I see a lot of people are confused about installing the XBIT with a 1.6v motherboard. As I was when I first began. Here is what I know and I'll try to make it clear for you. I understand newbies can be intimidated with the language so I'll try to be clear with those. This is my understanding of what has happen, and I could well be wrong. But it helped me to make it work. Hope it does for you. Don't quote me, I'll deny it. LOL
Read this tutoral few times before you actually do anything to your MB. Some things you won't understand till the end. I also don't want you to jump the gun and do something ahead of me when I have things to explain to you.
Before we even begin, I should tell you that the way I installed my XBIT caused few side effects that you have to consider for yourselves.
1) It would be very difficult (but not impossible) for me to take out the MOD chip (which I don't ever plan to do). I don't plan to replace it with another.
2) I can't play xbox live because I can never turn the MOD chip off. If the xbox is on, the mod chip has to be on as well. There is a way to get around this by installing extra switches, more soldering and wiring, and I think some people have postings about this here and there. I don't know anything about that so I didn't care to figure it out. Like I said, I don't plan to play xbox live, ever.
XBIT has 3 ways of installation and they're all exactly the same concept. Pogo pins (the thick bouncy pins that come out of the bottom side of the MOD chip), HeaderPin (the 2 rows of 6 metal sticks coming up on the top side of the modchip), and the wires with multiple colors. I tried the Pogo pins and for one reason or another, I couldn't get it to work. So I did the HeaderPins installation and worked for me. I didn't even try the wires so don't ask me about those. But again, they're all essentially the same thing, just different methods of installation.
Previous Xbox MB's (Mother Boards or MoBos), such as the 1.0 - 1.4 versions, as well as the 1.5v, which is slightly different, had a certain design. The Mod chip makers created their chips according to this design. In Xbox 1.6v MS changed that design (they changed the wiring on the LPC). That's why you can't just place the XBIT chip's pogo pins (or pin headers) on top of the LPC holes and expect it to work. Not only so, but they also moved the d0 point (also knows as the LFRAME, which plays a key role in xbox's original bios). You know the Little arm that comes out of the xbit chip, which has 2 pogo pins? Well, 1 of them took care of the d0 point previously. This is no longer the case because, again, they moved it. That little arm, well, might as well get rid of it because it doesn't do anything for the 1.6v. Having said that, DON'T cut it or anything, just tape it up with insulation/electrical tape.
Now, in order for the xbit pins to work again when you connect it to the MB, you would have to move the Modchip pins around, but you CAN'T do that right? So if the Mod chip can't adjust to the MB, maybe we can try to have the MB adjust to the Mod chip like it used to in 1.0v-1.5v. This is why we have to rebuild (rewire) the LPC (the 2 rows of 8 holes on the MB). I guess if you do the wire installtion for the XBIT and you change the placement of those wires around, you might get it to work without the LPC rebuild. It should in theory (if you find the correct rewiring sequence) but I don't have the time, energy, or motivation to figure that out. So lets forget about the wiring installation of the XBIT and focus on the Pin Header installtion.
Before we rebuild the LPC, I soldered the XBIT using the HeaderPins (not the pogo pins) onto the motherboard. If you go to www.dms3.com and you find the HeaderPins installation, you'll see that the chip is flipped upside down so that the HeaderPins can go through the holes (Diagram #8). Don't be too affraid of soldering or else you'll really mess it up. Be confident because it was simple. Get somekind of circuit chip from somewhere (old motherboards, broken radio, etc.) and practice on those first and then do the soldering on the MB. Use the right equipment or you could mess up your MB really bad. Yes you will have to take your MB outside of the xbox casing. There are tons of tutorals out there that show you how to do this, so don't ask me about that.
