I can't take any credit for this idea as I know a few other people round here already use this setup. Same goes for the info on where to solder the various wires etc. I've simply gathered all the required info and tried to put it together here in one noob friendly tut .

Anyway, the plan is to create one neat and tidy cable that can be used to dump and flash your 360's NAND by simply plugging into a specially created Ethernet port. The benefits of this are that the cable can be used on multiple 360's without the need for resoldering or messy wires hanging out your box.


What you'll need

RJ45 Ethernet Network LAN Cable Extension Adapter - I bought mine on eBay at £3 for 10
Standard Cat5 patch cable (Not a crossover cable, see HERE about the difference)
D-Sub hood 25-way - I bought mine in Maplin for about £1.60 part #FP29G
DB25 25-way male plug - I bought mine in Maplin for about £1.50 part #YQ48C

Other things you'll need are 5x100 ohm resistors and possibly some zip ties for securing your wiring.


The idea here is pretty simple. All you're going to do is match the colours marked on the Xbox motherboard with the db25 plug. But instead of going straight from one to the other you're going to have an Ethernet cable extender in the middle. This will allow you to unplug/connect you're 360 to your PC quickly and whenever you want.

Cut your Cat5 cable in half and prepare both ends for soldering. I recommend keeping the cable between your Xbox and PC as short as possible. After a bit of trial and error I found 35-40cm to be about right. The cable inside your Xbox should also be as short as possible.




Solder your wires to the Xbox motherboard following my diagram above. Find a good spot to place your Ethernet extender and secure it in place. I cut a hole in the metal shielding behind the DVD drive and hot glued the extender in place. I then cut a small hole on the outer case under the hard drive to allow easy access to the port whenever needed. When not in use the port is hidden under the hard drive.

Next you need to solder the other half of your Cat5 cable to the DB25 plug. Be careful to match up with the correct wires you soldered to the 360's motherboard!. Depending on your PC you may or may not need to install some 100 ohm resistors on pins 1,2,14,16 and 17. Some people will get away without them but in my case the NAND would not dump correctly unless I had resistors in place. You may also need to fit a switching diode to pin 11 if you are not getting the correct FlashConfig (normal config being 0x1198010). I had no issues so there was no need for me to fit the diode.

Just so there is no confusion on which pin is which.....


Fit your D-sub hood and you're all done .


*Update*
I just wanted to add some pics of the interesting configurations/variations people have come up with to dump and flash their 360's....
Reusable easy solder solution by garlon
http://img192.imageshack.us/img192/3985/lptcable.jpg
My easy solder cat5 attachment using garlon's idea
http://i784.photobucket.com/albums/yy122/s..._dude6/att3.jpg
http://i784.photobucket.com/albums/yy122/s..._dude6/att2.jpg
http://i784.photobucket.com/albums/yy122/s..._dude6/att1.jpg
Super clean low profile solution by fahrenheit
http://i3.photobucket.com/albums/y64/faranheit/RJ45_PCB.jpg
http://i3.photobucket.com/albums/y64/faran...VDclearance.jpg
http://i3.photobucket.com/albums/y64/faranheit/LPTwired.jpg
http://i3.photobucket.com/albums/y64/faran...FinishedLPT.jpg
Integrated nand write protect switch by Chemodile
http://i195.photobucket.com/albums/z162/un...p-internalS.jpg
http://i195.photobucket.com/albums/z162/un...i_nwp-sideS.jpg
http://i195.photobucket.com/albums/z162/un...i_nwp-caseS.jpg
http://i195.photobucket.com/albums/z162/un..._swp-cableS.jpg

Similar to what I did but yours looks much more neat than mine.

Very Nice.

This is cool and all makes it easy to flash, but you do know that the new version of Xell is update-able via a USB drive. And you should never have to connect to the pc again, there is even a fail safe where you can revert from a bad update using the back usb port. I have removed the LPT flashing hardware from my boxes just because of this.

Thanks .
Yes I know Xell is now update-able via USB but If you're like me and still want to flash the original Microsoft dash back from time to time then this is very handy. My main console is PAL and there are a couple of games not available to me so it's really nice to be able to switch the region code as and when needed . The other main benefit I find is being able to use the same cable to quickly switch from one 360 to another. Before I had to desolder/resolder which was a pain in the balls and wasted time.

Besides that I personally haven't had much luck in getting Xell to update from USB. I realise it's early days yet and things will no doubt become more stable/streamlined but it's still nice to have permanent, quick and easy access to the NAND.

Whoa this is impressive, just the handy idea i was looking for.


