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[JNetSurfer]

The Saga continues...

Went to radioshack yesterday and picked up some 30 gauge "wrapping" wire... I realize that wrapping wire is not really what I'm looking for, but it was the only 30 gauge wire that they had. It was a light blue and looked very similar to the X-Chip Master Install Guide...

My friend and I tried the X-Chip install again last night. Neither os us are great at soldering, and he did almost all of the soldering, with me checking his work. The hardest spots were that little jumper (He tried your idea, Duke of Ice, but found that more difficult...) When we thought everything looked good, we reassembled the X-Box and powered it up.

The X-Box powered up and powered down, repeated this cycle, and then powered up and the eject button's light blinked red and green. I plugged the X-CHip into my PC and the PC did communicate with it. I assigned the X button to be the disable button, but booting while holding X down didn't work either.

My question is, how do I go about troubleshooting now? Where are the first places to look? Should I use a voltmeter (or some other device) to check my solder joints? Is a blinking red and green light indicative of a specific problem? (Is this what's known as FRAGging?) What steps should I take now? I do not want to redo all of our work, especially if it's still not going to work!

-Josh

[JNetSurfer]

Ok. I've read through the "Troubleshooting X-Chip Install" guide, and I've looked over all the solders, and I still believe that the little wire is the culprit. I'm posting a picture of the botched solder job. As you can see, the area in red is what I'm worried about...


(Click on the image for a full-res version)

Just for clarification, that solder in the upper-left of the red box is hovering in midair, it popped off the burned area on the board.

As I mentioned before, the solder on the board is completely gone and I don't know how to get it back on there. I'm having a hell of a time trying to get anything to stick to that point. Any ideas?

If I've completely destroyed this board, what are my options?

I'll post overall pictures of the solder job if those would help...

-Josh

[JNetSurfer]

Almost there, I hope.

I'm pretty sure that my soldering is good... Here's where I'm at now. If I power up the XBox with the X-Chip installed, it FRAGs (after two attempts at booting). X-Chip has a red light. However, if I remove the X-Chip, the box boots fine! So, I think I fixed the bad area where the hardwire was cut...

Is this a bad BIOS? I've been loading the "full.bin" bios using X-Control. Does this support 1.6 X-Boxes?

Thanks guys...

-Josh

[The Duke of Ice]

Hello again Josh,

Well, it looks like we are in the same boat now.

If your box will boot up fine w/out the X-Chip in, then this means it is a BIOS issue.

Here is writeup I did for another guy that has some of the same info you need. Start here

You will want to start on Step #2. And follow that down until you hit step #5.  From here your steps will differ. Reason being that you are using a V1.6 Box.  So you will want to get a working BIOS for the V1.6 while you are logged into the #Xbins, you will also want to get the following BIOS's;
Evox V1.3 "xchip_v1.3-1.6box_only.bin" This is Slayer's Auto Install included Bios.
EvolutionX M8 "m8_16.bin"
EvolutionX M8Plus "M8plus_16.bin"
Yoshihiro-m8-1.6B-Memory-Fixe-Beta4 "Yoshihiro-m8-1.6B-Memory-Fixe-Beta4.bin"

Now to find these they are in the BIOS Folder, under the EvolutionX or Evox folder in the #xbins site.

Now trying to get these to work isn't really hard, but you want to make sure you are puting the right bios in the right size bank of the X-Chip. For example make when you unstuff the various bios's look at thier size. The majority of the 4 listed are all 256K Bios. So when you are using X-Control right click on whichever bank you will like to use and then select the 256K option. Then select load bios and load all of you downloaded Bios's into their seperate bank. Then do a write all.
From there open the X-Control software again, and select the first written bios as the "boot". Then see if that works, if that doesn't change all of the banks to boot (in turn obviously) If nothing does then wait for your slayers autoinstall to finish downloading. Once that is done (508 meg's or so) You will want to follow the steps listed in thier .pdf as to what you want to do.
You can refer back this Post and follow the steps I gave him.

If all goes well then you should have a working box. If not.....you can read my post about these same issues's and see if there was anything that you haven't done yet that might do the trick.

Argh  

The Duke Of Ice

[JNetSurfer]

QUOTE(The Duke of Ice @ Jan 16 2005, 07:19 PM)

If your box will boot up fine w/out the X-Chip in, then this means it is a BIOS issue.

Duke,

I hope this is the case... because I don't want to deal with soldering again! The thought of taking out the motherboard again makes me ill...

I am very glad to know that the box boots without the chip because that means that my friend did fix the botched solder job. But unfortunately I don't have a multi-meter to test the voltages/ohms of my rebuilt LPC port. I might pick one up tomorrow.

Is it possible that one of the pins isn't soldered right and I'm just missing it?

I'll try the steps you posted and see if maybe it really is just a BIOS issue. I really, really hope so!

Thanks again for all your help!

-Josh

[The Duke of Ice]

Yes it is a possibilty.

When I pull this board out again I'll post of pic of how I have everything wired & soldered up.

But the main two causes of a FRAG are a 1)Bad solder job 2)Bad bios. The 3rd and less likly issue would be a overheated box, but for this application that's a invalid possibilty.

So I'd try all the possibilities of fixing the bios, and if thats still causing a  FRAG then that leaves your soldering work.

And it is definatly a P.I.T.A. to keep pulling the board and checking this and that out.

