Ring of Light but no lights

[Jake69]

Hi I will start from the when I first cracked open the xbox. I have a falcon, but it was suffering from 3 red lights after installing the nandx qsb. I found if I switched it on and off eventually I was able to get my key from xell and made a freeboot bin, which also worked after 4 or 5 times switching it on and off.
I ordered the alt board to try that with the same results, so I was advised to send it away to be reflowed. The guy was supposed to be a professional but turned out he was a complete cowboy, (my 4 year old daughter could have done a better job with her eyes closed!!). When I got it back he had removed the pins from the bottom qsb so I couldn't change the jumper and when I switched it on it would only boot up if I unplugged the rf board and put it back in then the dash would load eventually after a few 3 red lights. I removed the qsb board and put on the top qsb board to get e79 with every jumper setting but at the same time no lights on rf board. I tried to re solder and ruined the qsb board so I ordered some more a week ago monday but they have still not been dispatched so I ordered some diodes which arrived 2day. I had to use the alt point on the bottom of the board and got e79 so had a go at patching the smc with update my smc and moved the rol wire, then I just had a black screen each time, couldn't see if I had 3 red lights as rol not working, then I tried switching it on with eject and got xell so I knew the jtag was working. After creating several different freeboot images and patching them I still ended up with just black screen but xell working. I tried a xbr and hey presto I have a dash but I really wanted freeboot so im stuck there, plus as the rol isnt lighting up at all I have to first plug a controller in via usb to sinc it then I can unplug it and the wireless will work, I have tried a different rf board and googled to see if I could find out why but have had no joy.
If anyone has any ideas as to why they are not working it would be greatly appreciated. This console has caused one major headache and now i just want it sorted. Thanks in advance.

 

[manwithoutname]

How did you create freeboot?

Also you can try this, extract the smc from your working xell and move it into the relative bin folder in JTAG tool making sure you rename it to falcon.bin.

After that use JTAG tool to create freeboot, write bin and let me know what happened!

 

[Jake69]

I used the freeboot tool box maker did custom freeboot for the dash launch to work as wanted the no ping limit, and If I insert the working smc into the freeboot the screen just stays black, and if I switch it on with eject I get xell, if I insert it into the freeboot that used to work on there before the e79 it still is just a black screen, its quite frustrating not to be able to see what flashing lights are flashing :-( I will have a go with jtag tool now

 

[Jake69]

Hi I used the jtag tool to create freeboot, then used the update my smc program to put the working smc in to get just a black screen again but xell is working as it was before.

 

[manwithoutname]

It has been confirmed if you update the SMC of freeboot after it has been compiled then you'll get a black screen, so this method will not work.

You will need to use the modified SMC to create the freeboot image from scratch.

 

[Jake69]

when I used jtag tool I couldn't see anywhere about adding a smc, would it work if I added it to my original nand image then used jtag tool to create a freeboot and where would I stand with making a modified freeboot to allow dash launch and no ping and is there any reason why my rol doesn`t work, it did till I removed the alt qsb on the bottom of the board thanks in advance

 

[manwithoutname]

Jake, you need to place the SMC file in here 'C:\Program Files\Jtag Tool\SMC' and name it to your motherboard type (i.e. faclon.bin/jasper.bin/zephyr.bin). The create Freeboot and write it.

Make sure the smc file is 12kb in size else JTAG tool will give an error message, but if the SMC file extracted correctly it will always be 12kb in size.

Do you have a spare ROL board to test? These can get damaged during JTAG as I found out on my first zephyr board.

 

[Jake69]

I have 2 rol boards but neither light up, I have been trying the jtag tool thing since u last posted, I have the falcon_hack_updxell smc file which I had extracted and put it into the xbr and it worked previously, I put into the C:\Program Files\Jtag Tool\SMC folder and created the freeboot but still getting error 79 :-( this is frustrating even tried to see if putting the smc into freeboot toolbox would work but still same result

 

[manwithoutname]

I know the feeling, It took me 2-3 days to resolve it first time.

