You don't need it, and I wouldn't go near it.

yes - it maybe important to use a dummy filename less than 8 characters long. However - it is most certainly not necessary to call it dummy.bin,,,, all you need to make sure is that when you drag the dummy file into the nero burning box or whatever you use it is above the bios file. This indicates higher priority and thus is burned closer to the centre of the disk, this emans the xbox cd drive does not have to spin as fast to get sufficient data off the disk and also that it can find the bios file. you should also be able to right click it and change priority in most burning software

Does anyone have problems with lockups while trying to ftp? Im using 4976.02 bios and newest evox, but sometimes I get lockups when I try to ftp crap over. Also, does anyone have problems when you're in evoxdash and you put a game in the dvd drive, and then click on msdash, because mine tries to load the game but then jumps back to evox dash.

We're not ignoring you bakin1...you're just so damn far ahead of us that most of us have no idea what you're talking about

i installed everything as the manual says, and i fixed my Resistor problem.
i had lost a 103 resistor, so what i did was put tiny amount of solder on the resistor points, and solder 1 wire from point to point (they are very close..)
then i cut the wire in half (now making it two soldered wires) and checked their continuity just to be sure. after verifying it was ok, i soldered a different type of 10,000 ohm resistor (cylinder one with colored bands around it) to the two ends of the wires that i had soldered to the board. this worked perfectly, and now my eject was working nicely:)
(NOTE!: do not solder the resistor to the mobo and the yellow power connector, there is another connection that u dont see that drops the resistor down to 30,000 ohms before it reaches the power connector.


as for the problem with the chameleon.
i have everything installed.. but my chameleon wont stop flashing. i dont know how to check the lpc points and my dad is getting impatient with this thing cause he is a bastard. I was wondering if someone could tell me how to check the continuity of these points.
the d0 seems to work, and P & E do aswell.. but what the fuck is stopping this thing from working ?

ok, just an update.

apparently, my chameleon was flashing, but the cromwell still booted.

also, the cd flashed the chip, and my xbox booted...
so, what is the reason for the chip flashing if it seemed ok?

Your chameleon chip is supposed to flash when you boot the cromwell bios. So nothing is wrong with your chip

QUOTE (tracy2420 @ Jun 4 2003, 05:02 PM)

Here are some install pics that I have done, its a rush job so please dont flame on how messy my insides are...LOL. xzone

Nice, Tracy. SO it looks like the alternate E and P points indeed work. Do the buttons funciton correctly for you?

QUOTE (kyleday @ Jun 4 2003, 01:21 AM)

QUOTE (matic @ Jun 4 2003, 12:17 AM) Can you take out the chip and boot the MS bios normally?  Can you play a game ok?  I had a similar problem and my xbox kept shutting down every 45 seconds or so. Yes i can boot to the normal MS bios, and i know what your problem with your xbox is. your Power resistor is damaged. what did to fix this (i had this problem a few days ago) is solder a jumper from the P point that the chameleon goes to around to the back of the mobo where it connects to the pins. Just follow the trace from point P to the pin and solder it there, it's pretty easy to find. Use a multimeter if you have to- it'll solve your shutdown problem Kyle

Kyle, can you be more specific as to which pin I need to jumper point P to in order to fix my power up problem? I've taken a look on the back side of the mobo and there are four resistors there in that area that look similar to the ones on the top. There is a resistor on the back labeled "R3V4" (the resistor where you solder wire P is called "R3G4"). Immediately below R3V4 is a point which when I use a multimeter it shows 0 resistance when I'm touching one side R3G4, but shows about 1100 resistance when I touch the other side of the R3G4 resistor. Is this the point I should jumper with point P?

Also, does it matter which side of the resistor I use? In the picture, it shows that points P and E should be connected to the right side of the resistor. Do I do the same for jumpering point P to the back point of the mobo?

