double-posting or something, but if someone could please help me on this one. I have a 1.6b and a X3 original, pinheader install. X3 has only 3.0.0 flashbios on it, no bios flashed on chip. cannot flash a bios to chip because i need 3.0.3, and i there is no apparent way to update flashbios. regular boot is fine, banks 1234 boot 3.0.0, banks 5678 boot 3.0.0, and backup boot runs 3.0.0. if i run the xbox in off mode it works just like i had never done anything to it (have to re-lock hard drive first), plays games, etc. so i dont think i have broken anything, and i have a fair amount of experience at circuit-board soldering, so i dont think i messed up the chip there. how can i get the 3294 bios onto my chip? or is there no way? (i know no-one with a 1.6b, so hot-swapping, even though i dont know how to do it, is not an option). Again, sorry for this type of question, which seems to waste people's time, but if someone could help me i would be really grateful.

 

[rockclimber]

blairjustinb,
What do you get on screen when you boot using:

1.on.on.off.off.off ( bank 1234 )
2.off.on.off.off.off (bank 5678 )

 

[DJBOOBY]

blairjustinb, can,t you flash flashbios 3.0.3 to bank 2 5678 then flash x3 bios to chips bank 1 1234 then flash backup with flashbios 3.0.3 with x3 bios or 3.0.0 not working at all

 

[blairjustinb]

no matter which bank i use it comes up flashbios 3.0.0, including the power+eject "purple" backup boot.

i would love to flash 3.0.3 to a bank, but i dont know how... since i have nothing on the xbox it doesnt have an ftp ability, right? so how can i access the chip without a bios being on it first?

 

[rockclimber]

Have you downloaded the x3 bios?
The latest one is x3 3294 and you can get it from xbins.
If you have it then you need to create a bios flash disc and use this to flash one of the 1mb banks. If you can access flash 3.0.0 then you may not need to update to 3.03.
Have you tried to flash the chip with an x3 bios?

 

[blairjustinb]

yes, i have tried to flash it on both the banks. in either case, by disk and http, it gets to where it warns you not to turn off the xbox then does nothing (the eject button leds flash between amber and green). no actual flashing occurred. i thought this was because i was trying to use 3.0.0 on a 1.6b. the disk i was using was simply a cd burned in iso 9660 with nero like the teamxecuter instructions say, all it had on it was the bios.bin file, which the xbox detected but never used.

 

[DJBOOBY]

use a cd-rw

 

[blairjustinb]

i'll try it, but i dont understand how it would make a difference.

 

[blairjustinb]

tried the rw, did the same thing as before. got to the part where it says "flashing bios" and freezes. led flashes between green and amber. also did this when i tried it in http mode.

 

[rockclimber]

Did you put a dummy file on the disk as well?

You could download flashbios 3.03 and put this on a disk along with the dummy file. create the disk as per the tutorial for the x3 bios. Use a cdrw or dvd because they burn deeper and are better for your xbox to read.

Boot the xbox into a 1mb bank: on.on.off.off.off (to load 3.0.0)
change the switches to a 256k bank ( this is the size of flashbios 3.03 ) such as bank 8: off.off.off.on.off.
select flash bios from disk and insert the rw when the tray opens.
After it flashes you need to restart from this bank setting to access 3.03
After it boots into 3.03 you need to change switches to on.on.off.off.off.
select flash bios from disk.
insert the rw with 3294 bios on it.
Good luck!

 

[blairjustinb]

now i get to finally ask a definitive newb question... what is the dummy file? i see the dummy.bin in the tutorial, but it is much larger than the bios and i dont know where to find it...

 

[blairjustinb]

nevermind. i found the dummy file creator on xbins. how do i know how big a dummy file to make for each type of file?

 

[blairjustinb]

i'm sorry about the consecutive posts, but i keep trying things, so i'm trying to keep you guys updated. thank you for your patience. I created a 100 meg dummy file and put the 256k flashBIOS 3.0.3 on a cdrw. loaded on on-on-off-off-off, to flashBIOS 3.0.0 and tried to flash to off-off-off-on-off like you said. same thing happened. got to "flashing bios", the warning came up, and no boxes ever appeared. i waited a while, to see what would happen, nothing (eject led flashed green and amber the whole time). when i turned it off, right before the screen went black i saw "erase failed" at the bottom of the screen. seems to me that it is a communication error between the version 1.6b mobo and the 3.0.0 flashBIOS. I had an idea, what if i put my chip in my friend's (currently working) modded 1.4 and use 3.0.0 to put 3.0.3 on bank 8 (if that's the problem); put the chip back in my box and see if i can get the bios to flash. I'll just have to wait a couple days for my friend to get back from out-of-state. think it might work? or have i done something else wrong?