Today I went to turn on my xbox and to my dismay it booted to the original ms dashboard. I opened up the console and all the wires looked secure. Another thing I noticed was that the chip wasn't flashing when I turned the console on, leading me to believe the chip has been fried. Is there anything else that could be happening here?

most likely your D0 wire is weak...check connections.

chips don't just die like that, but home-brew solder joints do.

also, if the chip was dead, and properly installed, it would FRAG the xbox.....unless your D0 isn't hooked up, or you are booting with BT (eject button)

also, if you aren't using BT, make sure you close it.

Well that makes sense, I'm by no means a professional solderer and the d0 connection does look a bit weak, I will attempt to fix it up in a few minutes.

i suggest the bottom side D0 if you are refurbishing your install.

the top-side D0 has a layer of laminate that most people neglect to prepare for soldering.

never use the top-side D0...that's my advice.

check out my duoX2 tutorials (links in sig) to see the proper way of doing the D0.

Yeah I had already soldered it to the bottom side d0, I tried to use the top but it failed.

Surprisingly I fixed the problem, after nearly breaking 3 or 4 traces (I honestly cannot believe I didn't break them, they look like shit!) I decided to try to solder the d0 straight to ground, it worked. It's pretty destroyed around the top and bottom d0 on my xbox now though, I think that my flux is expired or it was just shit to begin with, I sat there forever trying to get the wire to stick to the board and subsequently it now looks pretty burned up.

Nonetheless the xbox is now working correctly and that's all I could ever ask for.

Thanks for the help litspliff, it's truly appreciated.

Well actually now it frags. It was working perfectly until I rebooted, then it just out of nowhere went into frag. I'm sure that I did break those traces, it's no problem though I barely use this xbox anymore anyways.

nothin' like a classic.