Ok here's a rough description of where point P leads to on the pinheaders. Look at the top of your mobo, with the video cable adaptor facing away from you, and the controller ports facing you. (i know you have your mobo in hand w/o the case, but visualize this for me). Look at where the yellow bundle of cables from the FRONT POWER AND EJECT BUTTONS (there are like 10 wires) connect to your mobo. It's similar to how your controller ports connect to your xbox, but this is a large yellow bundle of wires. the point P corresponds to the lower left hand corner pin. test that point, it should be point P. Just solder a jumper to this

If this doesn't quite answer your question, i'll try to phrase it a different way

Kyle

yes make sure to jumper and solder to the right side of the reisistor

QUOTE (kyleday @ Jun 4 2003, 07:31 PM)

Your chameleon chip is supposed to flash when you boot the cromwell bios.  So nothing is wrong with your chip

you dont seem to understand the problem though

the chip led was flashing but cromwell still booted.
and it read the cdrw aswell.

which brings me to problem #4 (or 5, whos counting)

i burnt kungfu chaos onto the same cdrw (Maxell 4x 650mb CDRW [Red Lable])
and it fit, but it says that it might be a dirty disc or whatever..

i admit, it is dirty.. but why did it work for flashing


EDIT:!!!

FORGOT TO BURN AS AN IMAGE, i just burned the iso file right to disc.
its prob cause i dont use NERO to do this usually, i always used cdrwin till they stopped supporting my burner.

kyle, i've soldered a jumper from the right side of the point P resistor to the underside of the lower left hand corner pin of the power/eject connector (looking at the mobo facing upright from with the video connnector at the top and the game controller connectors at the bottom). Is this accurate with your instructions?

I'm still getting the power up failure. Did I connect it to the wrong pin?

you seem to be missing a step there, first RTFM, you'll see you have to burn a cd with LINUXBIO.BIN (you hacked bios) put that in the drive, that will flash the chip. again read the manual, that should answer all your questions

QUOTE (matic @ Jun 5 2003, 04:44 AM)

kyle, i've soldered a jumper from the right side of the point P resistor to the underside of the lower left hand corner pin of the power/eject connector (looking at the mobo facing upright from with the video connnector at the top and the game controller connectors at the bottom). Is this accurate with your instructions? I'm still getting the power up failure. Did I connect it to the wrong pin?

yes this is correct. If you made this jumper, and it didn't solve your problem- check your resistors. I believe they are 10k resistors. You may have damaged them. If so, they are easily replaceable at any Radio Shack for cheap. Check your connections and make sure you didn't bridge anything on the resistor or pin headers

QUOTE (_300zx_TT @ Jun 5 2003, 04:32 AM)

QUOTE (kyleday @ Jun 4 2003, 07:31 PM) Your chameleon chip is supposed to flash when you boot the cromwell bios.  So nothing is wrong with your chip you dont seem to understand the problem though the chip led was flashing but cromwell still booted. and it read the cdrw aswell. which brings me to problem #4 (or 5, whos counting) i burnt kungfu chaos onto the same cdrw (Maxell 4x 650mb CDRW [Red Lable]) and it fit, but it says that it might be a dirty disc or whatever.. i admit, it is dirty.. but why did it work for flashing EDIT:!!! FORGOT TO BURN AS AN IMAGE, i just burned the iso file right to disc. its prob cause i dont use NERO to do this usually, i always used cdrwin till they stopped supporting my burner.

Ok i believe i understand your problem. You are flashing the chip, but it still boots to cromwell. Check your DIP switches on your chip. They should all be in the off position if you flashed a 256kb bios file (this will auto boot bank 0)- Bank 0 will be where it was flashed to.

Try that

kyle

QUOTE (kyleday @ Jun 5 2003, 12:59 AM)

QUOTE (_300zx_TT @ Jun 5 2003, 04:32 AM) QUOTE (kyleday @ Jun 4 2003, 07:31 PM) Your chameleon chip is supposed to flash when you boot the cromwell bios.  So nothing is wrong with your chip you dont seem to understand the problem though the chip led was flashing but cromwell still booted. and it read the cdrw aswell. which brings me to problem #4 (or 5, whos counting) i burnt kungfu chaos onto the same cdrw (Maxell 4x 650mb CDRW [Red Lable]) and it fit, but it says that it might be a dirty disc or whatever.. i admit, it is dirty.. but why did it work for flashing EDIT:!!! FORGOT TO BURN AS AN IMAGE, i just burned the iso file right to disc. its prob cause i dont use NERO to do this usually, i always used cdrwin till they stopped supporting my burner. Ok i believe i understand your problem. You are flashing the chip, but it still boots to cromwell. Check your DIP switches on your chip. They should all be in the off position if you flashed a 256kb bios file (this will auto boot bank 0)- Bank 0 will be where it was flashed to. Try that kyle

no no no.

