Anyone else have the problem with the Aladdin Advance that you can load evox but apps freeze at the loading screen? Or maybe you can't flash your chip because it says it's not writeable even if you held down the power button until the light flickers? Well here is how I solved this problem.

It appears there's a deffect on some of the chips that doesn't lock the "unprotected mode" on once it's been booted in this mode. So as soon as you take your finger off the power button it's just as if the chip was not active at all! Sort of... (some basic things can still be done ie: loading evox or booting games straight from a burned disc)

To fix this, just keep the power button pressed down until you load your app and/or game. once the app/game is loaded you can release your finger from the button but don't try to go back to the dashboard because it will just freeze. If you can figure out a way around this please post (I just wedge something to the power button so it stays down)

One thing I forgot to mention. If this works for you, there should be no reason to flash your bios because the (unknown) bios that comes on this chip does everything you need and flashing your bios will just increase the chance of something fuxing up. Think of it this way, your chip didn't work well without this, and with this it works fine, so why risk fuxing it if it works?

Stick to the saying: "if it ain't broke, don't fix it."

Because if you need to do this it's already broken! :-D

Son of a bitch! The thing works... IF... I hold the damned power button down. Everything I had programmed in there worked fine, THEN.

So who can I go hunt down regarding this? This is total crap... Is there is support whatsoever for this chip out there??? I'm assuming that the people that put this together might actually be aware of this problem by now? Also, I'm new to this, but it appears a 32 bit version of the chip has been out for some time... did that chip have the same problem???

I also understand that there were 2 optional wires I could have put in... ground and power I believe, althought it reads that for my version of xbox they are not necessary.. anyone know if this makes a difference?


Also, I totally agree with [GS]EqUaTe on this. It's already FUBARed...

Just in case you don't see my response in the other thread, DON'T add these wires.
Explanation is in the other thread.

I'd send it back if at all possible. Most places should be alright with dealing with returns of faulty goods. (If they're not and they don't test before sending them out, why the hell are you buying from them? )

There's nothing wrong with the chip, the alladin just isn't soldered correctly. I had the same problems at first, freezing apps with evox and evox telling me I had an "unknown" bios. After resoldering everything worked fine, evox recognized the bios and all apps running.

Hmm. I would tend to think that if the chip was not soldered correctly it would not be flawlessly botting up to my evox (or, currently) XBMP dashboard. Also, to test it, I made a backup of a game I have and that was worked flawlessly every time as well. The only thing I can add, is that I used the alternate D0 point on the bottom of the board, although I understand that this is not supposed to work any differently?

I believe, at least with my alladin, it was one lpc-point that made contact but only just (only touching the hole with a tiny tip of solder), filling up that hole with some more solder did the trick for me.

I have to say that it would be unusual for it to work at all if there was a soldering problem..

But then again, stranger things have happened.
Its something that is worth checking at the very least. But I imagine that in many cases this is not the cause. I suspect instead that there was a faulty batch of these chips...

Velociraptor: From what I've been informed (I have been trying to track down the creator of the chip) it may just be a soldering problem. Many people who have had the same problem re-soldered and it was fixed. I'm going to try using wires to solder the chip to the lpc port instead of directly to the board.

This will allow for easy troubleshooting and I'll post the results. If the same problem exists afterwards we can be sure that it's a deffect in the chip. Though it does work fine providing you keep your finger on the button until the app loads. You can take it off afterwards but any switching between XBE files causes it to lock up if it isn't held down.

I also experimented with flashing the chips with a 256k bios, had to do it several times as it seemed the flash id kept changing everytime it was detecting. once it changed to bf then it worked, the first time it wrote block 01 and hung for a while, then gave me a message saying it failed, I dared not turn the machine of so patiently holding the power button down trying to flash the chip until finally all 4 blocks wrote and verifyied succesfully. I then rebooted and everything was fine. I then compared my backup bios to the new bios (M7) witha hex editor and saw that they where one and the same! So it seems that it doesn't need updating.

Some say (look at above reply) that once you resolder and it works that it will detect what BIOS it is using. If the BIOS still says unknown in evox it may be an evox dash/aladdin compatibility problem. (You can bring this up to the guys who make EvoX if you really care about it that much)

Oh my god!!! ive been waiting for this post for way way too long. whatever made you hold that button down thanks, cause ive had this problem forever and i was to the point of exhaustion. if you find out a way to get rid of this problem PLEASE let me know, thanks again!!