Thanks, will be doing this later.

I love this, very tidy. If this forum gave rep you get + from me!

what i have done with mine is just put and lpt port on the back of the 360 ill tack a pic later
so much easier than making a cable aswell

First Thanks A lot !!!

i have a question... i have xbox Model JASPER 512 mb. what is this? do i need do this?



Thanks !

So is it safe to leave these wires permenantly soldered into the board? What about soldering 2 small pin headers into the 7-wire spots so a person could easily solder into the board without risking solder splashes and scratched traces?

Nvm that ohm is for Jtag exploit. !

Loooove this tutorial... I did this on Sunday and it worked out perfectly. I didn't leave the coupler in the case though, just tucked the network cable in under the DVD drive.

Thanks for posting this!

I did have a question though, other tuts reference using a switching diode on one of the solder points... I did it without and it worked fine on my Xenon board... is this a requirement for later boards? Is there a specific purpose for it?

Same question here. I have Falcon board.

bro that is for Jtag exploit !! dont work anymore so dont worry

I don't understand why people are sayin that's for the JTAG thing don't worry... Isn't that what we're doin this for?

Confused

Should I make Jtag thing, too for hdd uncripple or not. I'm newbie and really confused. And second question which ethernet color to where. (orange-white, orange, green-white etc.)

I opened case and I'm waiting for a reply. If JTAG thing neceassary I will give up.

My question is that are those resistors ok? http://oomipood.ee/?t=k_ki&i=1%2F2W%20100K

Nope, but this is http://oomipood.ee/?t=k_ki&i=1%2F4W%20100R

100K is 100000 ohm ( you need 100ohm only)

mastah

look at this http://www.ue-soft.de/oilfield/techtabs/el...on/ccode001.pdf

[quote name='mastah' date='Nov 26 2009, 05:47 PM' post='4576865']
Nope, but this is http://oomipood.ee/?t=k_ki&i=1%2F4W%20100R

100K is 100000 ohm ( you need 100ohm only)

mastah

Thx

Thanks, glad you found it useful . As for the switching diode, I believe it is only needed if you're having problems getting your PC to see the 360's nand. Mine worked fine without so there was no need to fit one.

This tut is just to show you how to make a cable for dumping/flashing the nand on all versions of 360. The 360 I used to make the tut just happened to have the JTAG wires in place. They don't have anything to do with the newly found HDD uncripple workaround. I made this tut some time before Microsoft started banning and messing with the install to hard drive feature.


The JTAG hack is unrelated to the hdd uncripple process, just completely ignore any reference to it. All you need to do is wire up a cable to dump/flash your nand.

And it doesn't matter which colours you choose from the Ethernet cable just as long as the correct pins on the DB25 are connected to the corresponding points on the motherboard. Just follow the diagram and you can't really go wrong.....

hi since i don't want to make another topic just for one question anyone know whats the difference between the diagram on the first page and this one which one is better?

The one you linked to shows the points you need to solder if doing the JTAG hack.

In your solution you leaf the diode (1n4148) away. Don´t you need it because you are using a RJ45 Ethernet Network LAN Cable Extension Adapter?

No, mine works fine without it. As far as I remember adding a diode was an afterthought solution suggested when some people reported compatibility issues getting their PCs to see the 360s nand. It's fine to leave it out, you can always add the diode later if you find you have issues dumping/reading the nand.

Forgot to thank you for this one! Been using it on me old Xenon for neatness since you popped it up!

Big up the Weegie

If you want to flash back to original, is it safe to leave everything soldered up and use your xbox on live?

If I make a NAND backup and then upgrade my firmware/dashboard, can I restore my NAND and thus downgrade my firmware to what it was when I made the backup?

I've updated the first post and tutorial with some better pics and extra info . Should hopefully make it a little less confusing and give a better idea of what the end goal is.

Thanks, Glad it helped

Yes it's perfectly safe to leave everything soldered in place after you're done.

No, sadly you cannot downgrade your dashboard. When your 360 receives an update eFuses get blown which prevent previous dash versions from running.

Thanks for the new pics, the coupler under the hard drive is pretty slick. The ginormous glob of hot glue, not so much.

Well today I tried. Solderin DB25 plug was easy, but soldering wires to X360 is impossible . Is there anything I should know about solderin?

You can never have too much hot glue .


Soldering is 10x easier if you use solder flux. Cover the points on the motherboard with a good amount of flux using a cotton bud and it should make things a lot easier. Also make sure your soldering iron is hot enough and that the tip has been tinned. Tinning the ends of the wires you're going to solder is also a big help. You can find some good videos on youtube if you need more soldering advice .