The >>>>>> LED <<<<<< on the chip is flashing BLUE!!..

but cromwell still boots, and i flashed it with x2 4976 or whatever. and i can play games..
but i dont know if down the road something will be wrong... cause it was flashing..


and yesterday i popped in cdrip of KungFu Chaos that i got just to try the thing.
and it worked.. it loaded for ages on the first screen, but it worked...

now i try to play again, the loading takes seconds, and after the opening video with the "kungfu fighting" song, it goes to a black screen.

i dunno if its IGR and how to disable that crap, cause i dont have EVoX or a hdd..
its just straight chip install to play cdrw for now.


any ideas?

Is the light of the chameleon supposed to go on when the X2 bios is on the booting bank or not?

QUOTE (gatrhaze @ Jun 5 2003, 09:13 PM)

Is the light of the chameleon supposed to go on when the X2 bios is on the booting bank or not?

nope.
led only works on chromwell bios

A think this goes here. For people asking for atlernative D0 & A15 solder points.

D0=13

A15=3



Verify it for yourself here.

Does any one have any info on flashing the tsop i flashed the Chameleon with the matrix_tsop_flash bios and the box led just flashes on and off and the dvd rom sounds like it turnes on and off when i boot to that bank any help please

sounds like bad software or something - mine didnt do that just took me to evox where i could select the bios to flash

ok - last exam in just over a week - once thats done im writing a huge long tutorial which i will hopefully get posted on xbox-scene and it should have a very in depth guide with hopefully many q+a's and evrything that you folks have been asking (especially that fact that you really do need to do a good job with the soldering iron! Chris

Well.. Wow.. A lot of people here that are nearly destroying their Xbox with the chameleon..

I actually installed the Chameleon in one shot, without any problems. I used the pinheader install, connected the A15 and D0 points to the top of the mobo, and connected the E and P wires on the bottom of the Mobo (on pins 2 and 4 on the Front Panel connector).

I booted the xbox with all the dipswithes off, and managed to flash bank 0 with the latest Xecuter 2 BIOS using a normal CDR.. No problems whatsoever.. amazingly...

It did take me about 4 hours to complete, but I installed everything using connectors so I can easily remove the chameleon without having to solder anything.. a few tips to prevent problems that I have encountered :

• I did not use a single-stranded wire to connect D0 and A15. I used a soft-core wire (consisting of about 15 very thin individual wires), and stripped that down so just 4 of those tiny wires remained. I twisted these, and tinned them. This way you can just stick the wire INTO the D0 and A15 points, heat a little, and then lay the wire flat on the Mobo, securing it with a piece of insulation tape, so it won't move..
  
• Using a solder sucker is a bit dangerous, as the sucker moves very fast forward for about a millimeter of 5 when pressed (it's all bout mechanics.. the sucker moves backward, and the energy of this movement makes the sucker itself jump in the other direction.. ) . I destroyed one of the LPC points on the mobo with the sucker , and had to find an alternative point to solder a wire to the pinheader.. Do not use the solder-sucker too close to the mobo.. just give it room to move a bit.. Just try it out on a flat surface, like the table, sucking up a very small object, without the solder-sucker hitting the table..
  
• Do not heat the points on the mobo to long.. things come loose.. Is a certain point seems to tricky, try locating another point. Verify that you located another solder point by measuring this with a multimeter.. If you haven't got one : GET one.. They are cheap, and you cannnot verify everything just by using a magnifying glass..
  

I must admit that the chameleon is a difficult bit of soldering, but hey... the effort is well worth it...!!!

I am a very happy man, although I still have to find out a lot about xbox.. Dashboards, HD preparation... I am already enjoying myself now, though..!

I am trying to flash my TSOP with the Matrix/Chameleon and when
I boot Matrix_tsop_flash the light on my xbox just blinks red, green
AND orange. does it matter whether A15 is connected or not or
should the bios boot evox dash even if A15 isnt connected

it is a v 1.0 box so the bios should work

Flashing the tsop is the very purpose of the A15 connection. But of course evox dash should boot without that connection... Don't know much about tsop meddling though, so maybe I'm misunderstanding your question.

PROGRAMMER IS AVAILABLE, YAY!!!!!!!!!!!!

