How to softmod your Xbox and install XBMC for free

witnessmenow

Thanks for the reply, must get a few of them so. There is a few of us pimping our xboxs through them so the €30 delivery is not much. Here is some of the stuff we are getting.

Hard Drives:
500gb @ €51 or 1tb @ €96 - Both of these are sata but they are reported to be working with an xbox. I've used these adapters before and they work for the xbox.

Fan 15 dBA @ €1.60 - At this price you may aswell!

Ata 100 cable @ €1.60 - According to here replacing the Ide cable in your xbox with this Ata 100 cable you could get an increase in load times from your hard drive by 20-30%. For the minimal cost and effort i'm going to try it out, I'll let you know how i get on with it.

Wireless adapter @ €24 - This converts an ethernet port to a wireless connection, so if you ever wanted a wireless xbox this is the boy to get. This should also work for the 360 (it's alot cheaper than the official adapter). Read the user review of it here on dabs.ie, looks like it will be a good buy.
I've researched into this a bit and that wireless adapter is powered by 12v dc, the xboxs hard drive is powered by 12v dc so im going to look into the possibility of making it an internal wireless (space will be the only problem i'd imagine).

unklerosco

witnessmenow wrote: »

Thanks for the reply, must get a few of them so. There is a few of us pimping our xboxs through them so the €30 delivery is not much. Here is some of the stuff we are getting.

Hard Drives:
500gb @ €51 or 1tb @ €96 - Both of these are sata but they are reported to be working with an xbox. I've used these adapters before and they work for the xbox.

Fan 15 dBA @ €1.60 - At this price you may aswell!

Ata 100 cable @ €1.60 - According to here replacing the Ide cable in your xbox with this Ata 100 cable you could get an increase in load times from your hard drive by 20-30%. For the minimal cost and effort i'm going to try it out, I'll let you know how i get on with it.

Wireless adapter @ €24 - This converts an ethernet port to a wireless connection, so if you ever wanted a wireless xbox this is the boy to get. This should also work for the 360 (it's alot cheaper than the official adapter). Read the user review of it here on dabs.ie, looks like it will be a good buy.
I've researched into this a bit and that wireless adapter is powered by 12v dc, the xboxs hard drive is powered by 12v dc so im going to look into the possibility of making it an internal wireless (space will be the only problem i'd imagine).

Me thinks I'll be placing an order myself soon enough...

vibe666

if you want to make your xbox wireless then your best bet is the la fonera wifi router.

you can pick one up on ebay cheaply enough and it's perfect for putting inside the xbox and has already been done successfully.

you'll need to re-flash the firmware to a 3rd party one called dd-wrt which allows it to be used as a wireless bridge. it's a bit of a pain in the tits to do the first time, but it's not impossible and once you've done it once it's easy enough to do in about 45 minutes.

i have one externally at the moment, but as you said, it's not a big deal to internalize it inside the xbox. the other option is to power the la fonera via USB which you can put into the xbox as well, so you still only have 1 power supply running both, but you have the added advantage of being able to use the la fonera with a laptop powered via usb if you want to mess around with it that way.

mind you, since XBMC Atlantis beta1 came out the other day I get the feeling a lot of people will be migrating to Linux before long and finally getting rid of their xboxes. it's going to cost more to do, but the prospect of being able to play back native HD content is certainly a very attractive reason to switch.

I've been playing around with Atlantis today and it's very slick, especially with the PM3.HD skin although at 1080i it was a little too flickery on my TV. it's fine at 720p tho, no issues at all. A lot of the other HD skins are very promising too not to mention all the newer features and there's plenty to choose from.

I got 6 of those 15dBA fans off ebay anyway, came to €30.71 inc. p&p, so I'm fairly chuffed.

catching_streams

Hi guys, I'm having issues upgrading the hdd on my crystal xbox. I believe it's an issue with the C & E folders i've put on the linux.iso cd. Does anyone have fresh copies of these folders handy? After I've done the hotswap I am getting the error code 5 screen and I can't find these on RS, MU or any torrent sites. Any help appreciated.

ongarite

You have to lock your new upgraded HDD with the eeprom, thats whats is giving you the error code 5.
Connect all the XBOX, PC stuff back again and from the Linux CD, press 3 to get to command prompt and type lockhd -a
This will use the eeprom (which you should have back'd up to lock new HDD to your XBOX motherboard)

catching_streams

Thanks Ongarite, this solved the problem. One missed step caused me so much bloody stress!!! Appreciated.

