I guess I hate you too?

So are we in agreeance that this ban wave is another instance of microsoft banning those using old firmware with improperly made backups?

Anybody here seen a ban (using stealth iXtreme 1.4 backups and the latest iXtreme firmware)? or is this more dumb xbox-scene users using bad backups / old firmware versions again?

How do you do the unlock you're reccomending? I'll give it a shot.

There are stickers out there I've seen that are heat reactive to make heatgunning them off impossible without discoloration.  Only seen them on repaired units though. 

Here's another xbox1 I did for my buddy Phu Cuong.  I wanted to go further with this one - add a clear DVD drive top, lighted fans, side cathodes, network / hdd / dvd drive status lights, etc - but he got a 360 shortly after this and he probably lost some interest.    Either way, I was still quite happy with the way it came out.  If I had to do it again, I might have added dimmer circuitry, as this box is super bright!

A list of Mods in no particular order:

0.  Has a Smart XX LT OPX mod chip
1.  Installed an XERC 2 XE IR chip from sickmods.net.  This allows for turning the xbox on and off by remote among other things
2.  Internalized the IR Dongle - hard wired of port 4
3.  Using the XERC IR LED for the IR Dongle as well
4.  Mounted the dual purpose IR dongle in the upper right of the faceplate BEHIND the clear case
5.  Swapped in BLUE power/status LED's
6.  Hooked the status LED's up to the XERC for "breathing" fading effect while powered off
7.  Clear blue case
8.  "Mod Inside" Clear / etched jewel
9.  Installed a gutted (no plastic guard) blue Cathode around the jewel
10.  Two, 11 blue LED strips from sickmods, in each bottom grille in face plate
11.  Two, gutted blue 4" Cathodes in upper faceplate
12.  Four, blue controller port LED's
13.  320 GB Seagate Barracuda .10 Hard Drive
14.  Llamma.com 80 wire UDMA 150 Hard Drive ribbon cable
15.  Custom blue boot sequence and xbox logo with matching dash

And some pics:



Room lights on, box lights off


I like how optically clear these cases are.  Unfortunately they're made of the same plastic as a CD Jewel case and as such are very brittle. 




Room lights off, box lights on!  I love how well the etched jewels pick up the cathode lighting.




Here you can see a couple of things nicely:
1. Controller port LED's
2. The twin blue Status LED's (these fade  / breath when power off)
3. The 11 LED strips in the grille
4. If you look in the upper left corner of the faceplate, you can see the IR LED for the remote / XERC behind the plastic.


Mmmm jewel


Blue Avalaunch Skin (I did not make this) but it matches nicely


Custom Blue boot sequence and blue "Spikey" blob


Custom Blue Xbox logo - so bright it made my camera get woozy heh

This video was taken down, MODFreakz - do you have it hosted anywhere else?  I wanted to send it to a n00b who could benefit, thanks.

Where are those pads supposed to go? Or what are they supposed to do?

I know I've made mention of posting a reflow tutorial for over a month now.  My method is done/tested, but it's not 100%.  It will fix consoles who have fissures/cracks in the solder spheres, but from disseccting a few of the ones it didn't work on - these are consoles where the solder is off alignment, or disconnected from a pad, etc.

What's needed then is a reball.  I'm working on a way for the average person who has some soldering / mechanical skills to do this at home.  I'll post up if I get it working.  It should be the end all fix. 

Thanks guys. I'll post some other work of mine soon.

Can't believe you remember it from XBS man that was years ago at least heh. 

This post is so all over the board I have no idea what you're getting at in most of it.


Huh? 

You said it's a Zephyr, then you say it's a Falcon.  It can't be both.  A Zephr is the v2 motherboard, a Falcon is the v3 motherboard.  Which is it?  To be sure, take a picture of the CPU, or tell us how many watts the power supply is rated for.


What does this mean?!?  "The End is plastic".  Eh?  What end?  And "no eject buttons"?  What?!  There power supply does not have eject buttons.  I have no clue what you're saying.


Ok, another huh?  What kind of drive did the you have in the box originally?  And then what exactly did you do with it?  Did you take the PCB out of the ORIGNAL drive and put it in a 47DJ or 59DJ drive?  Or did you take the 47 / 59 drive's PCB and put it into the ORIGNAL drive?  I can't tell what the heck you're talking about.