I figured it out because I had a suspicion that it was enabling the flash mode but wasn't keeping it locked in that mode since the light did flicker as per the instructions. To my surprise I was right!

you are a god among men

anu|b|iss: (Velocirapture by the way )

I am also going to go thorugh my solder points today and I may even swap chips (I had ordered 2 originally, one for me and one for a friend). Let me know what you find and I will post later either today or tomorrow. Important thing to note though... There is no imcompatibility with Evox. As long as I am holding the button down I can go back and forth between Evox and XBMP (as they are cross-linked in my sys.) I can also launch any other prg. The deal is only with the chip....


Velocirapture
"I like everybody...Till I get to know them!"

Hmm, most interesting.

You could always wire them up "CheapMod-style". Just solder the LPC points, and then wire a toggle switch between D0 and GND on the motherboard. Don't worry about BT or D0 on the chip.

Or permanently tie D0 to GND on the mobo if you want the chip always on.

OK... I do feel like an idiot now... I am embarrased to admit that yes, event hough I thoroughly checked every point (at 4 am in the morning ... ) I spotted the one point that was not actually making a connection. In my case it was the bottom-left corner pogo point... (I believe it's labeled "2" ...looking at this from the front of the xbox of course...)
Once this was soldered in correctly, bang... everything is now working.
I am definitely surprised, sometime I would like to know exactly how this works that it gets as far as loading evox, but no more... So... problem resolved for me.

Thanks for your input everyone!

Hey, anu|b|iss

I just tried resoldering the chip to see if that would fix the problem with the app's and flashing...when i got to the chip there was just too much solder and not enough desoldering braid to even make an attempt. however, i checked over the points and everything seemed fine, and really the only thing that i did different was i resoldered the BT point on the board. My previous BT was soldered on the right hand side of the metal of the BT on the mobo, but this time i took it off and resoldered it to the very left side of it where the metal is flush with the mobo not even knowing if that would fix anything. so i put my box back together and ::POOF::, no more having to hold the power button down, and all of my apps running fine. i dont know if it was the BT, but now everything is working fine and as it should be. hopefully this will help you out in your findings. let me know what you come up with!

Velocirapture:

I didn't mean incompatible with evox altogether, just the "Unknown BIOS" issue
But I know this is not a compatibility issue now since I read up on it and it uses a standard SST chip which by all rights is FULLY compatible with EvoX.

I've wired the chip (instead of directly from the crescent moons to the LPC) to the LPC port now and redid my connections with L1, L2, BT, D0

chip works fine, no problems. Evox detects the BIOS
I guess this is a soldering problem afterall.

If you are uncomfortable soldering things to your box (if this is the case you probably had someone else install it so tell them they did a shitty job and demand they fix it) then just use the power button hold-down trick, it still works just fine!

I guess the best way to ensure this doesn't happen is to use wires to bridge the chip to the LPC port so that you can actually see what isn't connected properly and makes for very easy troubleshooting.
After wiring I just taped the chip with electrical tape covering it all around so as not to expose any metal and taped it down to the iner-case in a spot where the DVD bezel wouldn't interfere.

Personally, I would go for a method of mounting the chip via pins in the LPC port.. a pin header in the port, and the corresponding sockets on the chips PCB.

Of course, this is personal preference, but this does make it rather easy to remove and replace the modchip ;-)

Unfortunately, not all mod pcb's support this..

Well... remember how I fixed my chip problem? I now have been having a new one. While all apps work flawlessly, I am having bootup issues like never before... Before I "fixed" the chip, I would press the power button and if I hold it down for a second or two, it would go through all 3 colors quickly, then boot. Now.... *sigh* now... I am having all sorts of odd problems, and I think they have to do with why my system keep making me reset the clock. I was not having that particular problem before, but every other reboot is a nightmare... shut down, boot up, it blinks and shuts down, then boots up but to the ms dashboard... im too annoyed to try and describe it accurately... just wondering if anyone else is having these issues.... is it possible for me to still have a bad chip although all my programs and emulators work perfectly well????

