out of the blue my mod xbox starts fraging when i take out the chip it works fine. Can anyone help me out on what to do?
check all the wiring, some may have come loose. like the d0 wire (which causes to bypass the ms bios). but the chip might also be dead. but that really doesn't matter, just do a softmod or a tsop flash and you are good to go.
i vote softmod... don't ever...and i mean EVER do a TSOP flash, they are a pain in the ass. And if anyone gets the xbox after you they'll pull their hair out trying to fix it.
why not a tsop flash? i mean, going onto live isn't an issue anymore (service is discontinued i believe). the tsop flash isn't that difficult, done several by now (just join a few solderpoint together and use a slayer disc to tsop flash). after a tsop flash you can boot unsigned code and you do not need to lock your harddrive anymore... for me, they are only pro's and no cons (off course, if flashing fails for some reason you are screwed... that is a big con, same if you solder the wrong points / splash solder on your mainboard and hence kill your xbox. but a little bit of caution and ample of time and preparation can bring that risk down to almost zero). but in the end it is all up to the user. a softmod is the easiest way to do, but a tsop flash (at least for me) has some main advantages (you can swap harddrives from different xboxes without problems since it does not have to be locked for instance).
I remember when the tsop flash method was discovered and it claimed a lot of xbox's by using the wrong size bios and flashing with the exploit. I've had to repair a couple xbox's so far with the tsop flash. On one of them the bios was so old it wouldn't boot any of the newer apps. I had a hell of a time putting avalaunch on it because it wouldn't even load the newer exploits or any aid disc (i have 2.11 to current). So after that headache i finally switched some files around and it was pretty much trial and error. The fact that you can make your xbox a paperweight by flashing it is also a huge concern. If your customer sends you their xbox that has an ms error code you can easily fix it. But if a customer sends you a xbox that has a modchip error code screen and you have to reflash to update the bios, you are taking more of a chance of having a bricked box. So with that being said i'd rather stick with the stock bios and lock the drive then risk having to update the bios and have an issue that turns the perfecly working hardware, into a paperweight. I have 57 eeproms (saved as the xbox's serial number) from xbox's over the years, they're all saved in a xbox backup folder on 2 different hard drives. If a customer brought me their xbox 5 years from now it would only take a minute to unlock the drive and fix the problem. Even if the hard drive failed i could easily install a new hard drive and lock it with the eeprom effortlessly. I guess it just depends on how you go about it. Though it could just be me, i hate modchips too.
but i believe with one of the latest bios (m8+) you are quite safe of not having an obsolete bios (compared with any of the original xbox bios'es of the earlier xboxés). but your point is taken, there are some drawbacks. i never had any problems with it, and my tsop flash is still working like a charm. how to softmod? use any of the game and game exploits to softmod, i use the splintercell game and a memory card. look for the tutorials, they are good and explain the procedure for all games. alternative to softmod without game and stuff? you can also hot swap, look for that tutorial to
