Quick questions on Xbox360 modding

Too bad you can't do the JTAG mod. Parts are really cheap and you can get them all at your local electronics store.

 

He might be able to I suppose if it has a really old dashboard on it.

 

I have the CR3 knockoff and it works great. I think I paid less than $10 for it. My dash was too new to JTAG but old enough to RGH. If you want to go REALLY cheap, like i did you can build your own cable to dump the NAND over an LPT printer port. I have more fun doing the mod than I do reaping the benefits. It's a pain but kinda fun at the same time.

 

Yeah I looked on Ebay this morning and it looks like the clone Matrix devices are ridiculously cheap. Almost as cheap as clone PS2 chips in fact. I think I would definitely need a way to dump and flash over USB though because I don't even think that I have access to a parallel port at home these days.

 

My personal favorite is the NAND-X (reliable and fast) but a cheaper variant is the J-R Programmer, the newer the version the faster it is. I know there are other programmers but I've only had experience with the Team Xecuter ones.

 

Yeah the JR 2 isn't prohibitively expensive but the cost of the various parts needed for rghing just seems to add up unfortunately and I'm not sure how well various different combinations work together.

I like your videos BTW. One of them was very useful recently when I was researching A9LH.

 

Well really the only two things you'd need are a programmer and a chip. For tangible items, breaking it down you'd need:

- Solder
- Soldering Iron
- Flux
- Cleaning pad of some kind for iron
- Wrapping/Kynar/30 awg wire (if you prefer to cut your own or don't have any with the chip)
- Torx Security screwdrivers to take apart Xbox
- Wire strippers/clippers (if you use your own wire)
- Programmer
- Glitch chip

So all in all, it can get pricey but that should be all you'd need unless you're working with a tricky system or something like a Corona that needs more hardware.

Appreciate the kind words btw

 

I just have an old Falcon, albeit a bit of a Frankenstein model because Microsoft refurbed it back in 2010 and installed a Liteon DVD drive (instead of the original Benq) and an extra cooling system on the board. I would imagine that the NAND etc remained untouched though.

I don't have a programmer but I've been thinking about buying one for a while. Anything that you could recommend? I've looked at building one in the past but by the time that you have sourced all the individual components etc, the cost tends to be as much if not more than the cost of a prebuilt one anyway. It would be nice if the programmer could also support the PIC type for PlayStation etc as well.

 

Yep that is what I am planning on doing unless i can get that one cable I saw online for 3 bucks. I read it might take like 40 minutes to dump the NAND onto the chip but if I am paying about 15 to 20 for the entire mod, I can sacrifice 40 mins to let my old Pentium 4 computer run. For me it just makes the most sense to use LPT since it is available to me and I cant think of another time I would use a programmer like what is needed at any time in the near future. I will have to throw windows on that Pentium machine though I think. Unless you can program them using Linux (I don't see why not but I have not had time to research it yet.)

I am not sure what matrix uses for programing but if you research a bit, you might be able to save a few bucks by buying a generic SPI USB programmer for about 20ish USD. The cool runners can use those for sure.

This is not my first electronic rodeo I actually have all of those parts (minus the glitch chip and a way to program said chip, also I had a spool of wire wrap though its buried somewhere in my closet I would have to dig it out for maximum savings XD

Also you wouldnt happen to be the same MR Mario from that youtube channel I saw would you

 

Oops I missed your reply (boy this thread got popular )

I am actually not sure if I can or can not do a JTAG Mod yet. Whats the real difference between them? Aren't they just wiring techniques dependent on the revision of the machine or the dash? I won the system on E bay last week for 34 (more like 55 after shipping). I will find out the dash this coming Monday when it arrives!

 

JTAG boots instantly unlike RGH.

 

Dat's meh. Sup?

If you get a non-finicky console combined with a nice exploit like an R-JTAG, R-JTAG, RGH1 or RGH 1.2 you'll have instant or near instant boot times

 

I have two JTAGs with frozen fuses. A xenon with repaired GPU (the GPU has been replaced with a new chip when it failed) and then I modded the thermal for it to last longer and a Jasper.

Best thing ever since sliced bread.

 

So the Xbox arrived and everything is in working order. Based on the dash I will have to do an RGH1.2 mod to the board. I just bought the Coolrunner C3 Clone on Ebay as well, so that should arrive at some point. Until then, I decided I will just build my LPT cable since I found a spare Male DB25 connector in my room. I may buy an JR Programmer later down the road because the Sonus hack board seems like a funky little thing I could add to the machine later on. That and I am about to spend a lot of money today paying for car repairs.

