Stumped: V1 Xbox That Frags - Even With Working X3, Thought it was a bad HD or DVD component Options

[madbenny]

I bought a dead XBox off of my officemate and am modding it for another friend. Officemate warned me that the HD was dead, but I figured that would be the first part to replace so I am giving it a whirl. It's a v1.0.

I get a X3 chip and get to cracking into it. Before I get too far I boot it up to MetalSlug, play 5 minutes (it works), reboot and the thing reboots 3 times, fragging on the 3rd attempt (this was before the chip install).

Assuming the X3 chip will get me to a better evaluation, I mod the box. The X3 chip seems to work fine (blue, red, purple boots), but the box still boots 3 times and frags on the third in each case (on either 1Mb bank). Black screen and no DVD eject. Assuming either the HD or DVD components are bad, I try booting X3 without them -- Still no luck in every case.

I saw no anomalies with the motherboard when I had it out in the open. After exstensive searching around xbox-scene, I have come to the conclusion -- It's a frag, not a coma (cause the chip light works, but the eject light flashes). And some people think that a bad EEPROM would even throw the X3 chip off (But I got Metal Slug a workin once).

I am about to get into a v1.6 -- I can do some chip flashing and hot swapping then, but how do you hot-swap an EEPROM? And even then the models don't line up.

Looking for some advice or sanity. Can anyopne inform me on this situation? Am I missing something I should explain?

Much thanks.