I just got the new Aladdin Advance PLus and have had no luck in reflashing the chip. Im beginning to wonder if my chip is even installed correctly. WHen I simply quick press the power button my regular green Xbox sign comes up that says MS just below. When I hold the power button down, The same Sign comes up only its in blue, also saying MS on the bottom. Either way they both goto the usual menu with settings, memory, etc. My Big question is if everyone elses aladdin chip goes to the same startup menu and if so is it the basic Xbox one? Or should i be getting a different screen during startup once the chip is installed correctly?

My other question is, since Im a total newbie with the alternative mod thing, is that I have 2 Xecuter Bios bins-the 4980 version. When you recieve this BIN file and use winrar you come out with two .bin files under 4098. One has a 67 in it and one has an 06 i think? Which bin do I use to burn or do i use both? With the Xbox BIOS manager, should i use a total of 1 mb for the Aladdin chip of just one of these bins or 512 K using both. AHH im confused. Anyway i used both the bins, 1 where i did a 512 using both and one with a 1024 kb using both twice. I used about a 200 mb dummy file and no matter what my xbox will not read no matter what I do. If you can, please answer either of these questions but im guessing I need the first question answered first. Anyone who can get back or answer thoroughly would be a god. Thanks

Keep in MINd that the new aladdin mod chip advance plus doesnt do the blinky thing! or at least i dont think so

.06 is for F drive
.67 is for G drive support
as far as i know, all aladdins advance plus uses a 256kb Bios. which is what i have. also, do you have your other dashboard installed?? that could be why you only get the ms dash

Ok, too many people are asking what to do after they install the chip. If the install was successful then you can boot backups.

SO!

Make an xiso with something like ISO-Craxtion with the evoxdash.xbe renamed to default.xbe and the evox.ini file in the root of the dir, also you might want a skins dir and a bios dir (if you're brave enough to flash your chip !! THINGS CAN AND DO GO WRONG !!)

You may need to fiddle with different brands of media (CD-RW, DVD+R, DVD-R, DVD+RW, DVD-RW etc...) to get one that your xbox can read.

Once you make the xiso burn it with something like nero and load it into your xbox. Then check your configurations for your network and edit the evox.ini accordignly, you can then ftp the evox dashboard to your xbox.

The bios I use allows for auto-detection of evox so it was as ftping to my xbox, grabbing the latest evox dash and putting evoxdash.xbe and evox.ini (and also my favorite skins in the c:/skins dir and rebooting my xbox.

If done properly you will have the msdash when chip is off and evox when it is on. Hope this helps!

QUOTE (Perplexer @ Jan 19 2004, 06:21 PM)

Hmm, most interesting. You could always wire them up "CheapMod-style".  Just solder the LPC points, and then wire a toggle switch between D0 and GND on the motherboard.  Don't worry about BT or D0 on the chip. Or permanently tie D0 to GND on the mobo if you want the chip always on.

Will the chip be write-protected if soldered like a cheapmod?

I have aladdin advance v32. it can read backup games but how come it won't let me install Evox dashboard? I even tried add my LG DVD drive to my xbox but it still won't load it. I made iso files default.xbe and evox.ini to my Memero CDRW. it just won't do it please help

weaglez, have you tried using another brand of cdrw?
Also did u remember to put a big fat dummy file into your Evox iso?

QUOTE (Velocirapture @ Jan 25 2004, 10:34 PM)

Well... remember how I fixed my chip problem? I now have been having a new one. While all apps work flawlessly, I am having bootup issues like never before... Before I "fixed" the chip, I would press the power button and if I hold it down for a second or two, it would go through all 3 colors quickly, then boot. Now.... *sigh* now... I am having all sorts of odd problems, and I think they have to do with why my system keep making me reset the clock. I was not having that particular problem before, but every other reboot is a nightmare... shut down, boot up, it blinks and shuts down, then boots up but to the ms dashboard... im too annoyed to try and describe it accurately... just wondering if anyone else is having these issues.... is it possible for me to still have a bad chip although all my programs and emulators work perfectly well????

I am having the EXACT problem! Check out the post I made about this.

Can you load Evox? I can load it, but only 1 out of 20 times!

Someone in my post replied that I need to copy the original evox.ini file, so once I can load Evox again, I'm gonna try that.

I don't have DVD burner so I have only tried Philips CDRW, but it's not working either. yes, I did add 51.4 MB dummy file and also tried added original evox.ini file but it just won't load it. Have anybody here have Aladdin Modchip and successfully install Evox? I also brought 160GB 7200 rpm 8 mb hard drive. it's gonna be tough since I can't load my EVox.

