GENERAL Never modded xbox before, was looking for some advice...

[100000011]

I've always wanted to mod an xbox but never really got round to actually buying the chips lol. So recently I got a bunch of 360s in real messes for cheap and they worked, so decided to make use of the opportunity. I ordered some really good flux, solder, and a better soldering station, as well as my lovely assortment of chips.

I got a JR-Programmer, CR4 XL, Demon, and Phat QSB kit from modsupplier.com (which I hope to god I found on the list on TX lol) but like an idiot I got impatient and didn't wait for my new soldering station with finer tips to show up and made a little bit of a mess. Well when I say mess, I mean literally everything but the white wire went perfect, and so here is the result after I desoldered everything...



Let me just explain that my soldering skills are normally really good, and everything else was soldered perfectly. I just so happened to accidentally bridge the ceramic cap above the yellow dot (the one thats now missing) when soldering the white wire. Lol.

So my first question just so happens to does anyone know where I can buy those replacement caps? Or what sizes they are or any information about them would help really (the ones with the red dots in the picture).

My next question is quite simply following Sin HD's rather vague guide to installing the CR4 XL, I do solder the white wire on the yellow dot in the picture above right? Or is there an alternate point that I could solder it to? Maybe one that isn't in such close proximity to sensitive stuffs?

The next piece of advice I was after was that I remember hearing in a video I watched a white ago (am still trying to find it) that you can use a Demon on its own with no supporting CR4 or anything as long as you update the Demon's firmware or something? Is this possible/true? And if it is, can someone set me on the right track to finding some up to date information as I am having trouble. And also, again providing it is possible, would it still function exactly the same way? As I wanted to use the demon as a second nand.

Any other advice/suggestions would be great kind of trying to get as much information as possible white I wait for new QSB kits to show up.

Thanks in advance

*** Sorry, I should probably mention that I am not too bothered about the repair of the xbox that I fluffed, I just decided to include it in the post on the off chance that someone may have some information on the caps to aid me in giving a repair a go ***

 

[[email protected]]

what motherboard revision do you have? and where are you located at I have a few scrap boards that I could pull those caps off of for you if you could post a closer pic so I could see which ones they are

 

[gavin_darkglide]

My advice would be to get a pro to do the install, that being said, if you need help please fill out the RGH template. I can say that if you succeed in glitching the box, u will get a huge sense of achievement, and an xbox you can play homebrew games on, which is awesome all on its own.

 

[100000011]

what motherboard revision do you have? and where are you located at I have a few scrap boards that I could pull those caps off of for you if you could post a closer pic so I could see which ones they are

I know that it is a Jasper 16mb (Small Block) but thats about it...

To find the ones in the picture in my original post (marked with red dots) place board upside down with back of board (power, hdmi, ethernet etc) facing you, look at the closest section of the X clamp on the right as shown here (red circle):



They are really tiny and hard to see :/ so if you could help me out it would be much appreciated.

As for getting a pro to install, it kind of defeats the purpose of the whole project really. The idea is that I want to learn about it, I have the required skills I just need to find useful information. Most of the information that I have been going off is low resolution "copy this" images with little to no explanations :/ I know the picture of my "mistake" doesn't exactly paint my skills in a good light but I mean come on, are you really trying to tell me that no "pro" has ever made a mistake soldering something simpler than that? I made a silly mistake, I should have waited for my finer tips to arrive and then repaired the initial mistake white was bridging the tiny cap right above the yellow dot in my first picture rather than trying to clean it all up with my chunky old tip.

I would just like point in the right direction really, maybe a video or nice descriptive article explaining things, where to start etc. As I mentioned at the end of my first post, I'm not too bothered about repairing the xbox that I fudged, I'm more interested in finding some information.

 

[[email protected]]

http://team-xecuter.com/forums/show...yr-Opus-Falcon-Jasper-Install-Guide-(R-JTAG-)

This is the link to the cr4 install here on tx you can find literally anything on this site if u look around... Also I'm pretty positive I have those caps you need I'll look tomorrow and get back to you

 

[100000011]

http://team-xecuter.com/forums/show...yr-Opus-Falcon-Jasper-Install-Guide-(R-JTAG-)

This is the link to the cr4 install here on tx you can find literally anything on this site if u look around... Also I'm pretty positive I have those caps you need I'll look tomorrow and get back to you

Thank you very much for the link. I have actually been looking around for a couple of months, but whenever I find a good bit of info I have a habit of losing it lol just like the Demon install video I mentioned in the first post where the guy said something about using a Demon with no supporting Coolrunner (thinking about it though he may have meant JR-Programmer or I'm getting wires crossed in my brain lol).

