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[rjm2k]

Yes, you can save yourself a lot of money by going for the cheapmod instead of the matrix.  Many people don't do this simply because of the need to solder.  Afaik there are a few things the cheapmod can't do that the matrix can (I could be wrong) :-

1. Switch the the retail bios by hitting eject when a dvd is in the drive.

2. Flash the onboard tsop (which is a bad idea anyway)

other than those, they are pretty much the same in capability.

[PENTIUM75]

An update to my question posted before, thought it may be important to someone

I mapped out the points to connect the cheap mod to an EON NT 2mbit flash chip flashed with an xbox bios, after wiring it and checking the connections it will not work, it doesnt boot, and then kindly fries the chip, however xbox and original TSOP still intact.

Specs on the chip I tried:

EON EN29F002NT (DIP32) - 3.3 VOLT Flash EEPROM chip from an older motherboard I had
flashed with my motherboard's flash software

hey it was worth a try right?

[nautiazn85]

QUOTE (PENTIUM75 @ Dec 27 2002, 05:50 AM)

An update to my question posted before, thought it may be important to someone I mapped out the points to connect the cheap mod to an EON NT 2mbit flash chip flashed with an xbox bios, after wiring it and checking the connections it will not work, it doesnt boot, and then kindly fries the chip, however xbox and original TSOP still intact. Specs on the chip I tried: EON EN29F002NT (DIP32) - 3.3 VOLT Flash EEPROM chip from an older motherboard I had flashed with my motherboard's flash software hey it was worth a try right?

thanks for posting the results! I'll save myself time and not do it... :-P

[blackout_19]

To cut a long story short, the BIOS has to appear in two distinct memory regions 16MBytes apart. The motherboard BIOS does this easily as it ignores A23..A20, so you get 16 copies of the same 1MByte flash everywhere.

The SST 020 does this on LPC because it is a broken design: the same 256KBytes of flash is repeated through the whole of the 32-bit LPC memory address space. Somebody at SST seems to have gotten the wrong end of the stick when designing it, and seems to have assumed that nCE was going to be used to select the chip (madness on LPC).

Every other LPC flash we have seen (even the 020-A, which fixed the madness) is designed more normally, where it will respond only to a single region of LPC memory addresses which is the same size as the flash array. This renders it useless for duty in the Xbox.

By numbnut

[frekkle]

4 modes of operation: (tester, always on, switch to original bios, write enable for upgrading chip)
3) Ability to Flash on board Tsop
4) Doesnt have to be write enable all the time (not like Cheapmod, WE# has to be high when soldering it on)
5) Comes with a Programmer socket on the board and the programmer


Cheapmods can be found unflashed for $10 and you will need to build a programmer for it
which will cost (dont know how much). Plus its a solder chip (without the extra features the matrix has)

Matrix is 59$ with all the above features and the programmer included