SmartXX v3 Review

Written by Brakken
January 2006 Introduction

It is a bit ironic that my first XBOX Review was on SmartXX’s v2 modchip and now here I am again ready to mod my console and have no doubt in my mind it will go as smoothly as my first review. Little did I know I wasn’t installing just a modchip, but a “beast” that has been packed with so many features that it would take me days to go over all of them just to write this review. Well now, let’s start with what you get when you purchase one from Mod-Chip.com, the modchip’s general features and then get into the review.


Contents

SmartXX v3 Modchip
LPC Rebuild PCB
USB to XBOX Converter
Xebian Linux / Tools Disc
LPC Pinheader
IR Mod LED
System Connector
DVD-ROM 5v Connector
5v Output Wire
SmartXX Branded Sticker

Features

4MB Flash Size (3.5MB Useable)
High Speed Hardware Protected Flash ROM
Ultra High-speed SYSCON (UHSC) Logic Chip
Works with 3rd Party Solderless Adapters
Works with SmartXX v1.6 Solderless Adapter
Works with SpiderGX v1.6 Solderless Adapter
Works with Xapt3r v1.6 Solderless Adapter
CD-ROM, DVD-ROM, DVD-ROM DL Support
CD-R, CD-RW, DVD-R, DVD-RW, DVD+RW Support
Change Video Mode / Change Game Region
Works with all Video Cables
EEprom Diagnostic / EEprom Repair
EEprom Backup / EEprom Replay
Protect Xbox Live Modchip Detection
Password Protect with User levels
Skinnable OS
Supports New Languages/Fonts
HDD Unlock / Lock
HDD Copy / HDD format
New HDD Prepare
Flash with CD/HTTP/TFTP/Remote Flasher
Can Run ED@Chip from Flash
Supports USB Keyboards
Status LED Programmable
External Display Solder Pads
Display Connector without Soldering
Software Controlled Contrast for Display
Software Controlled Backlight for Display
RGB Ambient Light (3x Independent PWM’s)
External Parallel RGB (3x Independent PWM’s)
General I/O Port's
High Power Infrared Remote Output
IR MOD Ready
All Connections Attachable Without Soldering
Software Upgrade Possible


Hardware Features - Explained

4MB Flash – Most 3rd party BIOS files you will use to boot unsigned code with are on average 512Kb so this leaves much room for options on what you can boot.

J1 – This is an external display port compatible with the X3™ LCD screen. It also is labeled as a special in and out (I/O) port, but no mention on what other devices it may support.

J2 – A general I/O port which is also compatible with Xecuter’s IR modification allowing you to control your XBOX with a remote control.

J3 – This is a RGB LED connector port allowing for the use three independent signals. It also features input capabilities. This could lead to some interesting lighting modifications.

J4 – The system connector port which hooks up to the internals of your XBOX. The connector features two unique wires when grounded will either disable the chip or put it in recovery mode.

J5 – The infrared remote output port connects to a LED that can be mounted inside or outside of the XBOX to show you the status of your infrared device.

J6 – This is a set of external display solder pads which can be used in conjunction with the J2 connector.

J7 – Simply the 5V input to power the chip with that comes from a wire assembly that plugs directly into the DVD-ROMs power connector on the motherboard.

J8 – A 5V power output which can be used to power the Spider chips wireless adapter for doing a wireless installation of the SmartXX v3 modchip.

J14 – Is the LPC Pinheader connector that can be soldered onto the motherboard or used with a pogo pin adapter for a solderless installation.

RBG Led – A status LED built into the modchip that can uses three channels resulting in the possibly to display over 2 million colors.

Installation

There are two ways to go about installing the SmartXX v3 which are to solder or not to solder. This is the question. If you choose to solder (which I have done) you can use the provided LPC Rebuild PCB & Wire Assemblies or solder the sucker directly to all of the points and do the rebuild yourself. If you’re going with a wireless install you have the options to use the SmartXX’s wireless adapter (not included) or supported third parties device.

Wired Installation

I chose to install the chip hard wired to the XBOX due to the fact that wireless solutions come with their own amount of problems. If you’ve skilled enough to solder you will know that soldering is the best way to keep something connected. I’ll discuss the disadvantages of the wireless installation in its proper section of this review. Soldering your chip inside the XBOX (or any console) is the always the best way to go. If you’re unfamiliar with soldering you read a cool guide here.

So now it’s time to take apart the good old XBOX. I grabbed the Torx 10 and 20 bits and went to town. When I found the top of the LPC bus I taped down the smaller end of the Pinheader so I could solder it on (if I was fitting this into a v1.0 – v1.5 console I would have had to remove pin 4 as there is no hole for it on the LPC bus).

As I am going to be installing the SmartXX v3 into a v1.6 XBOX so I need to solder on the LPC Rebuild PCB that is included in the package. I removed the motherboard from the case, flipped it over and located the LPC BUS. I placed the LPC Rebuild PCB in its proper location, covered all the solder points with flux and then soldered one point on each side thus preventing misalignment of the board itself. I then proceeded to solder the rest of the points to the board.

Next I ran the white (LFrame) wire from the System Connector wire assembly through the bottom of the board using the nearest screw hole. In their installation picture they show it running through one of the holes in the LPC Bus, but I could not do this as the holes didn’t line up so I used the closest screw hole. Oh, if you starting to worry about which hole to run the wire through I suggest you close this review and go read about how electricity and wires work.

Next I soldered the white wire onto the LFrame point in the LPC Rebuild. It is very important not to use the purple (D0) wire as this is intended for use with the v1.0 – v1.5 version XBOXs only. Once this was all done I flipped the board back over and took the tape off of the Pinheader.