Check out the other thread for a pic.

yup, programmer is availible and i just checked 8 more chips with it and all were working! thats 12/12 fully functional now! almost unreal lol anyway gd luck to all you people who appear to have a dead one

QUOTE (Noiz @ Jun 1 2003, 10:06 PM)

That red/green flashing after 3 startup attempts is what I get. I've soldered that damn D0 so many times the point is no longer visible on the board  I'm 50% sure I've destroyed the Xbox but when I pull the Cham off and power on without the DVD/hard drives attached it *seems* to start normally (apart from it flashing about the drives). I've been messing with it for hours and I'm really thinking I shoulda just attached it to the Matrix and been done with it... But now I'm giving up for the night. So am I almost there or is my Box completely dead? I'm gonna pull the chip off and connect it to a TV tomorrow to see if it's completely dead but if anyone knows, or has had this themselves... Let me know! Cheers, Mike

I'm reading the quoted post and I can certainly relate.

I went with the Pinheader install (easiest?), and soldered the pinheader, P, E, and D0. I've checked all the connections visually, and physically and they appear to be solid. Nothing got fried along the way, and I should be good to go.

The XBOX boots WITHOUT the Chameleon connected, no problem.

However, when the Chameleon is connected I get no Cromwell BIOS strart-up screen. Instead I get that red/green flashing after 3 startup attempts (and two hard drive chirps?!?!). The XBOX is connected to my TV via the original RGB video cable.

What's the best course of action?

1) Check all the remaining banks on the Chameleon in hopes that one of them has the Cromwell BIOS on it.
2) Desolder the Chameleon chip, and attach it to the Matrix programmer, and flash it with the newly released programmer software.
3) Desolder points P,E, D0, and the Pinheader and RESOLDER everything.
4) Just resolder the D0 point again.

I would love to avoid wasting any more time, so if someone has a good suggestion, please let me know.

Thanks,

Solder_man

do not underestimate the importance of the lpc header pin. they may look like an easier install but the chip does need a good connection for the chip to get enough juice to work correctly. check this before you get more stressed about not being able to do d0. also what happens when your d0 wire is connected to ground (case)?

solder_man: Here's a quick way to test; Remover you cham. from the pin header, flip it arround and fit the quick solder to the LPC pin header (this should fit perfectly), ground your D0, your cham should blink or light up! and if you have any thing in the BIOS it will boot up ... if it not working than take a multimeter and check all the pin header in the LPC connector ... all should have power from 3.3v to 5v except pin#2 which is the GROUNG

Grounding the D0 point to the nearest screw hole sounds like you are completing a circuit somewhow. How is this different to just using the Power button.

(An engineer always wants to know WHY!)

Thanks in advance,

Solder_man

I'm not 100% certain about the exact details of D0, but I do know that it controls whether to boot from the onboard TSOP BIOS, or from the LPC. If the D0 pin is high, the Xbox boots from TSOP. If the D0 is low (achieved by grounding any point along the D0 line), then the Xbox boots from LPC.

yeh, its just like an electronic switch used by M$ presumably when they take the xbox's for checking/repair.
just like by holding e and p for different time periods it can decide which bank to boot from

QUOTE

yeh, its just like an electronic switch used by M$ presumably when they take the xbox's for checking/repair.

I agree.

That brings up another question. How do the M$ engineering/repair folks, enable the LPC for debugging/testing?
I find it hard to believe, that they are grounding D0, the same way we are. Working in electronics repair field for years, I have always used hidden hardware/software toggles to go into special diagnostic mode.

There must be somekind of hidden way, that they use to enable the LPC interface. I think we are taking the brut force approach, by shorting D0 to ground. Without schematics or logical drawings, I think its going to be hard to find. But I am sure someone will stumble on it!

i believe what they have is a clip, u push it into the hole while holding a switch, once inside the hole, you release it and it causes wire to press outwards causing contact with the inside of the metal ring. i believe that is what many hardcore electronics engineers do. however those tools are incrdibly expensive and you require a different one for every size hole you are connecting to

QUOTE (Neo2003 @ Jun 11 2003, 04:32 AM)

... if it not working than take a multimeter and check all the pin header in the LPC connector ... all should have power from 3.3v to 5v except pin#2 which is the GROUNG

I have a multimeter in hand (complete with a set of very small leads). I'm not sure why the suggestion in the post above is to check for specific voltage, and not just conductivity. For a voltage test, I would assume the XBOX has to be on, and I'm not sure that is the safest test to be performing with my limited electronics experience.

