TSOP Xbox and new hard drive

So I'm looking at the alternative points on this picture from xbox-scene:



But am a bit confused. I've lifted the pad above R7R4, and according to the pic the alternative point for that is just above C7R3.

But what's the red line for, as at the top it says to connect red + blue, but I've not seen that in the tutorial I was following? Unless he means on the top side of the board which is the right hand side picture... although there's a red line and a blue point on the bottom side pic.

Mine is a 1.0 board.

 

Ok so I've run a wire between alternative points, and am thinking of flashing the BIOS. I've downloaded X2 5035 from eurasia.

Is it a case now of transferring the files on to the console and running "Flash BIOS" in EvoX? Are there any checks I need to do? The file is "x2_5035_v16plus_512k".

 

That bios is only for 1.6 consoles with an Xecuter 2.6 modchip. you need the one labeled "x2_5035_Old_512k" to work and it needs to be 1024K. A 512K sized bios won't work because the TSOP chip on the 1.0/1.1 is 1024K in size. There are tools to balloon the bios out to the needed 1024K size.

 

Ah thanks. The download also includes "X2_5035_vOld_512k" which looks like the job. I read somewhere (possible here) that EvoX automatically does the sizing but will have to investigate further...

 

Where exactly did you get this from?

None of the bioses are linked to needing a X2.6

 

Use command line with this to double its size...basically rename the bios with -2. Place both 512 files in a folder called whatever you want, right click for command prompt and enter this command or whatever you named the bio's.
copy /b x2_5035_vOld_512k.bin /b + x2_5035_vOld_512k-2.bin

 

I don't remember where. I just know I read that certain bios revisions only worked with the Xecuter 2x series and others only worked with the 3x series. I guess that would be wrong for the bios revisions around in the 2x series days since they don't require any special hardware from the chip itself. Don't know about the 3x bios revisions since I don't have an Xecuter 3.0 chip. I just have a 2.6CE...

 

X3 bios only works in Xecuter 3 modchip (except for the hacked X3 releases by Yoshihiro).

X2 bios are not tied to any modchip. As long as you have at least 512kB of flash space you can use that bios.

If I recall well, there are only 2 chips with exclusive hacked bioses. Xecuter 3 (CE) with their X3 Config Live bios and X-Chip (Lite) with their custom EvoX M8 with embbeded OS. For the rest, you can use any bios on any chip/TSOP as long as you have enough space on the flash chip.

 

This is why I like the IND-BIOS. Revision 5003 is only 256K so it will work on any Xbox model. (It even comes in 512K for chips like the Xecuter 2.6 and 1024K for Xbox 1.0, 1.1, and other chips with a 1024K chip.) I have it on my 1.2 TSOP chip. Works wonderfully now that I have it configured properly. The reason I like it is because of the 128MB RAM support.

 

IMO, IND Bios would be a perfect piece of software if it wasn't for the IGR bug... Just for that, I prefer X2 5035 but I don't enjoy using it either.

The warm up delay to retreive x2config.ini from the HDD is what's annoying. If only there was a way to embed the ini file in the bios! Unfortunately, I don't think I have the skills to perform such modification myself...

EDIT: Or fix the IND bios IGR issue of course.

 

In order to flash my TSOP I burned "HexEn Game tools" to a disk then flashed with that. It worked great.

 

I thought the IGR bug was fixed in version 5002. My readme I got with my 5003 downloads says 5002 had the buggy IGR fixed. 5003 just had a glitch fixed when injecting a configuration file into the BIOS directly so there's no need for loading it from the HDD. When my Xbox was working I had no issues with the IGR on it using a TSOP flashed 5003. I also had no issues since my setup has the configuration injected directly into the bios. My IGR was set up to reset me to the dashboard.

When using the X2 5035 on my Xecuter 2.6CE I noticed it took a few seconds before booting due to having to fetch the config file from the HDD...

At least with the IND-BIOS I was able to configure it to look almost exactly like the stock MS one for a sleeper effect I plan to give my console once I have it all set up.

 

Bloody hell this is confusing.

So if I have a 1.0 board I need to flash it with a 1Mb BIOS right... and because the download of X2 5035 is 512kb I need to double it?

What if I had a later console like 1.2 onwards, then would I have had to halve it?

If I used IND-BIOS 5003 (which I've downloaded and the files are 256k), I'd have to quadruple the BIOS?

Why don't they just give 256k and 1Mb files in the download so it can be flashed straight over?

 

It is. I'll try to help all I can.

Correct. Same for the 1.1 since both 1.0 and 1.1 have the 1mb TSOP chip. Use the simple dos style command posted earlier to combine 2 copies of this bios to make a 1024k image. That will work.

