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[mirx999]

the problem lies in your LPC soldering.  keep filling the holes.  when i solder pinheaders, i flux the pins and the LPC holes, then heat up the tip of the pin and apply solder from the side.  haven't had a bad joint yet.

[Terrorbyte]

mirx999:

Yeah, I should've used flux from the get-go.  Would've made my life a lot easier, I guess from now on that's what I'll do.  Some of the solder points are still a little "balled" up, so I'm guessing those aren't really making contact.  Until they're all cone-shaped I'll have to keep the iron on the pin and let the solder run on its own.  

I'm wondering if it would be better to use a higher wattage soldering iron (go from 15W to 40W) to heat those pins up quicker & hotter.  I just don't want to damage the board or anything.  Thanks for the tip.

[explicitlyrics100]

dont use a higher wattage soldering iron!!!!!!
just heat the pin up till the solder melts, clean the iron, leave to cool, then try again.  repeat this until you get a good connection.  more heat will fry the xbox

[Cherry]

Sorry man, I should have made this clear before:

The pins you should check are pins 1-11 - thats 5 on the left, and 6 on the right. The top left pin isn't used.

Hope you didn't spend much time trying to get that pin to do something. But on the plus side, looks like your pinheader is installed fine. Is your problem solved or do you still frag ?

[Terrorbyte]

Cherry:

no problem.  I kinda figured it out after 5 or 6 soldering attempts, lol.  That point is obviously some sort of dud or something, don't know why the manuals don't say to yank that one.  Yeah, everything gets the proper voltage now....I'll post here again if my chip finally fires up properly.

[Terrorbyte]

Ok, BOTH Chameleons work from the pin header install, but it will ONLY boot from the bank that has Cromwell Linux 1.8 installed.  For some reason ALL of the banks that have the xecuter 4977 BIOS prevent my XBOX from booting - i get the 3X reboot and the red eject light flashing.  There was NEVER a problem with the Chameleon itself, just the BIOS.  I'll obviously have to try and flash other BIOSes onto the chip, that's my only option now.  Obviously the Chameleon must accept other BIOSes OTHER than the crappy Cromwell one, because it would be pretty useless otherwise.  I've seen this SAME problem happen EVERYTIME the Cromwell BIOS was installed on the Chameleon.  It won't flash any BIOS from CD-RW to the chip, no matter how you burn the disc, what software you use to burn the disc, or what type of media you're using (I'm currently using Sony CD-RW, my XBOX won't even read a Verbatim CD-R, or any other CD-R for that matter).  

I've tried burning multiple different BIOSes to CD-RW - the evoX D.6, the xecuter 4977, you name it.  Cromwell won't flash any of them to the Chameleon.

Cromwell is a lousy P.O.S.  It will NOT automatically flash jack sh*t from a CD-R/RW.  When prompted for the CD, Cromwell starts to load the disc, then says "cannot find linuxboot.cfg - halting".  Why the hell would Cromwell 1.8 look for a linuxboot.cfg file?  Is there a newer version of Cromwell out there or any instructions pertaining to the "linuxboot.cfg file not found" error?    

Maybe I should post this as a new topic again.

[Cherry]

Just to check that you're doing this right, because this worked for me.

set all your dipswitches on the chameleon to OFF (i.e. UP)

take EvoX D.6 (first one I found on my drive, and it worked for me, so try this...)

MAKE SURE IT IS ONLY 262144 BYTES LONG. if not, you need to split it.

Rename it to LINUXBIO.BIN

now create a new folder somewhere called "DISC", and inside that folder create another one called "A". copy about 50mb or so of random crap into the "A" folder, and then copy your LINUXBIO.BIN file into the DISC folder.

Using whatever program you like to use, burn everything inside the DISC folder to a CDRW using standard ISO9660. Turn on your xbox, and dont do *anything* until the thing specifically tells you, in big letters, to insert your CD. Put your new CDRW in there and press the eject button to close the drive. Wait a while and your xbox should power off, and when you switch it back on, you SHOULD have EvoX D.6.

[Terrorbyte]

Cherry,

Just to further narrow down my issue, here's what I've come up with...

Apparently the Cromwell BIOS 1.8 found RIGHT on xodus-chip's website was not the specific "Chameleon Cromwell BIOS", it's just the standard one that is really meant for Xecuter chips and/or cheapmods.  I found the Chameleon-specific Cromwell BIOS (which automatically flashes the Chameleon without the need for all the fluff and specifically named files/folders) on the xbins FTP server and will flash that onto my Chameleon via PC tonight.  The problem with turning all my dipswitches off is that I installed Cromwell on Bank #2, so I guess that means my chip is not "flashable" anyway, all other banks have xecuter 4977 on them, including bank #0, which won't boot the XBOX.  So, I have to load a new BIOS on there regardless.  I plan on loading the Chameleon Cromwell onto the first 2 memory banks, and loading the Evox D.6 (EjectFix) onto the second TWO banks.  This way, I can boot the chip in "flashable" mode and try out your suggestions, which will most likely work fine.  