The Duke of Ice

[Easybuy2000]

QUOTE(JNetSurfer @ Jan 16 2005, 08:38 PM)

Ok. I've read through the "Troubleshooting X-Chip Install" guide, and I've looked over all the solders, and I still believe that the little wire is the culprit. I'm posting a picture of the botched solder job. As you can see, the area in red is what I'm worried about...

(IMG:http://josh.tumaz.com/IMG/littlewire-low.jpg)
(Click on the image for a full-res version)

Just for clarification, that solder in the upper-left of the red box is hovering in midair, it popped off the burned area on the board.

As I mentioned before, the solder on the board is completely gone and I don't know how to get it back on there. I'm having a hell of a time trying to get anything to stick to that point. Any ideas?

If I've completely destroyed this board, what are my options?

I'll post overall pictures of the solder job if those would help...

-Josh

That is one bad install. However by looking at the pic it is repairable. The main problem with that install is that the solder in NOT flowing in the LPC holes correctly.

It also seems that the trace line was burned off the PCB board again this is fixable with the right technique.

I highly suggest that you learn how to solder properly BEFORE you attempt to repair this board. Soldering is not hard just have to use the proper technique and the RIGHT tools.

You can always practice on an old computer motherboard that's what I did when I was learing how to solder.

People look at my solder jobs and think I'm a pro. Well I'm not I just take my time in the prep work use the right tools and the right technique.

I highly suggest you get a soldering station or anything that can regulate the heat going to the iron.

This post has been edited by Easybuy2000: Jan 17 2005, 04:59 PM

[JNetSurfer]

Yes, I suppose it really wasn't a very good install. But we did our best...

That's an older photo. Currently, the trace line has been fixed, although I'm not sure how well. The box boots without the X-Chip, so I know that burned trace line is bad.

To tell you the trust, I'd rather not attempt to solder this thing any more at all. I've decided that I lack the proper soldering skills and would rather not attempt to repair it again.

Is there anyone I can ship this board to and pay them to make it right?

-Josh

[JNetSurfer]

IT WORKS!!!!

"one bad install"... heh, maybe. BUT IT WORKS! It was just a matter of installing the xchip_v1.3-1.6box_only.bin bios file, and now things are going great.

Thanks for all your help, Duke of Ice! How did your install go? Are you still struggling?

-Josh

[The Duke of Ice]

Glad to hear.

Its always nice when these problems seem to work themselves out. I'm noticing that for alot of people its all about loading the right bios.

Well its good to hear that your box is now working correctly and everything works. And remember, DON'T TOUCH IT. But seriously though, if it works, don't try to fix it or fiddle with it, no need making problems out of solutions.

The Duke of Ice

[Kryxan]

i would like to see an updated picture. that was a terrible solder job.

[110100100]

I appear to be in the same kind of situation,... except that mine doesn't do a true "FRAG" it flashes orange-off when power cycleing, and instead of staying on the third cycle it powers off and stays off.  When I remove the chip it does boot normally so I havn't nuked anything on this board yet.  I installed the chip and booted it up before I found out about xchip_v1.3-1.6box_only.bin and flashed the chip with it,.. but still same results.  Any ideas?

[The Duke of Ice]

What a Flashing Orange light indicates is a possible solder splash on the mobo (Mother Board) or a damaged trace line on the mobo.
So what you want to do is take your board back out again and flip it over and look at the back. Throughly look over the area's that you soldered to rebuild the LPC. There are quite a few trace lines there where it very easy to get a bleed over from too much solder and cause your problems. If you don't see any, then take a magnifying (sp?) glass and then recheck the area. If you have another person around, ask them to check it out as well, sometimes you will not be able to notice it.
If you don't find anything on the back side, then recheck the power wire solding attachment points.
The Orange "warning" light means don't worry about anything bios related, just your solder.
Now if/when you correct your solder job and you start to get a FRAG then you can start then next checklist.

My own personal openion, there is a easier way to solder one of the wires for rebuilding the LPC port. You can look above to see that.

Good luck and let me know what you find.

The Duke of Ice

[JNetSurfer]

Kryxan,

Sorry, I'm going to do exactly what Duke says -- I'm putting a little glass box around my X-Box and putting a big sign on it that says "DO NOT TOUCH!!!" There is no way in #*$!. that I'm opening this sucker up again if I don't have to

Fortunately for you, I do have an updated picture of what the board looked like when I was verifying my soldering. I did a little more work to it after these shots, but this is pretty much how it is now.

By the way, if anyone is having problems seeing the freeking tiny trace lines and needs a closer look, I found that taking macro-mode pictures with my Nikon CoolPix digital camera was a great way to get up close and personal with the board. If you have a camera with a Macro mode (often times the button has a flower on it), try that if you need a closer look.

An overall view:

(Click to open enlarged version)

That small trace wire:

(Click to open enlarged version)

Those solders may still SUCK, but the thing works. And if they break, maybe you guys would be happy to fix them...  

[JNetSurfer]

QUOTE(110100100 @ Jan 20 2005, 09:26 AM)

I appear to be in the same kind of situation,... except that mine doesn't do a true "FRAG" it flashes orange-off when power cycleing...

110100100,

(Nice name, by the way... clever

Also, make sure you had the AV cables plugged in. One of the many times I was testing my box I left those unplugged and my box flashed red-orange instead of red-green... I realize that you're not experiencing red-orange, but I just thought I'd mention that...

Duke of Ice, is it possible he has a solder splash when the box boots normally without the chip???

-Josh