JethroC

Nice fan mod guide vibe666 Helped me a lot...

I took to my xbox and new fan with a hacksaw last night...got the whole thing modded in about an hour and was left with a very nice and quiet xbox (even with the fan @ 100%) and a sore hand also! The way I cut out the section from the hard drive caddie...it holds the side of the fan in place perfectly and then used 2 small cable ties for the top of the fan so there's no movement at all.

Just one thing tho...I installed mine with the 6v mod (controllable) instead of the 12v (uncontrollable). I understand that at 6v the speed of the fan will be lower than the 12v. Is there going to be overheating problems down the line with running it at 6v rather than 12?

I tested the fan last night with it running at 100% and had a 3D screensaver running in XBMC for about half an hour. When I came out of the screensaver the CPU temp was up at 51C and the GPU was at 38C. I'm basically just worried about the temperature if I have a game running for a few hours or whatever. I know the cut off point is 71C when the xbox will shut itself off so what are 'stable' temps for the xbox to run at when gaming, playing Xvid etc...?

vibe666

thanks Jethro, it's good to know someone's reading it, so it's not for nothing.

JethroC wrote: »

Just one thing tho...I installed mine with the 6v mod (controllable) instead of the 12v (uncontrollable). I understand that at 6v the speed of the fan will be lower than the 12v. Is there going to be overheating problems down the line with running it at 6v rather than 12?

i honestly don't know about that. when you say 6v mod, do you mean something attached to the cable?

all the fans i've used have the same PC mobo type mini 3-pin connector same as the standard xbox one so i've just been doing a straight swap, plugging the new fan into the same thing as the old one, no messing or modding. no idea about voltages tbh, i've not tested them, just assumed it was all the same and it's been working fine so far (altho i don't use it for gaming, it's just a media server).

sorry I can't be of any more help than that, maybe one of the other lads might know. did you get any pics of what you did?

m8

Anyone know where I can get Ndure-3.1.rar as per origional post step 5?

Can't find it anywhere?
Not sure if I'm even looking in the right place.


5) Ndure-3.1.rar - get it from Xbins using Easy Xbins - browse to /XBOX/Console Based Applications/exploits/_Packages/Kingroachs Installer/

ongarite

vibe666 wrote: »

if you want to make your xbox wireless then your best bet is the la fonera wifi router.

you can pick one up on ebay cheaply enough and it's perfect for putting inside the xbox and has already been done successfully.

you'll need to re-flash the firmware to a 3rd party one called dd-wrt which allows it to be used as a wireless bridge. it's a bit of a pain in the tits to do the first time, but it's not impossible and once you've done it once it's easy enough to do in about 45 minutes.

Hey vibe, do you know if this wifi bridge supports WPA encryption?

unklerosco

m8 wrote: »

Anyone know where I can get Ndure-3.1.rar as per origional post step 5?

Can't find it anywhere?
Not sure if I'm even looking in the right place.


5) Ndure-3.1.rar - get it from Xbins using Easy Xbins - browse to /XBOX/Console Based Applications/exploits/_Packages/Kingroachs Installer/

I had a load of trouble finding it... I'll see if I can find it when I get home, might still have it on my pc... As far as I remember I got it on rapidshare.

Infact, I just found it...

http://rapidshare.com/files/58071383/Ndure-3.1.rar

m8

unklerosco wrote: »

I had a load of trouble finding it... I'll see if I can find it when I get home, might still have it on my pc... As far as I remember I got it on rapidshare.

Infact, I just found it...

http://rapidshare.com/files/58071383/Ndure-3.1.rar

Cheers thanks for that unklerosco

vibe666

it's not a bridge out of the box, you'll need to flash it with the dd-wrt firmware, but once that's done it'll do pretty much anything you want it to, inc. wpa, wpa2 etc.

all the infor you need to hack the fonera is here: http://www.fonerahacks.com

it can be difficult to do though the first time, so be prepared for some swearing.

oh, and you'll need a spare router to ect as a DNS redirector to fool the fonera into phoning home to the wrong server so it will downgrade itself to an older firmware, then you need to re-flash it.

its all on that site, but there's no quick and easy way unfortunatelty, just a lot of reading.