I have another question. how come some backup games can't play in my Thomphas DVD drive (from xbox) but it will play in my addon DVD rom from pc? then my addon DVD rom only read backups but not Xbox orginal game. how can I work this issus out?

please help

OK... Here is where I am. My Xbox is finally finished! I had purchased 2 chips originally, one for each xbox. So I finally decided to go through the pain of desoldering the damned thing, and wanted to try the other one. Since I didnt want to go through this ever again, I looked in my spare/old parts area, and I grabbed an old modem (or was it video card?) that happened to have a whole bunch of jumper connectors. I clipped off 8 of them, and individually soldered them into the board. They are the perfect size for those lpc holes. Afterwards, I was able to easily solder the "half-moons" on the chip to each pin. Re-attached the 4 fires, and much to my surprise... heh... the thing boots up perfectly now. NO MORE PROBLEMS.) For those that are curious, I am going to be taking the old modchip and doing the exact same procedure to the 2nd xbox tomorrow. (Wednesday). I want to know for sure whether it was a connection issue, or is that particular chip FUBAR. I will post as soon as I can.
P.S. I am sure there are tutorials out there on this, but for the inexperienced... ANY old board with jumpers can be used, the "pins" are all the same size. I use two soldering irons during my procedure. One is a 15 watt, I use for the surface points on the board, and for the soldering of the pins to the "half-moons". The other is a 45 watt iron that I use for the pins. I do this because I want to heat up the pin and maintain that heat to make sure it goes through the board. Trick is to make sure you put a little tiny amount of solder on the hole itself first, grab the pin with a pair of small (as in for small electronics work) pliers, and while holding that with one hand pressing down on the solder point, bring the tip of the iron from the side and it will instantly melt the solder and allow the pin to go through. Problem is you have to practice the amount of force because it WILL go right through the board. (Found myself pushing and pulling several times) ultimately, you have the pin through but not much more than that. I tried to make sure they were all even, and if any one was sticking out a bit much, I used a pair of cutters (again, tiny ones) to clip them as close to the board on the bottom side as possible.) I am very happy with the result. The board overs a little bit over everything, is very solidly in place, and It would be a heck of a lot easier to remove if necessary.

So before, you actually had the modchip soldered onto the xbox motherboard?

I might then connect 8 wires to the lpc points then....

QUOTE (Velocirapture @ Jan 25 2004, 10:34 PM)

Well... remember how I fixed my chip problem? I now have been having a new one. While all apps work flawlessly, I am having bootup issues like never before... Before I "fixed" the chip, I would press the power button and if I hold it down for a second or two, it would go through all 3 colors quickly, then boot. Now.... *sigh* now... I am having all sorts of odd problems, and I think they have to do with why my system keep making me reset the clock. I was not having that particular problem before, but every other reboot is a nightmare... shut down, boot up, it blinks and shuts down, then boots up but to the ms dashboard... im too annoyed to try and describe it accurately... just wondering if anyone else is having these issues.... is it possible for me to still have a bad chip although all my programs and emulators work perfectly well????

I have come across this with MANY different chips. It's an LPC connection/solder problem, make sure your LPCs are all connected correctly and that there isn't any solder cross-connecting them.
And make sure you didn't burn the LPC half moon connectors off the chip or else you will have to scrape a part of the trace that leads to the burned connector and use a wire to bring it back to the lpc.

QUOTE (Badmiyamotofinger @ Jan 28 2004, 08:13 AM)

So before, you actually had the modchip soldered onto the xbox motherboard? I might then connect 8 wires to the lpc points then....

wires is tough to get working, make sure they are as short as possible and make sure they are touching the right side of the LPC half-moon connector some of them have the trace leading from the top of the chip, and others on the bottom. best to make the top side of the half-moon pad connect to the bottom with some solder before wiring. (It's easy to get it wrong but if you get it right, it makes for easy troubleshooting.

___________--


BY THE WAY

I have now installed 6 Aladdin Chips on v1.0,v1.1, v1.3 machines
Any problems I have come up with including all of the above was a soldering issue OR a broken half-moon. SO CHECK YOUR SOLDERING, IT'S ALWAYS THE SOLDERING!!!