Hello, great tut - im getting ready to do it myself to get back my hdd ^^ I've got an question, if i will need an switching diode, where should it go? The other diags are not so clear for me and yours is great so maybe you'll explain it to me does it go to the DB25 plug ? or somewhere on the Mobo?

Whered you get that nice db25 connector? Id like one like that to put the resistors safely in. I made the usb to 360 memcard wire and my resistors and wires are always snapping off.
Im not seeing it on radioshack.com

Someone needs to premake these so we just need to solder on.

When I stripped open the cat5 cable there are 8 small wires in it, your pic is only using 7 of them, I'm guessing you just left that one blank right?

I just finished soldering to the motherboard...talk about nerves man lol



Crap camera=crap pic haha

@TheGlow
I got one just like it from radioshack today, search part number 276-1547

Here and here at radioshack.

ARGH just hooked it all up and nanpro didnt find a flashing device I didnt use a diode hopefully thats all I need to do -.-"

Ah I got it to read!!!!

...turns out I forgot to plug the xbox into power..heh....

I'm still amazed I did the mod correctly

An idea: Why not just use the existing ethernet port, and hook up an external switch to cut the connection when it's not in use? Would doing it that way interfere with anything?

you would need a lot of switches to make it work, or one switch with like 8 poles dual position...

Not worth it, if you can just have the hdd conceal the plug.

Hi Sabbath Dude

Can you tell me which coloured wires on the cat 5 cable go to which colour on the xbox 360 mobo and also on the DB25 connector or it doesnt matter.

Thanks,

Hi first time poster

I'm going to give this guide a bash but have a quick n00by question, the guide shows the usage of only 7 wires (if i'm reading it correctly), however the RJ45 cable has 8 wires, do you just snip/tap up the spare wire, aslong as you use the same wires for both the 360 and the dsub?

yes, pretty much. You can just leave that wire unused/unsoldered.
Just used this guide 3 days ago, worked like a charm! So thanks a lot!
I did experience some problems (got all kinds of errors when reading the nand the first time) but then i shortened some wires and added the switching diode (dunno which helped, but i think it was shortening the wires) and then poof. It read my Nand like a charm.
I was actually quite amazed at what this motherboard can handle, im quite bad when it comes to soldering, screwed it up a couple of times and had to use the back of the motherboard because i fucked up the solder points on the front. But i eventually connected everything and got it to work! Anyway, i'm currently very happy with my uncrippled xbox! I now use this one offline and another xbox (unmodded) for all my online gaming (read MW2) and switch my profile for achievements and so on via a memory card. The Ideal setup for me!
Anyway, thanks again for the great tutorial

Does it matter which coloured wired soldered on the motherboard?

If you need to install a diode then you should solder it directly to the DB-25 plug on pin 11 (same as with the resistors). Just make sure the black band is pointing towards the 360 end.

Yeah there's one extra wire. Just pick the one you don't want and snip it.

It doesn't matter, just as long as the points on the mobo are soldered to the corresponding DB-25 pins (just follow the diagram).

Correct , just choose a wire and snip it.

Thanks Sabbath Dude!!

Glad to hear this tut has helped a few of you . If you still have trouble reading your NAND then you can try the following.
Shorten the length of the cable (the shorter the better).
Lower the resistance. Instead of 100ohm try 50 or 60 etc. Even try without (at your own risk!).
Fit a switching diode to pin 11.
Remember to have the 360 plugged in but not switched on

I got one more question for you Sabbath Dude. I'm not sure if plumbing flux is Ok to use when soldering to motherboard? Is there a different kind of fluxes you use?

You should really shop for PCB Liquid Soldering Flux or Flux Paste. Plumber's flux is probably very similar, but I've heard some of the materials in the plumbing solder, etc. can be harmful to PCBs.

What about this Acid Paste Flux would that be Ok for the PCB?

I am looking for the same info as JayMan, I can't seem to get a solid connection on each of the points. I don't know if its the solder I use or the flux I use but, there must be something I'm using diffrently because I can't get these things to stick. I got everything connected but nandpro is telling me it doesn't see a flash. If you guys can list the materials you use to get a solid connection I would appriciate it

Right, Total Noob here, Love what you have done, just one thing...I have NO IDEA what these diodes/switches look like, etc...I'm gonna hit up Radio Shack Shortly and was wondering if you could point me in the right direction, because most likely they won't have a clue either Just any extra info would be helpful...