And the train compleatly derails.  What does overheating have to do with the DVD drive? 
How do you KNOW that it's overheating?  Is it displaying red lights? If so, how many?


The white stuff on the bottom is normal.  It's leftover residue from the fluxes they use. 


Do they not have Goo Gone where you live?  Terrorizm. 

Artic Silver sells their "Articlean" product which works good too.  Just do not SCRATCH the bottom of the heatsinks no matter how you remove it.  Orange cleaner, your fingernail, and a paper towel, followed up with a non abrasive cleaning pad is the best bet.

Go to 360mods.net or xbins and read the textbook 2008 tutorial.

Figured I'd start posting up here some of the work I've done before I release my tutorials etc.

So here's really the box that started it all for me - xbox modification in general, and it really just got me into doing extreme

modification to electronics in general. This is my original / personal Xbox 1 - I bought it new from the store.  I learned a LOT

back in the day working on this and it's been opened hundreds of times for upgrades etc.  As such by the time I took these

pictures last year it's gotten pretty worn, it's no longer quite as mint.  I've never had to fix or repair any part on this xbox, and

have played thousands of hours on it.. used to play halo 2 like every day on live with it.  It's a testament to the reliability / quality

in the 1.2-1.5 series xbox1's.

This is a version 1.2 box with a Samsung drive.  Currently it uses a Smart XX V3 chip installed on a pinheader - though it started

with a Xecuter 2.3b, then a Xenium Ice, then a Smart XX V2! 

This case matches my "usual color schemes" - which is brushed aluminum + cherry red metallic + black.  Those colors

together are found on many of my mods etc. I just love 'em.   

Other mods:
1.) Under the front panel twin Red LED indicators:
   a.) Left: DVD Drive access
   b.) Middle: Network access
   c.) Right: Hard Drive access
2.) 250 GB Maxtor Hard Drive
3.) HD IDE cable upgraded to llamma 80 wire UDMA 150 cable.
4.) XIR installed for remote turn on/off
5.) Microsoft IR Dongle wired internally to controller port 4.  Switches using a relay. Controller port four "Senses" when a

controller is plugged in and disables the IR dongle
6.) XIR IR receiver, and Microsoft IR dongle receiver, wired external next to "XBOX" logo on front
7.) Custom made mirror finish, transparent etched, jewel from Xport1 - with Protonus logo
8.) Painted red ring cold cathode for lighting the jewel
9.) Painted dark red metallic flake case
10.) Brushed Aluminum vinyl on case
11.) External 4x20 Red text on Black background, LCD Display
12.) Red power light
13.) Custom boot sequence
14.) Live communication dongle's volume knob lit
15.) Aluminum heatsinks on southbridge, and RAM chips

Some pics:










This shows the DVD and HDD access lights, there was no network activity when I snapped the shot.  The power light is

orange because it's booting.


Same thing as above, but with Flash.  Shows how bright the Red LED's are


This shows what the Jewel looks like with the Red Cathode off. It is a mirror finish, and the areas that are etched are

transparent.


Another shot of the jewel, light off.  This shows how reflective it is. It is literally a mirror.


This is the jewel, with the Red Cathode lit. The etched areas are what you're seeing.  I took this picture with the flash off, and

the lights in the room off (long exposure), so you can really see how the jewel looks.


The Live communicator dongle, with the lit volume knob mod I did. I thought it was weird that the volume knob was transparent

plastic, yet it wasn't lit (probobly microsoft cheaping out).  So I wired in a 3mm clear/water LED to light it.  It's a very simple, yet

very clean mod I think - looks stock.


Same as above, different angle


"Screen shot" literally of my custom boot sequence.  Red blob - enlarged and spikey.  Different "room angle" as well.  Shown on

my primary gaming display - 30" CRT Phillips HDTV Widescreen


Another shot


The final hacked Logo to match my xbox's appearance



Any questions let me know, thanks for reviewing.

Uh eh?  It's not overkill, it's what he wanted.
And you're confused about airspeed vs noise.  The faster the air moves (IE a fan) the more noise will be generated due to the restriction - in this case the grille.

I would reccomened getting the tailismoon fans gigabyte mentioned. At stock fan speeds, they are quieter by a good margin then the stock fans and they are cheap. But there are other big things you can do for free/cheap to help.

