Looking for more info on creating an Alpha XDK

Nice, ill try to find time set up my zombie/Franken"Alpha" tonight and see if some intel NIC works (I found a few that look realy good)

 

Just a quick FYI as to what I've been doing ...

I started using Bochs emulator to run the alpha 1 recovery, suprisingly enough I was able to get kernel debugger to output info to me over serial. It didn't get very far, it was failing due to having no disk or something ... so finally my hardware arrived (VC820 mobo with P3 @733) and I was able to get even more debug information running the alpha 2 recovery. First issue was no hard disk found. I managed to get around that by playing with some jumpers. HDD set to master with slave and DVD set to slave. I currently do not have a floppy device installed but have not gotten any errors because of it (yet).

I'm now at the point where it fails to load xbdm.dll because there is no NIC installed. I tried the only NIC I had which was a gig NIC. It didn't work, nor did I expect it to. I've got 3 on the way to try and hopefully produce some more results

 

EDIT: it is possible to get to NIC init fail while loading xbdm.dll in virtualbox off of recovery disk. Probably doesn't help anyone, just noting that in case it does. RAM seems to need to be 128mb. Haven't tried 64

 

Ram should be 128mb of ram bus with a terminator in the other slot, when it comes to real hardware.

 

I own a VC820, with a P3 @ 733 aswell.
Got 2 128mb sticks and 2 dummys (you cant leave 1 bus unused ppl say, so I got this )
also I found a Videocard that properbly matches video chip and board layout a bit (Hopefully the firmware/video bios will work) dont have pictures atm, at work

You did flash the Mobo bios and Video with some leaked/released whatever it called, files from AG ?

 

I don't think the BIOS matters. Correct me if I'm wrong, but you can boot the xbox kernel and get debug information over serial without it. I believe the PC BIOS runs and boots the xbox kernel into memory and all is handled from there. When I tried running the xbox kernel on an amd box I would still get serial output, but it complained about missing PCI controller. Not that I expected it to work, but I was suprised it got that far.

I am using 128mb on my p3 box with terminator. I haven't yet flashed my video card with the firmware as I was unable to find any floppy disks...picking some up today. I don't think it matters (yet) as I'm stuck trying to get past xbdm.dll to init the NIC. Hopefully the NIC wil come tomorrow =)

I am running the kernel debugger (which comes with xdk's, i386kd.exe) on another pc connected over serial to the p3 box to get kernel debugging output.

 

I ended up patching xbdm.dll on the recovery disc to ignore NIC, which seems to work. I made what I thought was going to be big progress, but ended up stuck. Watching the kernel debugger after patching xbdm.dll I get some VERY interesting output... It loads the default.xbe into memory, and starts Direct3D. The kernel debugger never sets a breakpoint after that, all seems to be running great. The only problem, no video!

I haven't yet flashed the agp bios to my card as floppy disks are hard to come by...going to try to dig and find some today . My video card is running the same bios as other alpha kits that I see, 3.20.x.x.x.x ( or whatever ) however mine does not have the engineering text.

Anyone have any experience with black screen on alphas? I do not think this is a RAM issue. I'm able to produce issues with memory by having too much, and the kernel debugger lets me know. This is the first issue I've encountered where kernel debugger sees everything running great. No error.

 

You dont need floppy disks

Create an image with winimage, then burn that image as a bootable CD/DVD rom using imgburn or nero. Select emulation as floppy and pick the image created above.

 

s-video ? I read borman or someone saying it worked only on s-video? cant remember it precisely and it may be wrong completly (and maybe you are already on s-video and there is another problem)

 

Yeah, the recovery software has a tendency to set the video mode to S-video, especially on the early recoveries, in which case you would get no video output over VGA once it goes through the POST.

 

I've not tried s-video, but I suppose I'll have to try if I can find a cable.

Thanks Bad_Ad84, I did not think of that. Saves me looking for floppies

If s-video is the case then I'm betting I'll have video output. Thanks, I'll try this when I'm home

 

I never thought about this : http://pastebin.com/CnxdG8E6
Debugging xbox 1 and 360 will be a bit more easier for me

 

So far no luck trying multiple video cards...Black cursor blinking still. kernel debugger happy with no errors.

I've flashed the BIOS also to the card, boots up and says it's an engineering card. Still no go. Stuck at the moment

No output over s-video, same blinking cursor anyways.

EDIT: The link in my original post, he talks about a hardware mod (soldering something?) to his video card. I can't yet figure out what this could have been

 

Do you have the parts list so far? (mostly the USB and graphics cards - I can find the board, ram, cpu)

 

I have:
cpu 733Mhz Intel slot 1(?)
Mobo vc820 Intel (2 mem slot)
1 128Mb ram + dummy (actualy I have 2, 256mb total)
NIC from intel (my fccid: ejmnpdalbany)
Nvidea NV-1017 (as seen on the bottom of http://img510.imageshack.us/img510/1829/43987141kk5.jpg)

Still need that USB card, but maybe some chinese ones I have work, else ill go to ebay. pictures of my parts after ive uploaded the oxm disks today.

 

CodeAsm, where did you get this picture, and are there more? I'm unable to find OE's stuff anymore. I'd like more hardware pictures if possible!

733Mhz Intel P3 slot 1
VC820 (also 2 slot memory)
1 stick of 128MB PC800 Rambus memory with a terminator in the other slot
I'm using a plethora of video cards, one NV15 (GFORCE 2) and multiple GF3 Ti 200's. I'm going to try a resistor swap to make it a Geforce 3 (DeviceID 200).

GD-7000 DVD rom drive. Some random WD 40GB HHD

I'll have to get the USB model when I'm home. My NIC comes today. I'm currently using a patched XBDM.dll to get around having no NIC ...

I've yet to find the exact model of the sound board. Does anyone know this?

 

The video card in mine is an nv20 I think. Didnt I post one of the sound things the other day? From the manual?

 

I haven't seen this, did I miss it?

 

I think it was in the chat, that could be why. Its there somewhere, where i was talking about how there would have been a USB 56k modem that could (probably) attach to the expansion USB port that would have been on the back of the console.

 

Since no one is willing to release the alpha xdks, can we at least get some tools?

Did the Alpha XDKs come with an XB Watson? I imagine the tools could be quite helpful for me right now.

Some of the older tools seem to work with the March 4361 XDK ... was hoping xbcapture would work but to no avail.


Got NIC. PC boots up to the point of giving an IP address on screen. Still no video past that ...