Xbox modding help
Well, I am just too interested in modding an xbox and I think I will actually buy an Xbox soon. Can anyone slap some guides into this thread or point me to some good guides, links, stores, etcetera about this?
I am interested in:
1. mod chips and what they allow me to do
2. installing a huge hard drive (and do I need a mod chip to do this?)
3. connecting to a network and file transfer/ video playback/ etc.
4. anything else you can force me to absorb into my xbox crazed mind
I am interested in:
1. mod chips and what they allow me to do
2. installing a huge hard drive (and do I need a mod chip to do this?)
3. connecting to a network and file transfer/ video playback/ etc.
4. anything else you can force me to absorb into my xbox crazed mind
0
Comments
if you dont feel like soldering it on urself, im sure theres someone in ur area that can put it on for ya.
once that chip is in, ur set! pop in a drive and download a SLAYER dvd from teh net, it will do the whole thing for ya.
i got my xbox at home as a gaming rig, fileserver, media center.
its just awesome!
Once that's done swap the harddrives, boot up with a slayer disk and it does the rest. Then you hook up to your network update xbmc and your done.
Secondly, are solderless chips okay? I've read they don't always work. As for soldering chips, how much soldering is involved, and how small/hard is it. I've soldered enough things before so I'm not worried about soldering myself, but I don't know if it is so small that you almost need a machine for it or is it easy enough if I'm careful?
Thirdly, does everyone here have different chips? I have no idea which one I would want/need. Are the expensive ones just about the same as the cheaper ones? What about flashing them, do I need to do this or not, or does it depend on the chip. Flashing is my weak point, I have flashed the bios in my motherboard, but that is about it ever.
Fourthly, do you update the xbmc from your computer, and what would I do here?
~~~I'm a noob at this~~~obviously~~~
Slayer is a boot disk that you get off of torrent sights. It'll transfer all the files you need and format an unformated hdd to the same standard that the xbox requires. If you aren't upgrading the harddrive you don't need slayer.
As for mod chips I have an Xecuter 2.6 a few friends have 3's and another friend has the Xenium Ice. The X3's are better then the 2.6 chips, but I still like the Xenium Ice chips over the X3's, the install and the interface are more friendly.
As for the difference between the high end and low end chips. The high end chips ofer more functions plain as that. Cheaper chips don't always support large harddrives, some won't play pal, most are limited in the xbox boot options etc... Just get a good chip for the cost of $20 it's not worth playing around.
The soldering is about 6-8 wires depending on the chip, plus the pin header. The pin header soldering is pretty easy it's the 6 other wires where you are soldering onto a mother board. Most solder points are extremely small and you will probably need a magnifying glass. I would also suggest you get as low a watage soldering iron as you can get and a super fine tip. It's serious precision stuff. Not like repairing larger electronics like VCR's, RC cars etc...
The solderless boards work fine. They can be a little tricky getting into place but once they are there they have no problems. If you are planning on moving your xbox around alot though I wouldn't suggest getting a solderless one as they can be knocked out of position if it gets bumped around.
Flashing the bios is pretty easy - but read the instructions on the X3 sight on how to do it. The basics are though downlad the flash and the bank software from your favorite source and burn it onto a cd. Then boot up the xbox with the mod chip on and it'll look for the flash image on the cd. It reads it flashes and you are good to go.
Keep in mind not all chips need to be flashed the Ice for example doesn't and depending on where you get the X3 from it doesn't either. The reason some need to be flashed though is so they will boot xbox code. It's this xbox code that has legality issues so not all mod chips come with it.
Some chips can be flashed over the network also. It's just a mater of reading the instructions for the chip.
However, one piece remains to be missing... Do you have any preferences or knowledge I should know about on specific websites? Are they all pretty much the same?
www.xbox-sceene.com is probably the best for mod-chip info they are fairly extensive and detailed. However if you go with any of the big chips each one has a site that gives specific instructions to follow.
as for getting the slayer disks pick your favorite torrent site.
Softmoding only gets you so far it allows you to circumvent somethings but you really need the mod chip if you are going to do it correctly.
I guess i mean dashboard?
If you mean the slayer thing it's huge - like 600 mbs....
First the entire point of soft modding an xbox is so that you don't have to tamper with the case at all, to ghost a drive you have to actually remove it from an xbox so that defeats that purpose.
Next there is the live issue. If you soft mod an xbox and then connect to live it updates the xbox and gets rid of your soft mod so you are back to a regular xbox again. The two don't play well together.
So ultimately what I'm saying is it's an interesting idea but it's self defeating. It's much easier to just soft mod an xbox the normal way then it would be to soft mod an xbox then crack it open pull the drive and create your ghost image (if that's even possible). Then if you want to put that image onto another xbox you'd have to crack that xbox open and ghost the image etc..etc...etc...
If you want to mod an xbox and do it correctly the only real way to do it is with a mod chip.
Oh and one final thing you can't reduce the lag on xbox live because you can't control that. The lag on xbox live is entirely coming from MS live servers.