I don't have DVD burner so I have only tried Philips CDRW, but it's not working either. yes, I did add 51.4 MB dummy file and also tried added original evox.ini file but it just won't load it. Have anybody here have Aladdin Modchip and successfully install Evox? I also brought 160GB 7200 rpm 8 mb hard drive. it's gonna be tough since I can't load my EVox.

I have another question. how come some backup games can't play in my Thomphas DVD drive (from xbox) but it will play in my addon DVD rom from pc? then my addon DVD rom only read backups but not Xbox orginal game. how can I work this issus out?

please help

I've check all the soldering points and they are all fine.. close the Xbox and all work properly.. didn't do anything but opening it and checking the wires if they are all connected properly.. I had a problem with loading apps and games before but evox works fine.. so anyway.. everything are working until i try to load the MSDash that was not properly working.. meaning I forgot that I don't have all the files needed to load it so okay.. no worries.. restart the xbox and guess what.. back to the old problem.. don't know what to do next.. problem could be bad chip.. i might try to change it later.. unless people here have a better idea..

cheers!

QUOTE (anu|b|iss @ Jan 29 2004, 01:29 AM)

QUOTE (Velocirapture @ Jan 25 2004, 10:34 PM) Well... remember how I fixed my chip problem? I now have been having a new one. While all apps work flawlessly, I am having bootup issues like never before... Before I "fixed" the chip, I would press the power button and if I hold it down for a second or two, it would go through all 3 colors quickly, then boot. Now.... *sigh*  now... I am having all sorts of odd problems, and I think they have to do with why my system keep making me reset the clock. I was not having that particular problem before, but every other reboot is a nightmare... shut down, boot up, it blinks and shuts down, then boots up but to the ms dashboard... im too annoyed to try and describe it accurately... just wondering if anyone else is having these issues.... is it possible for me to still have a bad chip although all my programs and emulators work perfectly well???? I have come across this with MANY different chips. It's an LPC connection/solder problem, make sure your LPCs are all connected correctly and that there isn't any solder cross-connecting them. And make sure you didn't burn the LPC half moon connectors off the chip or else you will have to scrape a part of the trace that leads to the burned connector and use a wire to bring it back to the lpc.

Well last time I opended my Xbox I checked the LPC points are they were soldered correctly. I checked this with a magnifying glass. None were touching each other.

I'll probably unsolder them and resolder it again......
Here's hoping!

QUOTE (bobot23 @ Jan 29 2004, 09:27 AM)

I've check all the soldering points and they are all fine.. close the Xbox and all work properly.. didn't do anything but opening it and checking the wires if they are all connected properly.. I had a problem with loading apps and games before but evox works fine.. so anyway.. everything are working until i try to load the MSDash that was not properly working.. meaning I forgot that I don't have all the files needed to load it   so okay.. no worries.. restart the xbox and guess what.. back to the old problem.. don't know what to do next.. problem could be bad chip.. i might try to change it later.. unless people here have a better idea.. cheers!

Your xbox probably lost its date/time setting, do you know your HD key? if so unlock your drive and stick the msdash from your backups (YOU DID BACK IT UP DIDN'T YOU!?) back on your C: and leave it there, if you have evox as xboxdash.xbe, rename it to evoxdash.xbe and leave that in your C: the newer bios's have auto-detect evox dash and will boot that when the chip is on and the ms-dash when it's off, also if you specify the location of msdash in evox.ini it will load msdash if there is a kernel date/time panic so you can fix it.

QUOTE (Badmiyamotofinger @ Jan 29 2004, 09:30 AM)

QUOTE (anu|b|iss @ Jan 29 2004, 01:29 AM) QUOTE (Velocirapture @ Jan 25 2004, 10:34 PM) Well... remember how I fixed my chip problem? I now have been having a new one. While all apps work flawlessly, I am having bootup issues like never before... Before I "fixed" the chip, I would press the power button and if I hold it down for a second or two, it would go through all 3 colors quickly, then boot. Now.... *sigh*  now... I am having all sorts of odd problems, and I think they have to do with why my system keep making me reset the clock. I was not having that particular problem before, but every other reboot is a nightmare... shut down, boot up, it blinks and shuts down, then boots up but to the ms dashboard... im too annoyed to try and describe it accurately... just wondering if anyone else is having these issues.... is it possible for me to still have a bad chip although all my programs and emulators work perfectly well???? I have come across this with MANY different chips. It's an LPC connection/solder problem, make sure your LPCs are all connected correctly and that there isn't any solder cross-connecting them. And make sure you didn't burn the LPC half moon connectors off the chip or else you will have to scrape a part of the trace that leads to the burned connector and use a wire to bring it back to the lpc. Well last time I opended my Xbox I checked the LPC points are they were soldered correctly. I checked this with a magnifying glass. None were touching each other. I'll probably unsolder them and resolder it again...... Here's hoping!

