Seeing sooo many people having problem installing the OpenXbox from Lik-Sang is making me a little curious as to if the OpenXbox is really THAT bad. I thought the OpenXbox was arguably one of the the easiest modchips to install (sans Xecuter, maybe) ! So here is a poll to figure out the relative measure of success vs failure ...

I know that the posts here are probably not the best indicator of success with this chip, since people generally only tend to post when ththings go wrong. So this is a request to everyone to please vote even if you had a perfectly successful installation without any issues.

On the other hand, if something went wrong during the installation, please post a brief description of what exactly went wrong so new installers have an idea what to be careful of.

Please vote everyone

A lot of people rush the installation...like me....
You wait and wait and wait for this miracle chip and when it finally gets to your door all you want to do is go for it!!!

Big mistake. Use common sense....unlike Lik-Sang who sent wires that were twice as big as the solder points!!! Why even send the damn things?!

Like I've said, rushing will only hender your common sense.
Dont be lured in to using those damn wires or anything until you've heard enough proof and feel comfortable.
Research, research, and research! Like I should have done.

Great advice Magitues !

Which wires that Lik-Sang sent are too thick ? Only point# 9 and 10 ? Or the ribbon cable wires also ?

I am still waiting for my chip to reach here so I don't know yet. If only the wires for point 9 & 10 are too thick, I can easily replace them with thin kynar wires that I have; however, if the wires in the flat rainbow ribbon cable are also too think I don't know what to do

I am wishing the wires in the ribbon cable are thin enough ... but will appreciate any feedback from other who already got this.

Installed it yesterday and it works fine. 9 and 10 wires were way too think and the ribbon wires were perfect. There are some wires on the ribbon that you don't use. I suggest folding these wires back and wrapping electric tape around the ribbon. Also be sure to make the wires for point 9 and 10 as short as possible.

I installed it the 1st time and it didn't work and I couldn't figure out why. I could flash the chip but it wouldn't boot backups. I was ready to go postal until I tried shortening the 9 and 10 wires. Boom...Booted straight up. Never had a problem with that before so I was a little amazed...

Good luck with your install!

Bubun...

Hopefully your mod will already have pins 9 & 10 soldered to the mod.
You see...a hurricane hit where lik-sang is and when they were closed they sat around and soldered pins 9 & 10 for everybody with small tin-plated wires...this is what they should have done in the first place.

I ordered mine a bit early so my wires were the generic (shitty) kind...should have waited for the damn hurricane to hit so the lazy
@!#$%'s would have soldered it for me too! Kinda pisses me off...but at myself more than them...They've taken advantage of a lot of people because of lack of adequate instructions.

limbfilter: Thanks for the advice !

Magitues: I actually hope that they *don't* solder the wires to 9 & 10 on my mod. From what I have heard so far, the wires they supply for 9 & 10 are way too thick ... so I am planning to use some really thin kynar wire-wrap-wire that I have.

In case I get mine soldered already, I'll have to desolder them ... not a huge deal, but still some soldering and hence some risk

Once I get mine (should be sometime next week) I'll take plenty of time and do it really easy. From my research in this board so far, here are the 'unofficial' tips that I have gathered:

1. Do NOT use the wires Lik-Sang supplies for points 9 & 10. Instead use very thin (30 AWG) Kynar type wires for these points

2. Keep the lengths of wire 9 & 10 as small as possible

3. USE FLUX (Radio Shack part# 64-021)

4. Before trying to solder point 9 & 10, align the wire tip on the point and then put some tape to hold the wire securely on the board. This will prevent ripping the solder pad off the board

5. Don't hold the iron to any solder point for more than 2 seconds (count one-onethousand-two-onthousand done). From what I have read so far, the Xbox board is rather flimsy

6. USE FLUX

7. Install the OpenXbox close to the motherboard so that it doesn't touch the metal when the Xbox lid is closed

8. Don't connect the printer port cable to the OpenXbox directly ... instead always use the parallel port extension cable that Lik-Sang provides

9. USE FLUX

10. Cut and fold the 4 unused wires on the rainbow ribbon cable and put insulation tape on the tips

11. Use EvoX 2.4 BIOS

12. Check for 3.3v according to this diagram if there are any problems programming the BIOS

13. Did I mention to use a LOT of Flux


Anything else anyone would like to suggest ? I'll keep on updating this list.

- installing the OpenXbox (over 80)
- need 15 min.
- no problems with flashing: 95,98,ME,2K and XP (over 4 Computers)

Stephan

another thing to consider it the length of the exposed wire. Make that as short as you can handle as well.

I'd say that the installations was semi-easy; It didn't work when I soldered all the points in (green, shutdown, boot, repeat twice, red/green flashing). Eventually, I had to solder wires #2 and #6 first, power on the XBox, and flash it before it worked with *all* the solder points attacted correctly. (Apparently, points two and six are the two points that supply the power required to flash it). After I flashed it, I soldered the other wires to it, soldered that 'ground' wire from that teeeny point to ground, and watched it boot with the wrong BIOS! (Goddamn shady IRC Chatrooms..... the BIOS was labeled as Evox 2.3 and it was actually 2.2! Not the chip's fault, tho)
Hope everyone else has better luck than I did. I burned through about 3 packs of cigarettes trying to figure out what I did wrong. =-)

QUOTE (limbfilter @ Sep 21 2002, 03:06 PM)

another thing to consider it the length of the exposed wire. Make that as short as you can handle as well.

limbfilter: What do you mean by the exposed wire ? Which wire are you referring to specifically ?

Also, do you suggest twisting wires 9 & 10 as shown in the original PC-BioXX installation PDF document ? None of the installation pictures I have seen so far has done this ... so I am wondering if this is necessary ! What difference does it make anyway ... does it reduce interference ?

I think what he means by 'exposed wire' is wire that doesn't have the insulation on it.

QUOTE (dkoikadabra @ Sep 21 2002, 08:35 PM)

I think what he means by 'exposed wire' is wire that doesn't have the insulation on it.

Um ... yeah ... that is sort of obvious ... ... but the only wires without insulation that I find in this install are the wire ends that are soldered to the Xbox motherboard or to the OpenXbox board.

Is this what he meant by 'exposed' wire ? Just want to make sure I am not missing something ...

right
the supplied wires' insulation is cut back about twice as long as it should be.

I routed the underside wires (9/10) through the oval cutout so they don't get caught between the case/fan/board

QUOTE (acronym @ Sep 21 2002, 10:29 PM)

... I routed the underside wires (9/10) through the oval cutout so they don't get caught between the case/fan/board

Would you be able to post a picture of this, by any chance ?

After a perfect install with no issues, I thought I would just add -

It seams like the only place people are really having installation issues is with #9 on the motherboard. With this, I would HIGHLY recommend using a thinner wire and following what buban said in point 4.

Tin and Flux the wire, flux the motherboard point, bend the tip of the wire downwards a little, align the wire up and tape the wire to the board. This will leave you with the wire sitting perfectly on the spot. Then, just a quick dab of the solder iron on the wire itself and it should be attached.

P.S. Yea I know, bad solder skills by only heating the wire but works ok for this.

bubun, I checked the images I took of the open xbox and you really can't see where the wires go through cleanly.

theres an oval hole on the xbox motherboard, between the case fan (to the left) and the heatsink with the fan that a case screw goes through (the one under the serial number I think) The hole is ovalish so you can slide out the ethernet/video connectors while the board is held at an angle.

anyway, thats where I routed the 9 & 10 wires. with the xbox motherboard out, it's pretty easy to see.

Thanks acronym ! I understand now.