the matrix works fine with 1.1 xbox's as long as you have the correct 1.1 bios, otherwise it will not work! i just chipped a 1.1 a week ago and it seemed a little more difficult to align to get a green light, after using a erasable pen eraser on the contacts it seemed a little easier to get the green light steady
if you cant ftp to your xbox then you have some networking problems, but if you have evox dashboard loaded then you already completed most of the hard work. Check under settings under the evox to see what ip your xbox has, if you dont have a cable/dsl router/switch you will need to give the xbox a static ip address, set the ip in the settings and you should be able to ping and ftp to the xbox
and just because the matrix is cheaper doesnt make it a good place to buy it from, read around for a good distributer, otherwise you will probably lose your money or be waiting forever in shipping time