If XBR did work then the JTAG connection's should be ok. You say both ROL don't work, can you still power the xbox using the power button? The reason I'm asking is that when messing with my first Zephyr I managed to shorten/mess the jtag wires and the ROL board completely burned on it in addition I was no longer able to power the console using the power button. Instead I had to either use the eject button or the controller.

Did you change both jtag cables? i.e. red wire to DVD open tray signal and the yellow one to Audio_CLAMP?

Lets rewind things back for a bit. copy the file falcon.bin from 'C:\Program Files\Jtag Tool\Xell Bins' into a working folder and use updatemysmc to change the SMC points. Once you done that, replace falcon.bin back into the JTAG Tool XBins and install xell.

Once you done that let me know if xell works before we move to the next stage.

PS. Did you have any bad blocks in your NAND dump?

 

[Jake69]

I copied the xell bin out and into the updatemysmc folder but when I selected the file it turned the xell file into a 16 meg file so instead I copied falcon_hack_updxell into jtag Tool\Xell Bins and renamed it falcon I figured it must be the same type of file as the one I took out as exactly same size, I flashed back the original nand file then flashed xell but have e79, there was a bad block 3B1 but it didnt effect freeboot working in the past, if I put the freeboot image on with the smc patched I can get xell up as I was using it to update the nand via usb and same as the xbr, I even tried the update xbr to freeboot with no luck, thanks for replying so quick
I can switch on the xbox with the power button and I only have the aud clamp wire as the other is going to the alternative dbf1 ( i think its called that )

 

[manwithoutname]

It is normal for the file size to change 16mb, it done that for me. The reason I told you to do this is because I only trust the xell version that is within the JTAG Tool folder.

If you want try and complete that step using the 16mb file you got as result from updating the SMC. If xell boots fine, extract the smc again from that xell and place it in the JTAG Tool and compile freeboot.

The bad block might not have caused an issue with the old jtag method but might be the cause in this case. Steve007 had a zephyr board with 3 bad blocks and used alternative JTAG points. His console displayed the same behavior just black screen with green light in the middle. I remapped his bad blocks and used my own diodes for his JTAG and it worked fine after.

 

[Jake69]

I flashed the 16 meg file to the nand and it boots into xell with eject and the power button hopefully that is a good sign

 

[manwithoutname]

Good .. Now make sure you keep that xell file (falcon.bin) in a safe place cause you might need it later. For now, extract the smc file from the xell you just flashed and worked.

As I said before the smc file should be 12kb, rename it to falcon.bin and place it in 'C:\Program Files\Jtag Tool\SMC'. Create Freeboot and install it. If Freeboot doesn't work after, then its time to try to remap the bad blocks in that freeboot.bin file but we'll come to that later.

 

[Jake69]

It works will this freeboot work with dash launch? and the no ping? thank you so much bud for your patience

 

[manwithoutname]

It should work fine. Any problems just ask.

Feel free to use the thank you button

 

[Jake69]

I plugged in my hard drive from my jasper which loads up freestyle dash on start up, but not in the falcon, is there anyway I can put the free boot patches into j tag tool for dash launch to work? and remake the free boot again, as the no ping limit needs dash launch, as the free boot toolbox looks more complicated thanks again

 

[M AzeeM K]

I plugged in my hard drive from my jasper which loads up freestyle dash on start up, but not in the falcon, is there anyway I can put the free boot patches into j tag tool for dash launch to work? and remake the free boot again, as the no ping limit needs dash launch, as the free boot toolbox looks more complicated thanks again

Put the new patch files in both "XB1" and "Mem" folders present within the "bin" folder in the Jtag Tool folder. Also overwrite the patches present in the "bin" folder itself. Then create a freeboot image using the same method you used before in order to get a working freeboot image.

 

[Jake69]

I had a go, deleted the falcon files from both folders then copied patches renamed them falcon and re created the freeboot but the dash launch still isn't booting wrote the nand twice in case i booted the other freeboot.bin by mistake, any other ideas? thanks again

 

[Iron5]

Help please!

Can someone tell me why i get a black screen on my jasper jtag wend booting

the 360 with the Eject button ?