First , make sure you're running the console horizontal.  Running it vertical greatly reduces cooling and increases airflow restrictions - the fans have to work harder to suck in air and that translates to noise.  Under each foot of the console, put low density foam or soft rubber, this will absorb vibration and also raise the console up a bit to increase airflow, which will translate to slower fan speeds etc.  And I would reccomend putting the console in a entertainment center with a glass front door. Just having that glass inf ront of the console makes a huge difference in DB.  I'll be doing a full study of the noise level of the 360 soon look for my posts etc...

There are other things you can do to quiet the fans too.  There are two sources of noise that the fans make.  One, is the mechanical aspect of the fans- the vibration, and friction noise they create.  Insulate the mounting of the fans with foam or rubber etc to reduce vibration.  To reduce friction and help quell vibration grease the bearings or oil them occasionally with a good oil like 3-in-1.

The other source of noise is air turubulance/movement.  Take the fans out of the 360 - and notice theyare much quieter.  Run the 360 with the lid open and it'll be quieter too.  That is because of the reduction in restriction to airflow. 
A big thing you can do to help is cut all the steel out of the case where there are airflow "holes" - because there are ALSO holes in the plastic.  Having two is redudant. This will reduce turbulance and will not only reduce noise, but also increase airflow which will increase efficency, and allow the fans to run at a lower speed and the box to run cooler.  Cutting the grill out behind the fans is the biggest dent, then the side of the case opposite the hard drive is the other big one as that's the main intake vent.  Then you could also cut the small vents along the top and bottom of the case, though that isn't as critical. 

If you want to take it even farther, and aren't worried about things getting into the case or if you don't move it round etc - cut the plastic grilles out too. This will remove a ton of restriction.  It will quiet way down.  Or y ou could drill larger hole in the plastic to leave a grille but increase airflow.  The tiny holes make for very turbulant air.  Try blowing thru the plastic and you'll hear the noise even from that. 

HTH. 


Correct.  White Lithium Grease spray would be a much better choice - if you're looking for something sprayable.   People don't seem to realize that WD-40 is a bad lubricant. That isn't what it was made for.  The WD stands for Water Displacer (number 40).  It's a chemical made to spray on things that need to displace water (ie not rust).  That's about it.  The penetrating nature helps work it's way into cracks/crevices.  It does lubricate but doesn't wear very long...

Xclamp replacement, and "heatgunning", is a temporary fix at best and can damage the console further making it even harder if not impossible to fix. I made a lengthy post about this today @:
http://forums.llamma.com/viewtopic.php?p=93439#93439

The only lasting fixes are a solder reflow of the BGA under the GPU- or a complete reball of the BGA.  I'll be posting a tut soon about how to do a reflow yourself, for now, I wouldnt' do anything else with the console. 

I would also:
Do an air flow divider in the fan shroud.  Air's behaves like a fluid - flows thru the path of least resistence  The opening in the shroud for the GPU is far larger then the one for the CPU.  Though there are two fans, with no divider - both will be pulling mainly over the CPU - which already has a well designed and much larger heatsink.   Adding a divider will cause the GPU fan to pull over only the GPU which will will increase airflow of suction.  Or at least that's the theroy.
I'll be testing all the theroys soon.  I'll post up when I do - it will be the end all to the cooling questions debate.

Make sure you've increased cooling or it will fail again much faster.
Higher fan speeds, sealed ducts, air flow divider in the ducts - etc.  I'd reccomend cutting the metal grilling out too as it increases turbulance and is redudant to the plastic grilling.

With these such mods for instance - my first 360 - I managed 4 months out of an xclamp repaired board that had just RRoD'd played nearly daily.  After it started to lock up - tweaking xclamp tightness netted another 2 months - and then nothing would get it to stop displaying the RRoD - until the solder in the BGA was reflowed.

I find this is pretty typical.  Instead of posting on XBS how their xclamp repaired 360's died again - most just sell them on ebay etc.

The ones on the back of the board in the second link giggles posted are right off the leads going to the power supply brick itself.  You can draw as much current there as the supply can handle.  How much that is on top of what it's already doing - the overhead per se, I'm not positive.  I wouldn't reccomend running a coffee maker off it.