Soldering pencils should be between 12-20 watts. Anything hotter then that and you'll have to be too careful. Really hot soldering pencils (+40 watts) can damage the MB if you get too close. Make sure your soldering pencil is a soldering pencil and not a soldering iron. Soldering irons have a thicker point and makes it hard to solder on the MB. Soldering pencils have very sharp points. They're about the same shape and size as a very sharp pencil (duh! wonder why they call it a soldering pencil). I used a 20 watts soldering iron and bought a sharper tip and changed it. Most companies that make soldering irons make their own tips so you might not be able to replace the tip of ur soldering iron easily. I tried changing my soldering tip with a cheaper brand and it didn't fit or it got hotter then it should. I had to use a sharper tip that was from the same company as the company that made my soldering iron.
Use the right type of wires when you rebuild the LPC. They should be very similar to the multiple color wires that came with your XBIT for the wire installation. If you know you're not going to do the wire install for the XBIT ever, you might consider utilizing those for the LPC rebuild. I didn't. I went and bought a roll of 600v 28 awg (gauge) 25ft STRANDED wire. Not the solid wires, but stranded wires are best. They're more flexible and easy to manage. Solid wires are too stiff. The 28 gauge wires are also very very thin, so makes it easier to solder them to small points.
Trust me, if you don't have much experience with soldering (which is the most difficult part of this whole modding process), you'll want to read this tutoral about soldering:
http://www.xbox-scen.../soldering2.phpYou might want to flash your XBIT bios before installing it. You don't have to but I did.
If this next section is confusing, you might want to read it while you have your MB in front of you or you have a picture of the LPC.
Now to the mod chip. I flipped the chip the way it shows in the DMS3 webside when they teach you how to install it with the HeaderPins (not the pogo pins or the wire installation). Flip it the way is shown. Remember to cut pin #4! Very dangerous to install that one. You have a total of 12 pins sticking up on the mod chip. Take out the one that will be diagnal from the 'square' hole. If you're looking at your MB, you'll see the 2 rows of 8 holes. There is one hole that has a square silver frame around it, all the other holes have a round frame. That's hole #1. You must cut out the pin that is going to go into hole #4 which is diagnal from #1. You'll end up soldering 11 pins. I know, my math is incredibly good. LOL
If you looking at the top side of the MB, the numbering of the holes goes like this:
1(square) - 2
3 - 4(nothing should touch this whole)
5 - 6
7 - 8
9 - 10
11 - 12
etc.
Ofcourse the number sequences flips if you're looking at the bottom side of the MB so careful with that. Just remember "NOTHING (no solder, no pins, no wires, NOTHING) in the hole diagnal to the Square Frame hole.
Place the xbit upside down and put the pins through the holes while your MB is laying on the table. The pins don't have to pull through the back side of the MB or anything, just inside the holes is fine. Take some insulation/rubber/electrical tape (whatever you want to call it) and tape the mod chip to the motherboard gently, so that when you flip the MB over, the mod chip will stay in place.
Onces the MB is flipped over and you see the pins just barely out of the wholes, or even at the same level as the wholes, take some solder and cover the wholes and pins. Doesn't have to be covered completely, but the pins have to make good connection with the inside edges of the holes and the solder has to keep the mod chip in place. There should also be enough solder to make connections with wires later on. That's it!
Do the LPC rebuild AFTER you've installed the MOD chip. It was a whole lot easier that way, trust me.
The rewiring/rebuilding of the LPC is the same for all the MOD chips out there. Why? Because all the mod chips out there were design to fit the MB. So don't ask me which LPC rebuild tutoral will work (whether the Xenium or the SMARTXX tutorals). They are all the same! I realize that they are slightly different because of 2 main wires (VCC 3.3v and d0/LFRAME point) but for the most part, is all the same concept. They're just grounding the VCC 3.3v in a different spot then the other. Don't ask me what all these wires do exactly, I don't know.
