Hey everyone, im just asking for some advice. A while back i got a xbox original with an executer 2.6 ce modchip installed. The modchip works great and i flashed it with a different bios (forgot what one now), but the xbox is just in a terrible condition. Rust everywhere and i believe even leaking capacitors. Im asling that is it an easy process to remove a 2.6ce modchip and will it require use of a soldering iron to desolder? As i have no experience with a soldering iron. Cheers
All depends on how it's installed. Solderless adapter, pin header, wire harness, lpc port rebuild board soldered to back side of motherboard, etc. Pictures of X2.6CE and previous X2 Modchips: https://web.archive.org/web/2010122...ene.com/modchips/x-ecuter2_lite_pictures.html
It is a solderless adapter i believe, as it is inserted on a bunch of jumpers with a wire or 2 soldered. It is red and it has an arrow on it or something saying edge of case. Here are a few photos of the modchip i took a while back https://imgur.com/a/I0TTR
Looks like an X2.6CE -- pin header install. And as it's a v1.6 Xbox, there must be a rebuild PCB or wires for LPC rebuild soldered on the underside of the motherboard (MB). I don't see a solderless adapter -- Xapt3r v1.6 -- underneath the modchip. (Xapt3r v1.6 install thread at team-xecuter.com) There is a connector on the other side of the modchip's printed circuit board that can be pulled free without having to unsolder the wires on the MB. And, the all black wire cable can be disconnected from the modchip that connects to the external switch panel.
Start by unpluging all the wire harnesses that connects to the modchip. They're all using connectors so no tool involved here. Once done, you can remove the modchip easily; again a no tool task. Then the front panel switch board. First from the plastic Xbox front panel from the rest of the case assembly(stick flathead screw drive in each side of the front panel and gently pry it). Once you got the front panel out (don't yank it) pull the wire harness that connects to the Xecuter switch board out of the front metal caging of the main case assembly. Then pull on the Xecuter switch board. It is held with double sided sticky tape. You might want to heat the area a bit with a hair dryer see if that helps. Then the wires actually soldered to the motherboard. You can either use a soldering iron to heat up the solder point where each wire is soldered to. This is the cleaner method, it will not damage the wires if you put the soldering iron straight on the solder point without touching the insulation of the wire. After heating up the point a couple of seconds, the wire should come loose. If you don't have a soldering iron you can cut the wire at the very base of the solder point. You'll loose a millimeter or two of wire length but it's nothing that can prevent using them again when installing the chip back in another Xbox. If you don't care about the motherboard, run your cutters directly on the motherboard and cut directly on the solder point if your cutters are pointy enough. Leave the LPC rebuild solderboard underneath the motherboard unless you plan to desolder it, in which case you'd follow the same procedure as for the wire but wedge something non metallic under the LPC rebuild board as you go through all the solder points, just to keep it from bonding again to the motherboard as the solder cools down.
