Recently, my suitemate (Rajesh Acharya, Pokemon Hunter) talked me into modding my xBox.  I had thought about it before and seriously considered it, but it was Raj that actually pushed me to do it.  I couldn't be more glad.  I ordered an Xecuter 3 Chip from ChipDealer but couldn't remember, so I ordered another one from ModChipMan.  The one from MCM arrived a few days later, but caught me at school with a soldering iron, but no solder.  Thank goodness I have a version 1.1 xbox that had the LPC Port filled with all the solder I would need for a wired install. 

Chip Installation

I set right to work.  I had already disasembled my xbox prior to the chip arriving.  All I had to do was tear out the DVD Drive and hard drive holder.  I simply soldered the wire harness (10) to the corresponding holes in the LPC Port.  However, soldering the HDD & LAN LEDs along with the D0 connection (8) was a bit harder with no extra solder.  Needless to say, I was successful.  I then simply attached the X3 (1) to the side of my xbox case with the adhesive patch (6) and made the connection.  The rest was a piece of cake.  I reconnected the power/eject switch to the new mediator board (3) and the connector for it (4) to the X3.  I snaked the switch cable (7) out the front of my xbox and stuck the switch (2) oh so neatly to the front with no hitches.  Not needing the pin header (9) or the 1.6 alternate 5v connector (5) I put them back in the box and made everything look nice and neat.  I then put the components back in my case and tried it out... Here came the moment of truth.  When I saw the xbox flubber come on the screen accompanied with the framiliar sounds of an xbox booting, I was relieved and that sooned changed to excitement as I realized that I had conquered. 

Hard Drive and Software Installation 

Still with the stock HDD installed, I was scowering for a replacement upgrade.  The only 3.5" IDE HDD I had on hand was my server computer's main drive.  A Western Digital WD2000JB, 200 GB of sweet 7200rpm space with 8MB of cache. I made the sacrifice.  I backed up the files oh so quickly and made the exchange.  I flashed the new X3 bios onto the chip and booted to the X3 config live.  It was too simple to format the new hard drive and I had a new dashboard (avalaunch) up and running in a matter of minutes.  To date, I have many movies, games, music files, and tv episodes stored directly on my xbox.  It increased the value of my xbox infintecimally.  I now have emulators with all of my old NES games and SNES games, even my n64 games that I can play anytime I want, all from my xbox.  All of my xbox games are stored on board sot that I can play any of them without searching for the discs.  Xbox Media Center is probably the coolest free software ever. Using it as my new OS, I am able to play my music through shared LAN folders and check my local weather and not to mention playing movies and DVDs quite nicely. 

Other Mods Installed 

I figured since I beefed up the insides of my xbox, I needed to let people know by the outside.  I acquired several light mods and set out to install them next.  I had (of course) an Ultra DMA 80-Conductor IDE cable for increased bus speed, controller port lights, an EL light string, a halo light for the jewel, and a new lighted fan.  I had already installed the Ultra DMA Cable before I had even gotten the X3 and it successfully shot the shins out of load times the old fashion way.  A level load in Halo 2 was sliced by about 11 seconds from 18 seconds to a blistering seven.  As for the cosmetic mods, I first removed the jewel from the top of the xbox which was no walk in the park.  I pryed at that thing for several minutes, dangerously, when I should have just read some forums and found the easy way to do it.  After that, I had to remove the thick black adhesive from the back which was extremely difficult. Again, I should have checked the forums.  After I had it cleaned off, I had to sand and polish it.  I spent a good hour on this step, but it definitely looks nice, now... except for the small dents where I tried to use a dremel sander and got a little too deep.  Oh well, not bad at all for a first try, blind.  I permanently installed the LEDs in the controller ports with a little ingenuity on my part (I should major in engineering, lol).  I used a hot glue gun to affix the LEDs where I wanted them and to keep the connectors attached.  All went wonderfully.  After snapping off the old fan clips and dremmelling out some of my hard drive bay, the new, bigger (80mm compared to the old 60mm with an adapter), lighted fan fit like a glove and blew air like a mug.  I stuffed the transformer for the EL string behind the DVD and ran the wire out the back near the LAN Port.  I have yet to secure it to the underside of my xbox, I'm not sure what to use.. right now it's scotch taped.  The coolest part of the mods, the halo light, came broken in the mail, so it is in the process of replacement.  Other than that, my xbox is fully assembled and working with outstanding grace.  Definitely money (and time) well spent.  


Pictures will be posted when I open it back up to
install the replacement halo light.


My xBox Game List

  • Halo
  • Halo 2
  • Ghost Recon
  • Ghost Recon 2
  • Italian Job
  • Speed Kings
  • Project Gotham Racing 2
  • Need For Speed: Hot Pursuit 2
  • Need For Speed: Underground 2
  • Rainbow Six 3
  • Unreal 2
  • Unreal Championship
  • Rallisport Challenge 2
  • Conflict: Vietnam
  • Fight Club
  • Dead or Alive: Ultimate
  • Enter the Matrix
  • Sega GT
    • Jet Grind Radio Future
  • Red Dead Revolver
  • XIII
  • Return to Castle Wolfenstein
  • Splinter Cell: Pandora Trigger
  • Burnout 2
  • and more...