Here, I'll try to show you the simple process for modifying the Xbox console and adding a mod chip. The chip I am describing is the Xecutor 2.3b lite, but the process should be similar for any chip. First, you need to take your Xbox apart.

Remove the 6 hex nuts with a torx driver t-20. There's a screw under 2 of the labels, write the number you must break through down somewhere, in case it's important. You'll see when you do it. I wrote mine on the same label, with a sharpie. Once the screws are out, remove the cover.

Once in, unplug the ribbon cable to the hard drive and the CD ROM and the motherboard, and unplug the power from the hard drive. There is a yellow wire coming from the CD-ROM, unplug that from the motherboard. There are 3 screws holding the drives in, these are t-10 torx wrenches. Remove them, then remove the drives, hard drive first.

Next, unplug the power, fan, front buttons, and controllers from the motherboard. Unscrew the screws with a t-10 torx.

Carefully remove the mothehrboard from the case. You may need to lift it from the front first, so the plugs in the back slide out. Place it on a smooth, nonconductive surface. We will be focusing on a small area of the board.

We will be doing 2 major soldering projects: The pins for the BIOS upgrade (which are surprisingly here from Microsoft, maybe for testing or future add ons? Let's not complain!) and the d0 point. The d0 point is in a different spot on different versions of the Xbox, and this is a 1.0 version. You can learn about your version and how to distinguish it here, and later on I'll show you exactly where the d0 point is on your board. In the rows of holes, we need to remove the solder. This is a fairly simple procedure if you get a solder sucker, which is about 6 dollars at radio shack. A solder sucker is a spring loaded piston which you can set by pressing down on the spring until it locks, and then with a push of a button make it spring up, creating a vacuum inside. Put the opening over liquid solder (made liquid by heating with the soldering iron) and the solder inside the hole should suck right out.

If done correctly, it looks like this. Don't worry about leaving a little solder in each hole, so long as you think you could push a pin through it, it'll be ok. You'll notice later we don't solder into all holes, but clean them out anyway, it's good practice and who knows, maybe one day a new mod chip will use them for something.

This is the pin header we will be installing. A pin header should come with any mod chip you buy. This is the preferred method for installing mod chips because it allows for ease of exchange (If you decide to upgrade to a new generation chip) and a solid connection. Before we insert this, we must remove a pin, since there is a spot with no hole which must be accounted for.

If you can see, it's the second pin up on the left. This can be easily slid out with a pair of pliers.

Place the pin assembly in the holes, it shold only fit in one place. Tape it down with some masking tape or something, making sure it's all the way in. The tape will later be removed, it's to hold the pin assembly on when we flip the board upside down and solder the pins.

It's blurry, but these are correctly soldered pins from the bottom of the board. You should practice some first, but by touching the top of the pin with some solder and a hot iron, the solder should on its own stick to the metal of the hole and form a little hersy kiss type joint.

This is not part of the Xbox, but it's a better picture of a proper solder joint.

Now, onto the "impossible" part, the d0 point!!! I'm sure everyone has heard how the d0 point is the most difficult thing to deal with ever, and that you'll be trying for days and ruin your Xbox doing it. Remember the picture above? If you look at your hole on your Xbox, you'd swear I'm kidding you about soldering to that tiny spot, but you do indeed need to have a connection to it - or, if you're smart, just make a connection to something already connected to that point. Here is where the d0 point is on the different boards.

If you flip the board over, you can find the spot on the back the hole is connected to, and follow the trace attached to it to find a nice, easy to solder spot. Yes, the bottom blue arrow points to a completely valid d0 point. Surprisingly, most guides don't tell you to do it this way, but this is reality folks, and this is the sinple and solid way to do it. Also, by going from the bottom, you decrease the chance of accidentally pulling the wire out when messing inside the device, making it all the more attractive to solder to. If you don't have the same version as me, just find your d0 point, find where it comes through on the back, and follow it's trace, you'll find something there easier to solder to.

