Hopefully my situation is not normal, given the last 6 pages of topics as well as the stickies.
As you may have read in the description, I am using the Xecuter 2.6 CE. My Xbox is somewhere in the range of 1.0 to 1.5, but I haven't re-opened my XB to determine this exact version (preoccupied trying to solve other issues). It's probably somewhere between a 1.3 and a 1.5, because I bought it in the later years of Xbox sales. It doesn't have the extra fan on it, and the pin header holes (correct lingo?) were free from solder, so use that as an indicator of the version if you can. I used the soldering method of modding because it was recommended by many tutorials and forums as a cleaner and more proper way of modding.. however after looking at someone's pictures on a website explaining photo by photo the way to mod, I felt like I may have made a mistake.
[ATTN MODERATORS: For the love of education, please do not ban me for posting this ONE link. Its the direct reference to what I'm referring to, in case my verbose explanation is not making things clear.]
I viewed the photo on this webpage:
www.yoxbox.com/tut/xecuter2-6v1-6/solder.html
....
and after I saw that photo, I recalled that my installation did not mimic that. In case the moderators have removed that link because I violated a rule, the image was a "Before-and-After" photo of the LPC (what does that stand for?) "chip" placed in the correct location, and then the LPC "chip" soldered correctly in place...
In short, my installation totally missed installing the LPC "chip". For the life of me, I couldn't figure out where it was supposed to go, probably because I tried to shape-fit it onto where I thought it fit (like how kids test blocks in block holders). No dice. Though part of the shape-fitting problem came from another problem I had:
Various tutorials and forums mentioned removing a pin from the pin header..... I didn't remove any pins, I just soldered them onto the board.
All this aside, my modchip seems to have installed perfectly. I haven't flashed the BIOS or added any dashboards yet, because researching them in a crash course method is what I've been preoccupied with.
So, I ask you for your comments on my situation, as well as the answer to these questions: did my installation miss anything CRITICAL to modding my XB? Do I really need to de-solder my pin header for the LPC installation? Is that extra pin going to cause me any problems at all? Will it blend? That is the question.