Topic: Chameleon (Read 1334 times)

matic · « **Reply #75 on:** June 03, 2003, 09:02:00 AM »

I finally got my Chameleon working!

After many many nights of troubleshooting and testing, my Chameleon seems to be fully functional and working as described. The culprit to my problems turned out to be one of the pin headers was not connecting properly to the mobo.

I can now boot up in all four modes (I've left it on mode 4 because it's the most flexible) and I've loaded x2 bios and evox dash (blue light lights up in cromwell). Man, what a great feeling it is to finally have everything working.

For those that are still working at it, don't give up, keep checking and rechecking all your connections. Here are some troubleshooting tips that I learned:

D0 connection:
You know you have a good D0 connection if you ground the wire connecting D0 without the chip installed and the xbox FRAGS.

Also, make sure you leave plenty of slack on the D0 wire so that the it doesn't tear out of the mobo from too much handling.

Pin Header connections:
Make sure the solder connects the pin to the motherboard securely. Gently push down each individual pin from the top of the mobo (with your finger if they aren't too big or a screwdriver or other small flat tool) and see if it slides down through the mobo. If it does, it's not soldered well enough on to the motherboard.

Chameleon chip:
I didn't quite know how to troubleshoot the chip other than trying to boot up using each of the 4 memory banks. If one memory bank had a bad flash, chances are one of the other three would be ok. Thankfully, after checking the other two things above, my chip worked. Hopefully this will for you too!

ItsGForMe, yes, you need to reconnect all the cables and components of your xbox for your xbox to boot properly.

Good luck!

laxton316 · « **Reply #76 on:** June 03, 2003, 09:28:00 AM »

QUOTE (matic @ Jun 3 2003, 05:02 PM)

I finally got my Chameleon working!

Good job matic.

I'm still waiting on my chip to arrive. I'm excited to give it a shot. You pointed out some good tips there. Thanks for the great post!

matic · « **Reply #77 on:** June 03, 2003, 03:17:00 PM »

Can you take out the chip and boot the MS bios normally? Can you play a game ok? I had a similar problem and my xbox kept shutting down every 45 seconds or so.

kyleday · « **Reply #78 on:** June 03, 2003, 06:59:00 PM »

Hey update on my little problem of not being able to flash. This is what happened to me, so this is how to fix this problem:

PROBLEM:

The cromwell boots and says it is flashing the bank, but never flashes successfully

ANSWER:

Even though it always found the LINUXBIO.BIN file on my cd-rw, and seemingly updated, I finally got it to flash by adding a file of at least 50mb size naming it SPECIFICALLY DUMMY.BIN <-- it needs to be that exact name i believe. But after adding that dummy file, it finally flashed correctly. Just like i said, it always acted like it flashed correctly, but only would if i added the DUMMY.BIN file on the cd

Best of Luck

Kyle

GrisGris · « **Reply #79 on:** June 04, 2003, 07:07:00 AM »

Short of trying to install a new dash, how do you know when the bios has taken? I THINK I successfully flashed in mode 1 (bank 0)..now in that bank I get the standard MS Dash instead of the Cromwell boot. I don't have my network set up yet, so I can't try to change the dash. Can I assume that I properly flashed though, since it doesn't go to Cromwell in that bank?

kyleday · « **Reply #80 on:** June 04, 2003, 07:36:00 AM »

Yes i assume that you flashed the new bank correctly if it's booting what seems to be the evox bios (should look just like a MS bios). What you could do is boot a different bank w/ cromwell on it, and reflash bank0 with a colormod bios, that way when it boots up in a different color than standard MS bios, you'll know it worked correctly.

Kyle

emka · « **Reply #81 on:** June 04, 2003, 07:37:00 AM »

kyleday: how big was your DUMMY.BIN exactly? and what DVD drive do you got?

GrisGris · « **Reply #82 on:** June 04, 2003, 07:40:00 AM »

Thanks kyleday, I may try that to satisfy my curiosity.

By the way (emka reminded me), I have a Philips DVD and I chose not to use a dummy file to see whether the DVD could do it. Obviously I'm not completely sure, but it did recognize the bios on the CD and said it was installing it. I assume that drives that need a dummy file won't even recognize the bios on the CD.

Edit: oh, and common wisdom is that the dummy file should be at least 50 megs, emka.

kyleday · « **Reply #83 on:** June 04, 2003, 07:57:00 AM »

EMKA- oddly enough, without the dummy file, the bios would still be found, and try to flash, but never flashed correctly. It was only after I added a file, i think it was around 64 megs and named it "DUMMY.BIN" <-- An important note, I don't think that cromwell supports file names more than 8 characters long - hence the required name "LINUXBIO" instead of LINUXBIOS. So make sure to name them appropriatelly. I have both types of DVD drives and I could only flash from a CDRW. I tried both a DVD+R and DVD+RW, but the CDRW worked best for me. Another note- If I didn't FULLY and COMPLETELY erase the CDRW, the cromwell bios would try to find a "linuxboot.cfg" file and never found my bios- but once i COMPLETELY erased the cdrw, it would find the updated bios. So if anyone is having trouble there- try these solutions- they worked for me

Hope this helps

Kyle

tracy2420 · « **Reply #84 on:** June 04, 2003, 08:02:00 AM »

Here are some install pics that I have done, its a rush job so please dont flame on how messy my insides are...LOL.
xzone

Paul2428 · « **Reply #85 on:** June 04, 2003, 08:40:00 AM »

do you have to solder the A15 for you to run evox on your machine because in the install menu it says that you only need the
D0 and that the A15 was for advanced users? I just don't want to do more than i have to.

GrisGris · « **Reply #86 on:** June 04, 2003, 08:42:00 AM »

You don't need it, and I wouldn't go near it.

explicitlyrics100 · « **Reply #87 on:** June 04, 2003, 08:43:00 AM »

yes - it maybe important to use a dummy filename less than 8 characters long. However - it is most certainly not necessary to call it dummy.bin,,,, all you need to make sure is that when you drag the dummy file into the nero burning box or whatever you use it is above the bios file. This indicates higher priority and thus is burned closer to the centre of the disk, this emans the xbox cd drive does not have to spin as fast to get sufficient data off the disk and also that it can find the bios file. you should also be able to right click it and change priority in most burning software

GrisGris · « **Reply #88 on:** June 04, 2003, 03:34:00 PM »

We're not ignoring you bakin1...you're just so damn far ahead of us that most of us have no idea what you're talking about

_300zx_TT · « **Reply #89 on:** June 04, 2003, 04:01:00 PM »

i installed everything as the manual says, and i fixed my Resistor problem.
i had lost a 103 resistor, so what i did was put tiny amount of solder on the resistor points, and solder 1 wire from point to point (they are very close..)
then i cut the wire in half (now making it two soldered wires) and checked their continuity just to be sure. after verifying it was ok, i soldered a different type of 10,000 ohm resistor (cylinder one with colored bands around it) to the two ends of the wires that i had soldered to the board. this worked perfectly, and now my eject was working nicely:)
(NOTE!: do not solder the resistor to the mobo and the yellow power connector, there is another connection that u dont see that drops the resistor down to 30,000 ohms before it reaches the power connector.

as for the problem with the chameleon.
i have everything installed.. but my chameleon wont stop flashing. i dont know how to check the lpc points and my dad is getting impatient with this thing cause he is a bastard. I was wondering if someone could tell me how to check the continuity of these points.
the d0 seems to work, and P & E do aswell.. but what the fuck is stopping this thing from working ?

Author Topic: Chameleon (Read 1334 times)