In this picture, I covered the solder points around the d0 point with some electrical tape. This is to ensure I don't accidentally make a connection with something I shouldn't. Also, looking at the holes for the pin header, there's 4 holes we cleaned and didn't use; I put a length of wire through one (which happens to be grey), and the wire I used was pretty snug in that hole. Later on, you'll see that a snug wire is added security so that nothing will tug on the joint you make. The grey wire is hard to see here, but it's on there, sticking up out of the second hole on the right. So, without much ado, I put some excess solder on the exposed tip of the grey wire, I used some pliers to hold the stripped end of wire onto the contact point, heated it with the soldering iron, and when it looked like it fused gave it a light tug to make sure. When I was sure (after 1 try on both the xboxes I did, and no I'm not a pro solderer) I taped over the connection so it didn't touch the bottom. (alternatively, you could put tape on the bottom of the metal in the xbox, so if you ever want to look at your solder joint there isn't tape stuck to it)

So here's the top of the board again, all back in the case. I used the Xecutor 2.3b lite chip, which I like very much. You can follow the grey wire coming out of the hole we cleaned out; I left some of the end of it exposed, and merely twisted the end of it to the exposed end of the little grey wire coming out of the chip (The intended use of that little grey wire is to solder onto the front d0 point, but that's ridiculous) and covered it with electrical tape. There are 2 wire sets plugged into the chip; the one to the ground/d0 wire, and a set of black wires which we will use in a minute. Have both plugged into the chip, and screw the ground hole into the ground screw hole on the motherboard. Notice on the chip there is a black rectangle with holes in it; that will be sliding onto the pins you installed.

Once you are ready, put the chip on the pins. It should look something like this. Notice the black wires coming out of the chip closest to the camera, we'll deal with those next.

With this chip, there is a small control panel and LED that go on the front of your machine. To put them there, unscrew the controller ports from the front of the xbox and move them aside. Feed the end of the black wire through the vent holes in the bottom. This was the trickiest part of the mod for me since I have big stubby fingers. Tweezers are your friend!

This is what the little switch chip looks like once it is installed. The wire through the controller ports comes through and plugs in with no extra wires hanging out, the white backing is peeled off and the stick surface is stuck to the bottom of the console, and the switches and LED are accessible from the front.

Once you put the controller ports back in, it should look something like this, with the wires coming out the bottom of port 1. Finally, we are done!!! Plug everything back in like it was, and you're ready to make things work!!!

To do the final check that your chip is installed correctly, once you've hooked all the internal guts back up, power it up and see if these 2 blue lights are visible from the side of the Xbox with the chip. If both are lit, everything is connected and you should be good to go. If they are not lit, then go back and check your connections, specifically the d0 connection. Keep at it, you'll get it eventually. Happy modding!

Hey you guys, this is a short entry since I have so much going on. First, the Arena should be up very soon, where all the A-House business will go. Second, personally, I've been really stressed out lately, little things have been getting on my nerves, but I'm trying as best as I can to fight it and be happy. I don't like making people worry when I see them, so I smile and all that, if I don't, then people wonder, and gossip, and then there's rumors about Jenn and I breaking up, or me failing out, or the world ending. WOW THIS HAS ESCALATED OUT OF CONTROL!!! Anyway, things are really ok, I just have way too much homework to catch up on and my committment level is higher than it's ever been. I'll be fine, I jsut need to catch up. Ok, real fast, watching spongebob, and Mr. Krabs' name is Eugene. Ok, time to study, I have an emergency drill at 6:00 AM, I'll see you all later!

