Print

[ferrari_rulz_02]

QUOTE(fahrenheit @ Oct 16 2005, 08:17 AM)

Well my v1.0 is inconsistant. It FRAO's at startup 99% of the time

well that sounds about right for an ic that is pretty much dead.

and the more i think about it, the MCPX is the heart of the xbox, and it makes total sense that this is the problem.

just thinking, the MCPX gets pretty hot, doesnt it? maybe some heatsinks on it would be warranted. if not heat, i cant think of anythign that would screw it up, and on this many occasions

[thedominor]

QUOTE(fahrenheit @ Oct 15 2005, 05:17 PM)

Well my v1.0 is inconsistant. It FRAO's at startup 99% of the time, but I can then press eject and the modchip BIOS will kick in and load the dash.
Games are a mixed bag. Some will consistantly crash at the exact same point every single time with a frozen screen and audio stuck in a loop. Others seem to play fine.
At the moment, the console is being used to run XBMC which it does without issue.

So, does this mean that nine times out of ten when you press the eject button after booting it works?  Or that you can get it to boot the modchip bios everytime by pressing the eject button.  That is odd either way.  Maybe only a certain portion your MCPX is dead, and enough hasn't been burned out to break it completely!  awsome though.  

As for the MCPX getting hot, it most deffinetly does, it's got a temperature monitor just like the CPU!  I've heard from alex548, a great guy, that if you have a TSOP'd box you should deffinetly get a sink cause the split causes more heat to be generated or something.  And I remember that the last time before my box went FRAO 100% my MCPX temperature reading was really really high, like 136F.

so yeah, the three of us are in agreement so far.

[ferrari_rulz_02]

QUOTE(thedominor @ Oct 16 2005, 11:52 AM)

And I remember that the last time before my box went FRAO 100% my MCPX temperature reading was really really high, like 136F.

thats what, nearly 58 celsius. damm hot.

i think ill be getting a heatsink for my mcpx very soon.

[thedominor]

hehe, that might be a very good idea; I got one for my new mobo, because I dont ever want to see a FRAO again!  

[fahrenheit]

thedominor, I get 100% boot rate by pressing the eject button. Occassionally the console will power on without FRAO.

[ferrari_rulz_02]

QUOTE(fahrenheit @ Oct 16 2005, 04:01 PM)

thedominor, I get 100% boot rate by pressing the eject button. Occassionally the console will power on without FRAO.

well that also sounds like an mcpx that isnt completley dead

[fr_dr]

Is there a way to test the MCPX with a multimeter to see if its still alive and still got power?

[ferrari_rulz_02]

QUOTE(fr_dr @ Oct 16 2005, 11:43 PM)

Is there a way to test the MCPX with a multimeter to see if its still alive and still got power?

if you knew teh pinout, sure. but i dont know if you can get that.

maybe pm networkboy and see if he can help you.

but just remember its one thing to test if the MCPX is getting power, but it is a much different thing to test if it is working properally.

[thedominor]

QUOTE(fahrenheit @ Oct 16 2005, 01:01 AM)

thedominor, I get 100% boot rate by pressing the eject button. Occassionally the console will power on without FRAO.

Wow thats odd.  Don't unmodded xboxs boot when you hit the eject button from a standby state?  Does that work for you fahrenheit, or do you have to hit the power and then the eject?  
   I now believe that most FRAO is related to MCPX dying from heat over time, so I doubt that there is much you can do to fix it, but maybe we can figure out how to bypass part of the mcpx.  If you are really eager/desperate to get you smoke fixed, you might be able to pay perplexer to do it, but I'm not sure.  MCPX replacement is tricky as hell, and he only recently succeded at it, and I don't know if he is offering that service.
A read ghetto thing that might work is to solder the corresponding leads from the eject button to the power button, so every time you press either button, both buttons are triggered, but that might get annoying or even problematic.  I've never heard off anyone doing that, and I haven't thought it through, but it might work.

QUOTE(fr_dr @ Oct 16 2005, 08:43 AM)

Is there a way to test the MCPX with a multimeter to see if its still alive and still got power?

If you look at the MCPX, one corner shoud have a colored notch/line in it.  If you set your mulimeter to read 20V DC and put your black lead on ground (a screw pad) and check vias (small contacts) near that corner you should come up with 3.3V i think.  If you want to be more exact, check around page two of this thread, PimpleX does a great comparison between FRAO and non-FRAO boards.

[fahrenheit]

Doesn't matter which button I press, eject or power, it results in a FRAO and then I only have to tap the eject to get it to boot (which if done lightly keeps the tray from ejecting). With the modchip turned off, it will start to play the flubber and choke, just like for everyone else with this problem, but with the modchip on it will boot without issue.

No point in wiring up the power and eject buttons, because I still have to wait for the boot to fail twice then FRAO before I can press the eject button.

I can use XBMC and stream and watch movies over my network for hours, use the hard drive and DVD drive, but games kill it, so perhaps that leads more credibility to MCPX failure?

[thedominor]

Wow, that is wild.  I'm so surprised that it works so well in XBMC, but then games kill it.  I'll think about this.  Thanks for the interesting and detailed story.

[ferrari_rulz_02]

well it is almost certinally teh MCPX to blame.

Due to its complicated nature (and teh fact that it handles just about everything in the xbox), the most common fault is only part of the MCPX dieing.

as said, replacing it would be a bitch. but if you had another non-working board, and some smd soldering experince, it would be possible to change them over.

[thedominor]

yes, deffinetly part of the mcpx died.  it is interesting though that the bios on the the chip  loads and runs fine for some reason when he presses the eject button.  meaning that only a very small part of his mcpx is dead i guess?

[ferrari_rulz_02]

QUOTE(thedominor @ Oct 19 2005, 05:09 AM)

yes, deffinetly part of the mcpx died.  it is interesting though that the bios on the the chip  loads and runs fine for some reason when he presses the eject button.  meaning that only a very small part of his mcpx is dead i guess?

well id say that yes, only a small part is fried

[Dallas186]

Hi Guys,
sorry to jump into this thread right at the end but i recently had exactly the same problem with a V1.0 that was brought into the shop which was FRAO, I don't normally repair Xbox's only PS2's but it was worth a go, no fix no fee.

pin 5 (RST) of the LPC was showing 0.17V which i knew couldn't be right from trawling data from this site.

Initially i couldn't find the problem but was 100% sure that it wasn't a broken trace but had a gut feeling that the problem lay around the LPC area, (initially supecting R7R5 even though the meter said not) but after changing all 4 resistors it showed no change. so stuck at this point i bought a working V1 motherboard from ebay and compared readings like for like.. the significant factor was only 0.17v coming out of the 6pin chip on pin 6 as opposed to 3.2V on the working board!

swapping the chip off of the working board (very carefully) and soldering it onto the non-working board solved the problem , 3.2V on pin 5 and the box booted normally.

unfortunately now i'm left with a broken v1.0 board and no profit but hey

PimpleX threw up a very nice photo of the board at the start of this thread so iv'e stolen it (sorry m8) to show the chip that i'm referring to (it's ringed).

Now if any of you guys that know far more about the Xbox than i ever will can identify what this component is I too would be mucho grateful!!


I took a photo of that part of the board when comparing the 2 boards side by side and have reference to the voltages at most points around that area and resistor values from the working board if you would like me to post it.

strange thing was R7R8 read 47k on the non working board and 20k on the working board (ummmm)

I hope this helps anyone else that is showing low V on pin 5.

Best,

Rich

QUOTE(PimpleX @ Aug 29 2005, 11:04 PM)