Anyway thank you again for the link, I will give that a read in a moment

As for the caps I would most definitely appreciate it if you do have and could sell me some, but at the same time I do appreciate that they are microscopic and as a result removing them safely from the board will be a real tricky task so please don't feel obligated to help out on that front.

 

[100000011]

Just wanted to give a big thanks to [email protected] that guide was a great help...

Oddly enough, that was the same guide I was working off to begin with but it was located somewhere else and missing some steps lol

Nonetheless, I am attempting my second CR4 install now (first was obviously a failure) and everything looks great so far...

I been triple checking solder points after I create them and checking them out with a magnifying glass lol got lellow wire to do and it should be all fitted

I shall let you all know how it goes

 

[scott1503]

where was the other source on the guide just out of interest

 

[100000011]

I will go through my history and try to find it shortly for you scott1503...

As for those curious, just finished my first install and all solder points seem perfect... CR4 is only just hanging around for now while i do a few reads and tests but other than that everything seems fine... Reading 512MB NAND as we speak

 

[[email protected]]

I just got my rework station in the mail the other day so removing them ain't to big a task.. Send me a pm with you address and all n I'll send them out. I'm not a VIP member so I don't think I'm actually aloud to sell anything on the site but seeing as the caps don't weigh anything I'll just send them in a regular envelope and you can have them... Merry Christmas lol

 

[100000011]

Oooo where did you get one of those? and how much? if you don't mind me asking lol... been meaning to get one for some time now but not spending £750-1000 on ebay lol most iv ever spent on there is £200 and its taken me the last 2 months to get it back when the phone showed up with a smashed screen lol

Oh I didn't know there were rules on things like that :/ I mean you are offering to do a favour which has expenses (all be it only small) and requires investment of your time (no matter how little) so it's only fair that you get a little something in return...

How about if you were to "gift" me those caps, and in return (in the spirit of christmas) I also send you a gift? Maybe a little tub of RMA-218 or a soldering tip cleaner? Something small, because I wouldn't feel right taking something like that without paying for it in some respect.

Anyway you might be happy to know that I have been reading the NAND of my 512MB Jasper and so far all seems good. I think there are some bad blocks because when I try to read full NAND I get errors 204, 250 and 210 on certain blocks, however I can run as many regular dumps as I like and (as far as I can tell) they all match I'm just waiting for the last read now.

Any ideas? I'm using Windows 8.1 if that helps, I would use 7 instead but that means removing linux off my second hard drive and I hate trying to remove grub so would rather just use this unless its gonna fluff me up lol


EDIT: yup, if I don't try to dump full nand it runs through the reads perfectly with the result being that the dumps match... However it still has the aforementioned errors when doing a full dump. Bad blocks in the NAND maybe?

 

[[email protected]]

I just got a hot air rework station along with stencils and all that for reballing, I am using a griddle as my preheater temporarily which most on the forum will say is a no no but I use what I have till I can make a few bucks to pay for a preheater. I payed under 60usd for my hot air station on ebay and from what I have done so far it works great but im am waiting for my thermocouple to check actual temps before I start any major work in order to verify that the temps are actually where they need to be. The gifting is fine with me but as I said the boards I taking them off are junk so im not really losing anything and like to help out where I can.

All the stuff I got can be found on ebay but im using a hot air rework station along with proper stencils, flux, direct heat stencil jig, and tips for iron is what I bought to get started and all in all cost me about 160 bucks.

 

[100000011]

Oh right one of those, I thought you meant like the bigger stations with ceramic lamps underneath...

I actually had a mate (you won't believe it after what i'm about to tell you) who's an absolute genius when it comes to electronic repairs and such. When he first started doing reballs, and for quite a while in fact, he used a heater like this:

http://www.charliesdirect.co.uk/med...-electric-halogen-heater-1200-watt-1_10_4.jpg

wrapped the board in tin foil and used a hot air gun and a jig, and actually as far as I know never once ruined a board or anything. I think with reballing the magic is just being able to maintain an even heat across the board without melting solder that you don't want to melt. He has better tools now of course but only to make it easier, faster and cheaper on electric for him I think.