For the sake of keeping it simple, I will utilize XENIUM's illustration of the LPC rebuild, which can be found here:
http://66.111.59.177.....ll Manual.pdfThey, XENIUM, show you 2 ways of rebuilding the LPC. The Pro Method, and the Easy Method. Go with the EASY method. They're both exactly the same but Pro method utilizes the top side of the MB while the EASY method utilizes the bottom side of the MB. Place your MB on top of an insulation material, like the plastic material that HD's or Memory chips come in. If you're wearing winter clothes, or your feet rub against the carpet, you have a small chance of building static electricity in your body. If you shock your MB when you touch it, is pretty much Bye Bye MB. So careful where you are doing all this. Is a good habbit to touch some kind of metal before touching your MB. For example, the metal inside the top cover of ur xbox's case. This will get rid of any static that was built up in your body. You're grounding yourself when you do this. Wooden table and wooden floor worked for me so that I wouldn't have to worry about static electricity. I guess you could also do this naked to prevent further static electricity, LOL, but hey, whatever makes you happy. Just don't tell me about it. Some things are best kept to yourself. Good light is always a must and don't let your sweat drip down to the MB or it will be your tears dripping down on the MB later because you broke it. LOL. If you do, just make sure it dries completely before you put your xbox together and plug it in. Not sure what the salt inside your sweat will do the MB either, so just be careful.
In the LPC rebuild, you are going to rewire 6 points on the MB. The LAD0, LAD1, LAD2, LAD3, Vcc 3.3v, and the d0 (aka LFRAME). You must do the rewiring for LAD0, LAD1, LAD2, LAD3 & Vcc 3.3v just as it's shown in the EASY method of Xenium's LPC rebuild. I know SMARTXX has the Vcc 3.3v going to another spot, which I don't know what it is called, but essentially this works too. Is just not the way I did it. That's really up to you. After you've done that, find the d0 point on the bottom side of the MB (or the d0 on the top side, is the SAME thing) and solder it to the nearest screw hole. This is going to ground the d0 point. I used the d0 on the bottom side so I wouldn't have any wires on the top side of the MB. That's just my preference. The SMARTXX LPC rebuild diagrams show you where the d0 is located on the bottom side of the MB. The d0 takes care of the original bios of the xbox, to my understanding. Because you're redirecting it to 'nothing/screw hole/grounding' the xbox tries to find another bios. Well, isn't it convinient that the XBIT has a bios for the xbox! Hopefully you've flashed the xbit already with the M8_16v.bin <--Bios file name. It is my understanding that this is the only bios that works for the 1.6v xbox till now (Aug '04). I'm sure they'll come up with some other bios in the future but for now, this is all we got. Don't ask me for it or how to find it. Read the newbie tutorals and you'll find it yourself. The size of the bios fits in a 256kb slot.
The tutorals of Xenium and SmartXX have the d0 of the MB connecting to the d0 of the modchip. I think some of us have tried that with the XBIT but didn't work for us, that's why we just soldered it to the nearest screw hole, thus grounding it. This is also the reason why we can never play xbox live, because to do that, the xbox has to find it's original bios, and is not going to ever find it because you just soldered it to the screw hole. Again, you could create a switch that cuts the flow of the d0 and other wires in the LPC so that you can keep the original xbox bios, as well as flip to the M8_16v bios whenever you want to, but I don't know how to do that, so I didn't do it.
If your soldered wires are too long on the MB, they'll have a great chance of disconnecting themselves with the MB when you flip it back and place it inside the xbox case. But if you used the wires I told you, and your soldering points are STRONG, then you should not worry too much about the length of the wires. Just try to keep them as short as possible.
There were NO WIRES soldered to or from the MODCHIP in my installation. Only thing I soldered about the modchip was the headerpins to the MB. All the wire soldering was done from a point in the LPC to another point in the MB & the d0 to a screw hole.(The LFRAME/D0 is not part of one of the LPC holes)
I think that's it. Flip the MB back up. I took a small piece of electric/insulation tape to cover the all the pogo pins that are facing up so that they don't touch anything they shouldn't. Put your xbox back together and boot it up. If you have a question, don't PM me. Place it on the forum so that others can benefit from your question and the answers. The only reason you should PM is to tell me that this is the best tutoral you have ever read in your whole life, and that you want to pay me money for my efforts! LOL
If you find a mistake in my description above, please let me know and I'll make the corrections ASAP (As Soon As Possible).
Author
Topic: Anyone Tried X-bit And V1.6 Yet? (Read 733 times)