Goes to show you the kind of wild goose chase someone can go through by "following the directions".  Unless the "Chameleon" Cromwell is somehow illegitimate/illegal, I don't know why xodus-chip doesn't include the CORRECT BIOS right on their own damn web site.  The "standard" Cromwell does not "automatically" flash anything, you have to use OzXFlash, and that doesn't even recognize the Chameleon, just fails to flash the chip's BIOS.

I did know about waiting for the "Insert CD prompt", so that's not an issue.  Things didn't work as stated by the Chameleon User Manual among other sources, but I guess in order to make the Chameleon a legitimate product Xodus probably cannot provide direction to those wishing to flash alternate BIOSes onto the chip's memory banks since most other BIOSes are designed to circumvent copy protection.  Oh well, I guess I'm frustrated with the amount of time that has been wasted, but in the long run it will have been well worth the effort.  

Cherry - thanks for your advice, it certainly helped out.  If I run into any more issues or have success, I will post here again to keep everyone updated.

[Cherry]

hope you get it sorted soon.

[dzv]

QUOTE (Terrorbyte @ Jul 3 2003, 02:43 AM)

The problem with turning all my dipswitches off is that I installed Cromwell on Bank #2, so I guess that means my chip is not "flashable" anyway, all other banks have xecuter 4977 on them, including bank #0, which won't boot the XBOX.

If you have a PC programmer for your Chameleon (I'm guessing it's a MatriX programmer) then you don't need to bother with Cromwell at all.  Just flash the BIOSes of your choice to the Chameleon, plug it in, and go!  The Cromwell BIOS is only meant for people who have no access to an external programmer.

QUOTE (Terrorbyte @ Jul 2 2003, 11:59 PM)

Cherry: no problem.  I kinda figured it out after 5 or 6 soldering attempts, lol.  That point is obviously some sort of dud or something, don't know why the manuals don't say to yank that one.  Yeah, everything gets the proper voltage now....I'll post here again if my chip finally fires up properly.

By the way, Pin 12 (the one you're talking about) is another Ground point.  That's why you get no voltage from it.

[Terrorbyte]

QUOTE

If you have a PC programmer for your Chameleon (I'm guessing it's a MatriX programmer) then you don't need to bother with Cromwell at all. Just flash the BIOSes of your choice to the Chameleon, plug it in, and go! The Cromwell BIOS is only meant for people who have no access to an external programmer.

Yeah, that was definitely my plan, except the particular BIOS that I chose to substitute for the Cromwell didn't work (I tried the xecuter 4977_blue BIOS), I got the X3 reboot, then red flashing from the eject button, no video or sound, etc.  I flashed the xecuter BIOS onto 3 out of 4 Chameleon memory banks, and put the Cromwell BIOS on bank #2 just for the hell of it, figuring that I would just flash over it using EvolutionX or something else.

I do have the Matrix programmer, which appears to flash the chip without a problem, but for whatever reason (perhaps the size of the xecuter BIOS was off by a few bytes or something), I can't boot when I select any of the memory banks that the xecuter BIOS is installed on.

Fortunately, after about the 4th solder attempt, I finally realized that pin #12 was a ground point, lol.  Oh well, wasted maybe 30 minutes on it, not too bad.

[dzv]

Sounds to me like you need to download another BIOS.  You may have a corrupt version of the X2 4977.  I recommend dowloading a non-customized BIOS, then you can customize it if you want using XBTool.  You can also use XBTool to save it as 256k, which will ensure it's exactly the right size.

[Terrorbyte]

dsv:

Thanks to one of your previous posts, I was finally able to solder those P&E points on the bottom of the XBOX mobo - thanks, excellent post!

So, that changes things a bit.  Now I will leave the Chameleon in mode 4, making sure that switches 3 & 4 are ON.  The power switch/eject functionality works perfectly, XBOX boots right to its original dashboard when I hold the eject button down to power it on, at least I know things are working smoothly now.  

Still have yet to flash the Chameleon's BIOS, have to wait for a friend of mine to return home - his PC flashes the Chameleon BIOS perfectly from the Matrix programmer, so I must use his PC for flashing.  

One more question for you...in mode 4, the Chameleon is split into 3 banks, 2x256k, and 1x512k.  This might be a dumb question, but does the 512k bank require a 512k BIOS, or can I load another standard 256k BIOS into that bank?  Just curious...