You can't halve the Xecuter 5035. The readme that comes with it says you can't. (At least it did for me and I doubt if anyone has figured out how to do it without the bios breaking.)

Correct again. Use the same dos command style to do it with 4 copies of the bios.

I don't know. Go ask the IND-BIOS team who made it why they didn't. There is an alternative if you would like to have 4 different bios files on your 1.0 console. See this guide on how to make the 1mb chip be able to separate out into 4 selectable 256k banks with switches for each bank to be selected. If you do this, just make sure each bios is 256k or it might not work. It might work with the 5035 but I guess you'd have to be sure and not select the bank right after the one the 5035 is written to. (For example: if the 5035 is written to bank one, then don't use bank 2 at all and don't put it as bank 4 since that will be at the end and the setup will be expecting it to be 256k in size so it doesn't go over 1024k in size.)

 

Cool thanks man, appreciate your reply.

I downloaded XBTool and it seems pretty simple to double/quadruple BIOS files with that, so will use that.

One last thing I should check is if I have a Sharp TSOP as I believe an extra wire is needed, otherwise I'll be good to go.

One final question - is it possible to flash back the original BIOS later on if one is inclined that way?

 

Heimdall describes the IGR issues of IND bios over this thread. I don't use Avalaunch but it seems that his experience with it combined with IND bios are misleading:
http://forums.xbox-scene.com/index.php?showtopic=662266

Yes don't forget to install the extra wire for a Sharp TSOP or else you'll get a write error when flashing. I never saw a Sharp TSOP before!

Yes it is possible to flash back to original bios later on. Just do the same procedure as to flash a hacked bios on your TSOP, replace the bios.bin file for a stock image of the retail bios.

You can find a stock bios on Xbins or anywhere else on the internet. Just be warned that stock bios are not Multi-version; a 1.0 bios is not the same thing as a 1.4 bios. Make sure you take the good bios file which suits your Xox revision.

The best thing to do is to backup the retail bios on the Xbox prior to flashing the hacked one.

If you have a 1.0 Xbox, there is a hacked retail version of the bios with updated MCPX or GPU code taken from later revision that produces better colors. It's exactly the same thing as the retail bios for 1.0 except it contains a certain section of a later bios concerning the whole video processing part.


But the main question is : Why would you ever want to roll back to a stock kernel? There's absolutely no benefit now that Xbox Live is down for Xbox1. Just keep the hacked kernel and you'll have every features available of what a stock kernel can offer + more.


EDIT: Just for the record the modified retail bios for 1.0 was explained here. It was GPU code that was changed to enhance graphical details in 1.0 xboxes: http://forums.xbox-scene.com/index.php?showtopic=565033 , post #8

 

Seems the issues he had are negligible. The only issue I had is the slow loading of AID but it would still load slowly even when using X2 5035 and the retail ones. I thought it might have been my crappy Thompson DVD drive I was using from a 1.6 but it still loaded slowly when I tested with my hybrid Samsung drive that has proven to be blazing fast at reading all kinds of media. It's a SDG605B casing and driver board with a SD616T laser sled. Extremely fast. I dare say the laser upgrade makes it even faster than a stock 605 drive. No hacking of a SD616T needed now. :victorious:

 

I did the same thing you did in my Samsung drive! I did notice higher access speed on cheap media like DVD+R but nothing noticeable when using retail games or good quality DVD-R.

 

Check this thread for full details on my experience with this hybrid drive. The most notable thing is when it came to ripping my games. They all seemed to be copied faster than before. I did some testing with both my hybrid drive and a Phillips one from a 1.6. Ripping a game with the Phillips drive took around 20 minutes whereas with my hybrid drive the same game ripped in 12 minutes. That's somewhere around 40 to 45 percent faster. The biggest thing was with Shadow the Hedgehog. The Thompson drive wouldn't rip it because a certain part of the disk is a bit too scratched up causing it to fail at the 20% mark. The Samsung drive read this area and successfully ripped the whole game. While I didn't say it there my setup used an 80 wire ATA 133 IDE cable with the Thompson drive and the original Xbox IDE cable for the Samsung drive. The 133 cable broke while swapping drives otherwise I'd have used it for the hybrid drive test. HDD didn't change at all and all ripping was done with the same IND-BIOS configuration for all drive tests.

 

Comparing a samsung to a philips means your results arent valid.


Just changing the optical unit shouldnt make any difference on speed - other than the fact it wont be retrying over and over (with a laser thats on its way out).


The only reason it would seem faster is because its a new laser, which struggles to read less