This shouldn't be a long entry. FIrst of all, I'm gonna make the little un-done area on the left the "A-House update area." When I get time, I'll put a calendar and some links there. But as for me, I dont' have so much to say. I got all melancholy for a few days, so I'll post some stuff from that.
  How can you look in the mirror after sitting back and complaining that you never have the opportunity? The opportunity is now.
  I am afraid of controversy
  You're only as sheltered as you let yourself be
  Sometimes I like to listen to music so I don't have to hear myself think
  Your vote doesn't count, if it counted then you'd be the one deciding, wouldn't you? And don't give me that crap about "oh, what if it's close," if my vote was that important they'd have sent me my friggen absentee ballot one of the 2 years they DIDN'T. And whatever way an election goes, it's your responsibility as a human being to adjust and deal with it, if you wanna be a baby and whine that your vote didn't win, go to another state or country. I'll even pack your bags. I literally challenge all of you who say the state is gonna fall apart because of Ahnold to leave, whether you like him or not, he's the governor and we all have to deal. None of us are the state, but we are all equal members of it, and in this popularity contest we lose sometimes, and being mature means we don't go on the news and begin talking armageddon. Hell, I don't even believe in all his politics, I'm not even his party, and I'm supporting him because he won. It's our responsibility.
  There's some lines of disrespect that should never be crossed. It's one thing to not like someone and have disrespect, it's another thing to put yourself in a condescending superiority role over them. DO what you need to do, but have some respect about it. Please.
  Neverending battles are called that for a reason. The key is recognize it and remove yourself.
  Sometimes, even though you've seen it better elsewhere, tradition is valuable for a reason. And don't step on people's toes.
  I don't like prejudice people. Ironic?
  Finally, and most importantly, I DO NOT LIKE TO WRITE PEOPLE UP!!! Somehow, I've gotten this label as the HA who is looking to write people up. As a great HA once said, there's a balance between the letter of the law and the spirit of the law. I've written one group up for somehting undeniable, but other than that I have given warnings to people for quiet hours, have taken away the ping pong equipment at quiet hours, and have torn down and colelcted illegal fliers. In fact, I wonder sometimes if I should be more strict, because I feel I'm letting a lot I see go. So if you have that impression that I am looking for trouble, know I'm officially now angry at you (and only you people) and am looking at you specifically to be written up. To everyone else, if you really, truly deserve it, I'll write you up, but I'd rather have a mutually respectful relationship with you where we both understand and respect the rules we all have to live by. No one is perfect, and I don't expect anyone to be. I consider my role as an HA not primarily as an officer, but more as a counselor, I think the most important thing I have to do is listen to someone when they have a problem or concern, and be the voice of understanding/comfort/reason. Some of the most important interactions I've had are people telling me how they went and partied off campus, which is fine so long as I don't see you drunk, but to me, it means they trust me, and the fact that a handful of people at this point have expressed their trust in me makes me confident that I'm doing at least somewhat of a decent job.
  Since I'm giving this site out to a lot of people who don't know me well personally, here's a summary. I'm a nerd at heart, I love computers and old TV and guitar and lazer tag and bowling and video games. I am comfortable making a fool of myself, especially if it makes other people feel comfortable. I have a lot of very strong convictions, but I make a point, except in very few cases, to extend it to other people. I like hearing other people's philosophies, I hate it when you try to make me think like you do. For example, without even discussing issues, I consider myself a liberal because 90% of Republicans I know have a pushy, cocky, demanding attitude. They all tell you what to think. That's disgusting to me, I associate myself with liberals because they're the type of personalities I would like to be around. (That's not to say all Republicans are like that, or that I dislike all republicans, some of my best friends are like that, but it's definately something that gets on my nerves, and more often than not I tune that kind of attitude out) I am strongly against drinking, and I never plan on drinking in my life. That doesn't mean I have any disrespect for you if you do drink, and I have no problem being around people who drink, but I've seen the dark side of it and it's not for me. I never plan to drink, not even the customary 21st birthday drink. For all of you who look at astounded that I've never been to a real party or I have no desire to go to TJ, that's why. It's just not for me. Oh, and I don't dance either, ask the Wonder Twins why. I'm heavily involved with my GF, Jenn, of 2 years, we're best frineds and I don't know what I'd do without her. This whole job and room and everything is still new to me and I'm really adjusting still, but when I'm with her I always feel like I'm home, and not just in this temporary room for a year. Other than that, I love watching movies on a friday or saturday night and I have millions, so come by if you like that. For all of you who are reading this, I really want to get to know everyone in the house, and I'm still learning names and faces (Sorry if you say Hi to me and I don't recognize you at first, there's like 600 new people who I've seen and am still learning) I'd like for all of you to stop by and just say hi for a few minutes, it'll help me start a relationship with you. Sianara!