amacachi

Anyone know of anywhere selling original XBox's these days?

docentore

yep, try GameStop on Henry st. in Dublin,
just picked up one brand new there today for 19.99. They had 4 new ones more and 1 s/h

vibe666

if you have a HDTV and a few quid to spare on a proper PC, you might want to look into the linux and windows ports of XBMC.

the 733mhz celeron and 64mb of ram in the original xbox isn't powerful enough to play native HD video, but even a very average specced PC with a HDMI out running XBMC is more than able for it.

just a thought.

kaisersose77

witnessmenow wrote: »

Thanks for the reply, must get a few of them so. There is a few of us pimping our xboxs through them so the €30 delivery is not much. Here is some of the stuff we are getting.

Hard Drives:
500gb @ €51 or 1tb @ €96 - Both of these are sata but they are reported to be working with an xbox. I've used these adapters before and they work for the xbox.

Fan 15 dBA @ €1.60 - At this price you may aswell!

Ata 100 cable @ €1.60 - According to here replacing the Ide cable in your xbox with this Ata 100 cable you could get an increase in load times from your hard drive by 20-30%. For the minimal cost and effort i'm going to try it out, I'll let you know how i get on with it.

Wireless adapter @ €24 - This converts an ethernet port to a wireless connection, so if you ever wanted a wireless xbox this is the boy to get. This should also work for the 360 (it's alot cheaper than the official adapter). Read the user review of it here on dabs.ie, looks like it will be a good buy.
I've researched into this a bit and that wireless adapter is powered by 12v dc, the xboxs hard drive is powered by 12v dc so im going to look into the possibility of making it an internal wireless (space will be the only problem i'd imagine).

I thought those sata connectors never worked right on xbox's? and the comments on that dealextreme page say there not sata to ide

I have a couple of older model of those samsung harddrives (501), do you know by any chance if they would work?

docentore

@kaisersoze: I have one and I'm trying to try in the next few days. but according to this it should work.
Will tell you when I'm done if you're interested.

and I'm going to use this

witnessmenow

kaisersose77 wrote: »

I thought those sata connectors never worked right on xbox's? and the comments on that dealextreme page say there not sata to ide

I have a couple of older model of those samsung harddrives (501), do you know by any chance if they would work?

Sshhh dont tell that to one in my xbox at the moment... it might stop working :pac:

docentore

what adapter did you use? any thoughts, tips? thanks

witnessmenow

See Kaisers post where he quotes me, in the line with the hard drives I give a link to which one i used. The pins are fairly delicate though so its tough enough to do the hot swap on it though. I use the action replay way so its not a problem for me.

kaisersose77

witnessmenow wrote: »

See Kaisers post where he quotes me, in the line with the hard drives I give a link to which one i used. The pins are fairly delicate though so its tough enough to do the hot swap on it though. I use the action replay way so its not a problem for me.

I'd love them to work, just anytime i see people mention them, they always seem to say bad things like their harddrive died or it would stop responding every so often. But are you sure you linked to the right adapter? How are you meant to power the sata drive if thats going to be facing the harddrive connections? everyone who posted in the dealextreme comments just says mentions about use in ide drive in a sata port.

witnessmenow

Good shout Kaiser. they arent the right ones!!!

These are

kaisersose77

cheers,

how long have you being using it? and have you noticed any problems compared to using ide drives?

witnessmenow

I've been using it every day for over a month and Its been perfect.

kaisersose77

anyone else have problems with dealextreme

keep getting this error no matter which paypal method i use

""We're sorry, in order to apply for PayPal Credit, your account must be a U.S. account."" even though my credit card works fine and is linked to my account.


had to confirm my credit card again with paypal from some reason but even that didnt fix it ( i have used paypal for something else since and it worked fine)

vibe666

not had a problem with them before.

did you try mailing htem? maybe there's something you need to do to get it working?

witnessmenow

Hardwareversand delivered yesterday

14 hard drives (7 1tbs and 7 500gbs)... I've a busy week ahead of me :pac:

Lets hope they work in the xboxs : /

unklerosco

If u've any HDs left over when ur done drop us a pm... In need of some large HDs

witnessmenow

Sorry Unkle but i definitly wont have any left over, If anything i might be short:pac:

They're obviously not all for me, Most of the lads in my class got some for there xboxs.

I must go annoy onagrite at some stage to get this library thing working