Do you use a specific flux or just basically whatever you decide to get when you run out? Cuz I always just used some cheap crap from Maplin then I think my mate told me about RMA-218 (or I heard about it from somewhere) so I got some and it's made soldering so much easier. I'm just sticking to this from now on if it was any easier it would be boring lol. The only thing I don't like is how sticky it gets once you heat it up a bit and it cools down but I got some good cleaning stuff so it doesn't bother me.

 

[ultimate360]

Yes, kingbo RMA 218 is hands down, the best flux you can have. Works for everything

As far as using a hot air wand for reballing, TERRIBLE IDEA. I would know, I did it for a year way back in the day

Temps were insane, chips were burned, only about 1 out of 3 success rate, and they always came back. Don't try it, you are setting yourself up for trouble, I promise. Not trying to sound like a downer, but its true, I have experience with that crap

 

[100000011]

Just a quick question, I am trying to do a full dump of the NAND on this 512MB Jasper with CR4 and Phat QSB kit installed. Consoles powers on, turns on and functions perfectly (dvd drive was naff to begin with though so just going to scrap that). The dump, however, takes ~108 minutes and I get quite a few bad blocks. I have checked over all of my soldering both visually and with a multimeter (checking quality of signals etc) and everything is fine there.

The bad blocks are not in the first 50 so (from what I heard I don't need to worry) but it's always the same blocks I just wanted to know if there is a way I can fix it?

I have just booted the console and formatted the system storage to see if that does anything and I am doing another dump now so will post the results up here after (unless it fixes it then there is no need).

Any ideas?

 

[100000011]

Nope it didn't fix it, here are results:


Reading Nand
Error: 204 reading block 1CAF
Error: 204 reading block 389E
Error: 250 reading block 39A8
Error: 210 reading block 39A9
Error: 210 reading block 39AA
Error: 210 reading block 39AB
Error: 210 reading block 39AC
Error: 210 reading block 39AD
Error: 210 reading block 39AE
Error: 210 reading block 39AF
Error: 204 reading block 61CA
Error: 204 reading block 7F58
Done!
in 110:53 min:sec

Xbox works fine, so I am going to attempt to install xell now

 

[[email protected]]

yeah I believe that j runner remaps the bad blocks

 

[[email protected]]

I've already managed to get the board hot enough applying even spacing working on my timing now. The only reason im just using the griddle for now is I got about 15 or 20 boxes in random states of repair and I needed a quick but effective fix... It can be done and I have the patience and know how sooo... why not

 

[100000011]

I've already managed to get the board hot enough applying even spacing working on my timing now. The only reason im just using the griddle for now is I got about 15 or 20 boxes in random states of repair and I needed a quick but effective fix... It can be done and I have the patience and know how sooo... why not

Exactly man why not? And at the end of the day all the big expensive stations are is (like I've said before) just a heat source placed under tempered glass to bring the board up to temp nicely, and then a heat gun to focus heat on chips, with thermometers to ensure a nice even temp so board don't warp and damage traces.

So back to Xbox lol. Last night I read the NAND a couple times again (only small dumps) and then used j-runner to install Xell (well attempted to). Everything seemed to go fine. I read NAND, created Xell image, wrote Xell image (took 18 seconds) and unplugged everything to take xbox to TV. When I plugged it in though nothing really happened.

Middle light on xbox flashed, red light on CR4 was solid, and then occasionally the fan picked up for a split second and green light flashed but after waiting about 20 minutes I basically gave up. I've checked solder points again, tried re-writing Xell, even tried writing retail EEC it just does the same thing.

What I did notice though was that once or twice when I tried to boot it after about 30 seconds to 1 minute I got 3 RROD, error code 0022. I'm going to check my solder points one last time, but I don't think it would be that because it turned on fine before I installed Xell however I could easily be wrong. Any ideas? If I can't figure it out I might post a specific thread for it...

 

[100000011]

Ah...

It's a bit unclear from the guide, but am I supposed to solder this point to something? lol



And apologies for untidy wiring this isn't a "final placement", just want to get it modded then I can tidy wiring a bit and sit the CR4 somewhere.