Well, after the empty promises of a new website became unfulfilled, and as the flash revolution made my site rival the titans of the web, yet rendering it completely un-updatable, I sit here at my humble console, once again, pledging reform. This time, though, my goals will be more reasonable. First of all, I plan to update this moderately. I should be replacing the stupid things <--- here and ---> here with some content soon. Hopefully, I will have a calendar up, and I dunno, something else pretty. Check the links menu, it's really easy to update now so I should do that more, and there's a lot of new stuff to look at, while, mind you, it's not as G-Rated as it was before.
  Now, onto an update. Finally. After a year of not updating, and having my little sister out-do me in the ability to keep her website updated. This last year has been a turbulent one, with many interesting things to report. I became senior orientation leader, went through the process again, was chosen as an HA, a reality I am still coming to terms with, I had roommate issues and triumphs, I came in and out of touch with people, I went through several severely self destructive spirals, most of which involved certain movies and life-altering perceptions, I got severe food poisoning, was on anthrax medicine, went without a computer and internet for more than a quarter, downloaded every pete and pete and aeon flux, added a major, dropped another, got a free subscription to FHM, learned hot glass and cold glass look the same, moved 9 times, burned some CD's, became a member and a rebel against the unyielding grip of corporate, plastic America, and learned how David Blaine can levitate himself. And now think of all the stuff I didn't tell you. Yea, it's been busy. Well, What's I'd recommend you do is IM me at SilentDarkFalcon and ask more details about the year.
  And, now, a touch of reality. I sit here, and while in my head hundreds of you are reading this every minute, I know that the only people reading this are my sister, my girlfriend, and anyone else who is looking for a favor from me. With that, I think it's appropriate for me to use this forum to empart some honest advice to all unsuspecting first years. The list below is the essential guide to having a successful college experience, so heed it an honor it like it's a newfound religion.
    1. You may be enchanted by Summit now, and even though they rotate their food, it gets old. Plus, the lines get so long, you never want to wait for the special or the pizza, so you always end up getting a crappy pita or sushi. So, as a group, we're moving lunch to 10:00AM and dinner to 4:00PM. Hopefully, this way, we'll get to the front of the line, get some decent food, and be surrounded by like-minded rejects who look at this site.
    2. Discussions suck. I'm not trying to sound cocky, but unless you're one of the three people in a class who can't remember the basic underlying concept that the department is founded on and must ask for it to be repeated 7 times a class, which none of the supreme beings who are my audience are, you have no reason to go to discussion. Some classes require attendance, but in my experience discussions are big rooms filled with 6 kids, 2 of which ask all the questions, most of which pertain to things you already understand. EVEN THOUGH YOU THINK YOU MAY HEAR SOMETHING YOU DON'T ALREADY KNOW, YOU WON'T.
    3. Don't bother being political. If you have beliefs, register to vote. Democracy isn't about seeing how many people you can sway to your opinion, that's called a popularity contest. If you have to advertise your political beliefs in the hope of making other people believe them too, then whatever it is you're advertising probably isn't important enough to matter anyway. A GOOD PHILOSOPHY SHOULD ADVERTISE ITSELF.
    4. Reading sucks. Leisure reading is cool, but having to read a 30 page communications article, only to have the exact points that were made thorughout the article reiterated in list form on the last page, is frusturating. Read articles from back to front, because often there's a sumamry at the end, and that's all you need to know.
    5. Force yourself to sleep. Allow me to reiterate an experience I had this summer: Sitting up in my room at 3 in the morning, with my roommate asleep and the lights off, watching Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas until 5. Point is, being awake at those hours makes you self destructive, then you're not ready for class the next day. Even if you have late class, wake up early. You'll thank me later.
    6. Poster your walls. Posters are mobile, so wherever you move to, it still feels like the same room, which makes living in general more comfortable. And, cinder blocks are ugly.
    7. Papa John's gave me food poisoning. Sometimes, if you ask, Domino's will give you 2 for 1, when you call ask if they still have the 2 for 1 deal, sometimes they just give it to you. Domino's=858-452-8273. Round Table has the Napa Pizza, but it's too expensive. Domino's is the way to go.
    8. If you have a car, and you park on campus, don't expect to find a spot from 7:00AM to 6:00PM. Park at UTC and take the shuttle, it's free.
    9. Don't sit in your room, get out and join a club. And if you like to just sit in your room, come tell me, and I'll get a club of people who like to sit in their rooms together. Can't argue that one, can you?
    10. Robertos, Ralphs, Sav-On, Cotixan's, Denny's, 7-Eleven, and Carl's Jr. are open 24 hours a day. With those 7 places, you have almost any food you could want, clothes, medicine, toys, books, furniture, and almost anythign else you could want at your fingertips at all time. Damn.
  Ok, now, you're all ready for college. With our new society following these rules, we could be the leaders of this campus in no time flat. Let's make T-shirts. Ok, I need to go read for communications. If you're bored, check out the links, or the archives, which there's a link to at the bottom of this. See you all later.