Trust me, even when things look ok, there is sometimes still something not quite touching right. Make sure the lpc holes on the board are properly filled in with solder all around and through the center. Also CHECK YOUR D0 try using the alternate D0 on the underside of the board. It's much easier to get and you can be more certain it's something else other then D0 that is the problem. I've already hooked up a chip that wouldn't seem to work when hooked up with the BT, L1, L2, D0 on the chip, But when I put the chip on the LPC and hooked the alternate D0 with a wire to the ground bolt above the LPC and the chip worked fine. Had to install an external switch on the D0 wire for live but it works A-OK.
There's always a way around things, you just need a little patience and alot of time.

I've been using the Alternative D0 point ever since!

Well basically I have two options to try:

1. Unsolder BT, L1 and L2 points and resolder the D0 to the Ground instead of Alternate Point.
I don't use LIVE anyway.

2. If No.1 doesn't work, I'm gonna take off all 8 LPC Points and attached wires to them instead.

If both fail, I am screwed and probably use one of the Exploit methods instead!!!!

If you are using wires, as I have stated before, make sure the wire is attached to the proper side of the chip, some traces lead to the top pad, and some to the bottom, best way to make sure, is to solder both pads together then attach the wire.

And as for exploits, you will need msdash 4920 (or live 1.0) or the mechinstaller.
If you have kernel 1.0.5101.01 or newer, the phoenix loader will not work and you will need to flash your onboard TSOP

Hope this helps!

Still many aladdin questions that can be answered by this post so I am bumping it up.

::BUMP::

I also have the Alladin Advance 64 chip installed with the D0 on the backside of the MOBO.

My problem now is that i have no picture on my TV. I do have sound...

When i boot to the MS dash nothing is wron, except the picture...

When i boot to EvoX the xbox makes a kind of clicky sound... and will not boot from a boot DVD.

What version xbox?

I dont know, I have a samsung drive in it. It's standard. I think bios 3921+

The last thing i did was i kopied avalaunch 0463 on the F:\

Maybe it has something to do with it...

I read all the posts on XBMP.de...

and if the chip is turned off, do you still get video problems?
you should really find out the version of your box. It makes things MUCH easier..

How can i find this?

I found this website: http://xbox-linux.sourceforge.net/docs/versionsfinding.html

Followed the steps and found out my Xbox is unknown.

According to this:
Serial Number: XXXXXXX 20XXX = v1.0
Serial Number: XXXXXXX 21XXX = v1.0
Serial Number: XXXXXXX 23XXX = v1.0 or v1.1
Serial Number: XXXXXXX 24XXX = v1.1
Serial Number: XXXXXXX 25XXX = v1.1
Serial Number: XXXXXXX 30XXX = v1.2
Serial Number: XXXXXXX 31XXX = v1.3
Serial Number: XXXXXXX 32XXX = v1.3
Serial Number: XXXXXXX 33XXX = v1.4 or v1.5

I have a v1.1

Ok, then. Now we're getting somewhere.
I have a few questions to ask.

1. Have you moved your xbox around (bring it to a friends place or anything)
2. Is your chip directly on the board, pin install, or wire install?
3. Have you braught your xbox in the cold for more than 15 minutes?
4. Is your xbox next to a heater or in a poorly ventilated area?

All these things can either cause the solder to break/crack or for your xbox's hardware components to fail.

1. No, i havent
2. Wire install.
3. How cold? In my living room it doesnt get colder then 15 degrees celsius
4. it is in a cabinet. This cabinet is vented enough, my xbox didnt get very hot in it, according to my dashboard.

So soldering again would do the trick?

Sounds like a re-install would do the trick, try pins from a dead motherboard or something. I have tons of old 386 boards here that I recycle for pins. The IDE connector pins fit perfectly. But do yourself a favor, before re-installing the chip, take it out, try your machine without it, if it still behaves oddly you have more than a chip problem.