I'll post another update once the chip arrives in the mail. Got questions feel free to ask them

 

Eurasia seem to have cloned JR v2's and the price isn't too bad.

http://www.eurasia.nu/shop/product_info.php?products_id=441

Tbh, I'm still confused by all of this and very few console mods tend to confuse me. At first I was looking at the Matrix USB programmer and glitch chip because you can get the both for under $10 shipped in total but then I'm not completely sure of the process since most documentation seems to point towards J-Runner and TX kits. My console is Falcon so I think the R-JTAG would be the ideal solution if at all possible but TX stopped making the R-JTAG kits around 2 years ago.

 

If I were you I'd go with an RGH 1.2 on it. I've never tried Matrix gear, I'm not a fan of TX's practices but their stuff does work and is the most well documented. I did a test on clone chips before and honestly you can get a clone Rev C glitch chip for about $7 and it will work just as well as a legit one for a fraction of the cost.

So really at this point I'd recommend an RGH 1.2 exploit, Rev C Coolrunner, and then whatever programmer you want to use like a NAND-X or a J-R Programmer. The main difference between the two is speed and price - the NAND-X is the faster and more expensive one of the two.

Edit: I know the ACE chips are getting really popular as well too and they're cheap yet hearty chips. These are only my recommendations as this is what I have used in the past, I've only done RGH 1 and RGH 2 but there's plenty of documentation out for RGH 1.2

 

Thanks for your reply. I am also usually an advocate of TX hardware although I agree that their practices and customer support leave a lot to be desired. Their 'support' forum is one of the few that I have seen where the volunteer members are more polite, helpful and productive than the paid staff. Only Facepunch Studios' forum comes anywhere near close to being as unpleasant in terms of staff attitude (their company name seems quite fitting all considered).

Just out of curiosity, why would you recommend RGH 1.2 over R-JTAG for a phat? I was led to believe that R-JTAG was a lot faster and more reliable because it didn't depend on the glitch to boot into Xell.

The Rev C CoolRunner seems to be OOS almost everywhere now apart from the obvious clones on Ebay and DHGate (not that I have any big issue with using a clone as long as they work). A JRv2 would be fine I think since I wouldn't need to use it very often and the NAND-X seems a little overpriced and hard to find unfortunately.

 

TX support is known to be horrendous, I won't mention names but anyone who has browsed the forums when the staff used to be active have no doubt seen "that guy" who might be the biggest ass of them all. Anyways...

I've done one R-JTAG and it worked just fine but a friend of mine who's an installer had several issues with them damaging and breaking systems, that might be one reason why there was an R-JTAG revision shortly after and the chip was discontinued despite being dubbed by TX as the best exploit ever... Suspect?

RGH is the most common and is the cheapest exploit (aside from a JTAG) so you shouldn't worry about not finding help. RGH 1 only works on dashboards up to a certain version but has nice boot times, RGH 2 can vary in boot times but works on all motherboards and all dashboards. RGH 1.2 combines them - stable and fast boot times on all models and dashboards.

 

I think I know exactly who you are talking about. Some wonderful remarks came from that person's direction in the early days of the iHAS burner firmware and I don't actually think I've ever seen that account directly help anybody.

My dash is the latest build because I just updated it recently. From what you have said I will probably need to go for RGH 1.2 in that case. Can the Matrix Glitcher be programmed/used with JRunner? I ask because a few websites and YT videos say that the Matrix has a better performance rate on Phats. Tbh, I'm actually considering getting another 360 for this. My Falcon has been with me for some time (~6 years) and we've been through a lot together so it would be a shame to see her killed by a bad mod or banned from Live.

 

So no explanation needed?

You're better off either looking up resources or asking others about Matrix products as I've never researched or used any of them, as I said I can only provide first hand experience with the J-R Programmer and the NAND-X. As for Xbox Live, I hope you know this mod is not online friendly. That's a whole other topic that would derail this but essentially it doesn't matter what happens - if you take a hardmodded console online you WILL be banned. This includes your accounts, so be careful with that. Although if you transfer your Live account between a hardmodded and stock system you should be fine as long as you never boot any type of homebrew on it.

You can use either offline files or pay for a stealth server to get online, those are the only ways. I don't do that at all and don't advocate it at all, but essentially I tell people flashed = online, and hardmod = offline. The only reason you'd want to take your hardmodded system online is to mod online games.