What kind of mod does my Xbox have?

I bought a used crystal Xbox a while back, and recently started using it again. What's curious about the console is that it seems to be modded, but I can't find anything on the internet whatsoever that matches my description.

Basically, it'll boot up normally a few times, but seemingly at random (or possibly related to how long you hold the power button for), it'll load up with an orange power light as opposed to green, and won't begin to boot up unless the tray is ejected. When you eject it, it does the normal boot animation but with the EvoX logo on top, like so (not my picture):


The actual curious part is that this is all very evident in the fact that it's modded, but absolutely everything else is completely stock. I'm talking:

Original dashboard (one of the "popular" versions, 5960 or something like that)
Can't play unsigned CDs that I know of (trying to boot a burned CD of one of those mod installers just gives me a read error)



Can anyone explain what has already been done to this box, and what I can do to take it further? Ie. what would I do next to get some sort of FTP program on it?

I've already ordered the cable and one of the games required to softmod it, will I still be able to do this or is the presence of EvoX in some form going to hinder this?

 

That's my picture, but anyway. you won't know what chip or mod you have without opening your console.

When you boot with eject it would boot to the retail dashboard, if you power on with power, it should load a custom dashboard like EVOX.

 

It's definitely not doing anything until the tray is ejected.

What I meant was that I always power it on by the normal power button. Sometimes it comes on green normally with no EvoX logo, other times it'll come on orange, and won't show anything until I eject the tray while it's running, which gives me the EvoX boot up logo. If the light is orange and I don't eject the tray, it keeps running but I hear no hard drive activity and there's no signal.

I've tried turning it on normally a few times since your post, and it either comes on like a retail console or does nothing and shows the EvoX logo once I eject it.

 

Just sounds like a dual-boot soft mod: normal power on is ms dash and eject power on is evox.

 

Sounds like a broken chipmod to me.

Short press = Modchip off, boots normally
Long press (Orange LED) = Modchip bios 1 (empty or broken)
Eject boot (Green LED) = Modchip bios 2 (broken evox)

I have a similar mod using an Aladin afair:

Short press = Modchip off, boots normally
Long press (Orange LED) = Modchip bios 1 (evox)
Eject boot (Green LED) = Modchip bios 2 (ignored and boots normal but I saw that I could configure this manually)

So normally I'll boot my main Xbox with a long press. The short press / default dashboard didn't work for a long time but I fixed it at some point (hdd was unlocked iirc).
I'm not sure if my chip actually has enough space for the second bios. It doesn't matter cause I can use Phoenix Bios Loader.


One of my softmods boots to the MS Dash with eject and to dashboard with normal boot.

 

All I can say is that it has to be a hard mod for the Evox logo to pop up on the boot screen. The MS splash screen pictured with the Evox logo is in the BIOS IIRC. Since it changes that tells me there is more than one BIOS in there and thus has to have a modchip for multiboot option. Also the fact it's a crystal box tells me it can't have a 1.0 or 1.1 board in there with the 1024kb TSOP chip. Even if it did I don't know how one would go about making a multiboot out of it without switches. Would need a microcontroller to poll the power and eject button to do that without a modchip. Chances of it having something like that are slim to none.

Sounds like a dual boot modchip that's messed up.

 

Thanks for the responses, guys. Where do you suggest I go from here, then, assuming it's a dodgy modded one? Should I try softmodding it or am I better off keeping it as a retail one and softmodding my (definitely stock) black console?

 

First I suggest is looking at the LPC port to see if and/ or what kind of modchip it has. Also use an alternate dash like UnleashX or something that has FTP and a file browser to see what kind of dashboard files are on the HDD. Depending on what you find will dictate what to do next.

As for keeping it stock, what good is a stock Xbox? ;P The problems it has should be fixable assuming it doesn't have corrosion problems. If it does, especially from the clock cap, then you'd be better off leaving it to a more experienced Xbox modder to fix. Involves soldering areas not much bigger than pin heads. It's hard. I should know having fixed bat traces on a few consoles.

See if you can get some Torx bits. That will allow you to open it and see what's inside. Xbox uses T10, T15, and T20 bits if I remember. Seeing if it has a modchip and what kind it is will be the best thing to do next.

 

Thanks, I suppose I won't be doing much until I get the right kind of screwdriver then.

As for getting UnleashX on it for FTP, how exactly would I do that without actually having an FTP client?

 

Alternate dashboards pretty much all have FTP built in so the Xbox side will be done once you use a dash like UnleashX or XBMC. PC side just needs a client installed. I use Filezilla and it works perfectly for me. Just have to point it at the Xbox IP and the default username and password they all have is "xbox" minus the quotes. Set that up and you're good to go.

EDIT: DERP...

Misread what you want. To get it on the Xbox since it seems mostly stock you need to use a softmod method. If the Xbox can read a burned disk now then AID will work. If not then you need a memory card with a game exploit save file for SID. I use the Splinter Cell method for my initial softmodding. I can get a memory card and put the needed save files for Splinter Cell on it if you want to do that. I have the needed files for the exploit.

 

Oh, no, I assumed that installing the FTP program would be easy once it has a custom dashboard, but my question was how would I install a custom dashboard itself from my console's current state?

 

Look above. I edited my last post.

 

Thanks, just read your newest edit. I'll be getting the USB to Xbox cable in the post soon, so all I really need is the files for the exploit if I need to do that. I think I'm getting some DVD-RWs tonight so I'll have to check if it can play burned discs. I've tried CDs but I can't get it to read them.

What are the recommended write settings for a DVD to play in it? I think the problem with the CD was that it wouldn't go below 8x and I've heard that 4x is ideal.

 

Stock Xbox consoles don't seem to read burned media at all. At least all the ones I've had never did. Once it's either softmodded or hardmodded then it will read burned media.

 

They do read burnt media, but only music. CDRW works the best in the XBOX Samsung and Philips DVD-ROM.

 

Good luck if you have a Thomson ...

 

I never had that much trouble with the TGM600... My most issues were with Samsung drives and Philips.

 

Thompson was the worst for me, but thats just me. Samsung was the best. I think Samsung would even read CD-R just fine....thompson would hardly read cd-rw.

 

Hey guys, me again.

I never did find out exactly what mod my Xbox had or why it behaves like this, but I now have it softmodded and HDD upgraded. Everything is going perfectly well using the UnleashX dashboard besides one minor visual problem:

(Apologies for the blur)
As you can see, when running it in 720p the orb/logo is squashed quite badly. This is where the icons for games show up, so I'd rather it was in its normal aspect ratio. Is it a problem with the skin itself or have I set something wrong? It shows fine in 480i, but 480i looks crap so I'm trying to avoid that.

 

It's because the Xbox is set to letterbox, I done this the other day when experimenting with retail BFM bios.

Load the official dashboard (C:\xb0xdash.xbe - if shadow C is disabled.) if not there load Xboxdash.xbe & set your tv format to widescreen.

changing it in unleashx doesn't fix anything :-(