Xbox DVT3(?) Development kit in Blue

Received a few Pm's about the board inside so here are pics to make it fair to everyone. This is a 64mb MCPX 2 chip chihiro/arcade board.

 

Xbox Arcade Motherboard:
Nvidia MCPX X2 24th week of 2002
Conexant 46th week of 2001

My Prototype board:
Nvidia XMODE2 17th week of 2001
Conextant 6th week of 2001

So my question now is, was MS making a console at the same time it was working with SEGA for arcade boards, didn't SEGA kill off their own console business shortly after the release of the Xbox and all SEGA titles came to Xbox as well. Meanwhile SEGA arcade units were built using Xbox motherboards into Arcade machines.

This may all be documented somewhere or even published in a book but I'm just realizing it myself now. I'd say keep the motherboard as it is part of Xbox history.

 

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Ha, I posted a PM in the thread by accident

 

I could probably give you a date that work started on the arcade stuff. Going off memory, it wasn't until after the initial Xbox release that they started to work on the arcade kernel mods

 

The board that was originally in this kit is a real prototype revision and now finally back working.
The board that @XboxSurgeon has in there at the moment is a defective board i got in a pile off xbox parts.
I could never really find out what's wrong with it. It has the Arcade Heatsink, an MCPX X2 chip and 64mb.
That by itself made me think about a chihiro board but the 64mb off Ram made me curious. The 2 other chihiro boards i had both had a 512kb Tsop while this one has a 1MB and the sticker on it looks like from a retail kernel 4034.
The 2 chihiro boards also both had a small sticker next to the lpc port that said "Arcade". And one more thing is that this board doesn't have an LPC header installed. The chihiro boards would normally have one installed!

Whatever this board is maybe it's a real treassure or maybe just a cobbled together piece.
It still is a nice thing and maybe someone could get it back to life!

 

What kind of kernel does it load? the heat-sink might just be a thing they had laying ar-round (whoever put this together).
maybe it was a testkit? (did all debug kits come with 128mb ram?)

 

Frag'd at the moment I'm afraid. Any one have any suggestions on fixing it, I'm all ears.

 

Chihiro Motherboard

Common Fixes
Check the memory capacitors on the Xbox motherboard. There should be either 3 or 5 (depending on revision) 3300uf 6.3v caps around the CPU that will often need to be replaced. This is very common and will often be the only thing keeping the board from working!

The fans are also known for dying, causing the Xbox GPU to overheat and cause the BGA solder under the GPU to crack. Reflowing the solder under the chip will usually fix this. This is the same problem the Xbox 360 commonly has, so if you aren't comfortable with BGA rework you can usually find someone locally who will fix it for under $50. Make sure you replace the fans too.

 

I checked the caps on the board and they all looked good. No bulged tops or leakage, but they could still be dried out so worth a try!
The only thing i tried was flipping an X-bit (flashed with debug kit bios) on the lpc port but it still fraged so i assume the tsop content could be ok (can't guarantee that!).

Here's how i test consoles:
-First thing to do is fire the console up, let it frag and keep it running for like 5 minutes. Does the MCPX, GPU, CPU or any other part get burning hot?
If yes you found your problem if not keep checking!
-Second you look for burned traces, corrosion or knocked off smd caps and resistors. (Some off the caps can get an xbox to frag if they are missing!)
If everything looks fine go to the next step!
-Next up is reading the eeprom and checking the content (works better on a retail!) and on a dev make a backup and flash a known good dev eeprom.
If still no luck there is one more step to do!
-Installing a chip. Yes you really read that! A chip without a graphical user interface that directly boots a bios can be used to test any console.
Flash a good Bios and pop it in the console. If that sucker doesn't boot now -> your lost!

PS: I reccommend an X-bit chip as they don't need to be soldered on and can store multiple bioses that can easily be switched without reflashing!