  Ok, there's a lot of stuff to know about this. Originally, this computer was a Micron 120Mhz server tower from about 1994. Dad ran his business out of it for many many years, and he got a 2 gig upgrade which made this completely obsolete. I wanted a full tower to be completely unified in my design, and it was perfect for what I wanted. The design and construction took almost a year, but the result is worth it.
  Weighing in at a pristine 78 lbs, this thing turned out to be everything I wanted. When I started, I knew I wanted to cut the clam shell and make doors, which was a new thing. I wanted windows in those doors, and I wanted everything self contained. I had to work when at my parent's house, which is hard when I only go back every so often. Wiring the cables was rough, making new cables of course part of the process, making everything working off the power I had, learning both metal and body and paint work. There's tons of fans all over, lights, internal speakers for the motherboard, internal USB, connections for everything everywhere, and a killer paint job that screams out about my style. It has a DVD burner, a CD burner, a DVD-ROM, an 80 gig HDD, and a 300 gig HDD. There's 3 stage lighting, including 1 sound sensitive light that throbs to my bass! I had to dramatically reshape the holes in the front and back, turn an AT case into an ATX compatible machine, and figure out how to make 2 power supplies work together. I'm sorry I didn't take in progress pics, but it was such a long process it didn't make sense.

The only pic I can find of the original case, notice the white clamshell ugliness. So much better now.

Here's the whole front, from top to bottom there's the Disc drives, then the hard drives, the live drive, the card slot, the USB ports, the switch panels, the internal 10/100 hub, the vents, the base, then the block at the bottom.

The back side, notice the cool paint and the base which has the wheels, you can see the back of the power strip down there.

The back. Notice 2 power supplies, that's kind of original, the original case had a HDD chassy up there. The fan panel is below that which helps outline the motherboard area, it's artistically sanded aluminum. The original case had all serial and parallel ports as they did back in the day, and that panel covered it up nicely. Below that is the cards, notice how full it is down there. Card list, with updates since the pictures: Vid Card, Sound Card, Ethernet Card (second wired one), Wireless Ethernet card (making 3 internet connections! Yay RIP listener!), the game port for the sound card, the internal USB connector card, and a partridge in a pear tree. Notice the plug in the back, the single plug for the power strip.

The top, simply an integrated ipod dock/charger and palm pilot dock and charger and extra battery charger.

The switch area. At the top on the right, the power button to the top power supply which powers the 5 port hub, the Disc drives, and the lights. Those need to be on before the other switch, but can be on independently. Below that, there's the fan speed switch on the far left, hi, med, and low. In the middle there's the card reader and USB ports, then the power, reset, HDD LED and PW LED for the main power supply which is hooked to the motherboard, cards, and HDD's. Under that, there's the switch to the 2 stable lights and the one for the sound sensitive light, plus the mic. The dimmer controls the sound sensitivity. The micron logo is kind of a cool touch, since it connects it to it's past life. You know what the hub does, connected to the second wired ethernet card.

The fun to look at side. Notice it's a door and not that stupid clamshell. Much prettier and more convenient. You can also see how chaotic it is in there, don't worry, I know intimately.

Kind of the boring window, any computer person knows this is the power supplies and the drive backs. NEED TONS OF ROOM!

OK, ::takes deep breath:: This is the soyo dragon ULTRA 640+ motherboard with a 2.4 P4 CPU and 1 gig of RAM. The video card in there then was the ATI All in Wonder 8500 DV but since have moved to an ATI ALl in Wonder X800 and it rules. There's the creative Audigy with the Live Drive so my comp is now the full A/V machine, with all HD optical, midi, and composite ins and outs. HOT. The Volcano 7 fan on the CPU is visible and loud. Now, off to the right, you can see some fun stuff. I put 4 USB ports on the inside of the case to plug in the remote receiver for the AIW, the card reader, the palm pilot dock, and the wireless keyboard and mouse receiver. SEE, NO MORE CARRYING ACCESSORIES AROUND. The USB ports on the back of the motherboard, plus the connectors on the card, and the ones for the front panel, that's 10 total plus 3 firewire. WOW.

Ok, here's the blue sound sensitive light, it flashes when there's noise.

The big bright blue light.

The string light in the front that shows through the vent slots. AWESOME.

Under the comp in the base, here's the little power strip. So convenient!

Ok, I LAN and move a lot, so I was smart enough to put wheels on this thing. Here they are, painted as well.

To pull this thing, I have a string with a handle in the front. It sits on a block in the front so it doesn't roll on it's own, you just pull it up a little and it rides on the wheels.