What is the best process for testing correct soldering of the LPC points with a multimeter?

Solder_man

solder_man: This is easier, since you got you pin header installed and you chameleon quick solder stick on the pin header, so it is more easier to test the voltage there, but you are right, you can test conductivity, but you will have to remove the motherboard out again for this test, which sometime is not as good ...

Dont want to sound like a smart ass but are any of you using flux? It makes a world of difference! Just put a little on the spot you want to solder, then the solder will just simply flow in that area!

WOOOHOOO!!!!! 2 WEEKS OF PAIN AND SUFFERING, are now over.... and the REAL fun begins.

What made the difference?

I saw an earlier post where someone said that after inserting the pin header into the LPC holes, they then went to the backside of the motherboard and pushed down on the pins until they were flush with the motherboard. Once this was accomplished I placed a nice round dab of solder on each of the holes. After that I tested for conductivity on each pin.... looked good. I also tested conductivity between the DO point on the Chameleon and the D0 point on the backside of the motherboard.... looked good. I set the Chameleon chip BIOS back to bank 0.

When I plugged the XBOX in, the Chameleon was flashing blue, and the CD tray ejected.

Break out the stogies, it's an X-BABY!

Ahhh yes, but the saga continues. Despite following the BIOS burning intructions to the letter, I can not get the Cromwell BIOS to recognize the CD. After inserting the CD it displays the message, "Waiting for Drive".

That's it. It does not load. I have tried two different types of CDRW media, and also used a 50+MB DUMMY.BIN file in addition to my 256KB D6 Bios file, renamed per instructions.

Thoughts???

I'm not sure if my soldering the P and E points had something to do with this. The CD loads now, but only if I have pressed the Eject button to start the XBOX.

I only post this information in hopes that it will help someone else... I'm going to try several more CDRW file and burning combinations.

---Edit---
(Note: Don't bother trying to burn CDs with CDR media... it simply will not work unless you are uber l337!)

you have to fully wait until it says waiting for cd drive before inserting the cd - otherwise it doesnt initialise. also you could try and different burning program - im just giving u some ideas

Ok, I completed the BIOS flashing process successfully with a 256KB D6 EjectFix, and the XBOX powered down at the end.

Here's the weird part. When I power it on again it appears as if it is booting the orginial TSOP BIOS. Just to be sure it wasn't a mimic, I tried loading my Slayers CD, and also BoxStall, but the XBOX doesn't recognize either CD.

I also note that there is no longer a blue light (solid or flashing) coming from the Chameleon.

Have I forgotten to do something here, or did I just blank out bank 0 in Mode 1 somehow? Any help would be appreciated... your great suggestions have brought me very close to the finish line this weekend.

Solder_man
(you know you're in trouble when you own the last 5 out of 10 posts!)

After much testing with different CDRW media, and the creatiion of many silver coasters.... I gave up trying to load the BIOS in Bank 0 via the Cromwell BIOS loader. I downloaded the software programmer.... and flashed 3 banks in 20 minutes and whallah.... a blue noani boot up screen.

splendid! it seems peoples chameleon's are starting to work a bit more often because people are following the steps a bit more precisely and making sure their soldering is up to the task, gd gd

Hi, I followed this post to install my Chameleon, however a strange problem is happening:
when I select "Switch to TSOP" from evox i get the front led blinkng green for 2 times then a shutdown+reboot in bank0, if I select "Switch to TSOP" after more than a minute from the boot i get only the led blinking red without any reboot or shutdown, switching to other banks works like normal.
I have V1.0 xbox, using Chameleon in mode1 with this bios arrangement:
Bank0: X2 4976.02
Bank1: Chameleon Cromwell working normally
Bank2&3: Chameleon Cromwell with front led fixed red
Any help appreciated.
Arcann

need more info. one) could your tsop have been messed up? a bad flash or somebody messing around with a flash of an old chip or the 007 trick etc. two) do you get any error screen? three)does the tv display anything at all? four)have u soldered the e/p/a15 points?
five)i havnt really thought about this but the diode could have died on the chameleon and thus it is not able to switch to tsop - it disables chip but doesnt disconnect d0 (i mean transistor btw)

It was a bad solder joint on A15, I have resoldered it and now the chip works.
Damn A15
Arcann

You don't need A15. Only if you plan to flash the TSOP.