Now I grabbed the SmartXX v3 modchip and removed the D0 PCB from the main chip (you only leave this one if you’re going to do a wireless install). The SmartXX Team did an excellent job at attaching this small PCB as you must use a strong pair of scissors or wire cutters to remove it. You won’t have to worry about it accidentally falling off if you do choose to use it.

Once this is done I plugged in the System Connector and left the unused wires taped into a bundle so they would not make contact with anything else during the operation of the console. Following this I plugged the new DVD-ROM power wire connector into the motherboard and then plugged its 5V wire to the input on the modchip. Having the 5V come directly from the DVD-ROM’s power wire connector was a novel idea and cut one step out of the soldering process.

I would like to point out that if you do not wish to use either of the wire assemblies mentioned above you can solder wires directly from the motherboard onto the back of the SmartXX as they have placed six very large gold connectors just for that purpose. This would be handy if you for some reason lose or damage the original wire assemblies.


Finally, I plugged the chip into the Pinheader and then reassembled my XBOX. When I turned the console on I was greeted by the SmartXX’s default BIOS which welcomed me to the “5th Generation” of XBOX modchips.

Wireless Installation

If you happen to have ordered SmartXX's Spider adapter for the XBOX v1.6 consoles you're in luck as you can easily install the SmartXX v3 without the need to solder anything onto the XBOX's motehrboard. First you fit the Spider adapter into place over the LPC holes. The Spider adapter comes with double sided foam tape on the bottom so make sure to align it properly. Once it is aligned use a small tool to move each leg into it's respective hole. If you have an XBOX v1.6b the holes might be covered in a thin layer of lacquer so you'll have to remove it. To do this carefully cut the laquer off using a small knife or razor blade, but make sure not to cut the metal off around the traces or you're end up with a dead XBOX.

One thing you will want to do is not to remove the D0 Tab from the SmartXX v3 if you’re going to be doing a wireless install. If you do remove it you can join two points together with a small wire, but of course that would require soldering. Next plug the 5v line running from the DVD power wire into the Spider adapter and then run it's 5v output line into the SmartXX v3. That's all there is too it.


You can also use any other Solderless adapter. You would place the Pogo Pin adapter and/or Wireless device over the LPC bus and then plug the SmartXX v3 into it once everything is installed. For reference is a picture (above) of the Xapt3r snug in place. All you would do is place the chip over it and connect the power from the DVD Wire Harness and you’re good to go.

Optional / Extra Installations


As noted in the overview of the SmartXX v3’s hardware features there are various ports built into the chip to add more functionality to the XBOX which include the addition of an Infrared Port that supports LED output, the use of external LCD displays including Xecuter’s X3™ LCD module, the ability to recover the chip and to turn it off using wires on the System Connector wire assembly.

Infrared Remote – General I/O Port (J2)
Infrared Output Remove Output Port (J5)

These two ports have been reserved for use with Xecuter’s IR Mod which scheduled is to hit the market soon. Using this modification will allow you to operate your XBOX via a remote control. The Output Port will hooks up to a LED which will light up when there is activity.

X3 ™ LCD – External Display (J1)

SmartXX has put a custom connector onto the chip that is compatible with Xecuter’s line of X3™ LCD External displays. The LCD can be used by programs such as the SmartXX BIOS, XBMC and others to display text onto the screen. It is useful when you do not have a television in your setup such as using the XBOX as MP3 player in your house, boat or car. Combine this with the IR Mod and you’ve got yourself one heck of a box.

Emergency Recover (Green Wire on System Connector), 5V Recover & D0 Recover

You can connect the Green wire to restore the SmartXX BIOS to its factory state. Say you remove your LCD, but forget to turn it off this will fix your XBOX from fragging. Additionally, you can bridge the 5V (for v1.6 consoles) or the D0 (for v1.0 – v1.5 consoles) to restore the BIOS settings.

Disable Chip (Yellow Wire on System Connector)

This will disable the chip and is useful if you wish to play on XBOX Live. You can connect this wire to a toggle switch to turn the chip off/on at your leisure or just leave it as is because you can disable the chip by booting into the original BIOS by using the SmartXX’s main menu.


USAGE

Once I had the XBOX running and turned it on at the first I was greeted by the SmartXX’s onboard BIOS which welcomed me the “5th Generation” of modchips. After pressing “A” I was now sitting in front of the SmartXX’s Main Menu. From here I could chose to boot from the Original BIOS, one of the SmartXX’s many BIOS banks, boot Linux, Reboot/Shutdown the console or access the BIOS internal configuration. Additionally, it shows you the type of video chipset you have, the video output format and your DHCP network address.

Usage – BIOS Configuration Overview

I proceeded to enter the configuration menu and was presented with a bunch of submenu items. For the sake of the review I will go over them with brief descriptions. For reference purposes the options below appear in v3406 of the BIOS and may change in future versions.

HDD-DISK Tool – Using this disk manager menu you can clone your Hard Drive, QuickCopy the drive, backup the C drive, format, lock and unlock your drives. The Clone HDD option will let you make a 1:1 byte copy of your drive and will take some time while the QuickCopy will just copy the contents. Copy C (OS) will simply backup your existing data on the main partition of the drive that houses your default Dashboard. The SmartXX takes an inquire approach to this by letting you hookup two hard drives at once and do the copying! You will need to unlock the hard drive for the use of homebrew on it and then lock it again for the use on XBOX Live.

BIOS / Bank Config – This menu will let you select the way the 4MB of RAM holds the BIOS files you might put on it. There are two banks (both 2MB) that can be configured in various different combinations allowing for the use of many different BIOS sizes.

Bankmode (Low 2MB)
6*256, 3*512, 2*515/2*256, 512 + 4*256, 1024/512, 1024/2*256

Bankmode(Mid 2MB)
4*512, 1024/2*512, 2*512/1024, 2*1024, 2048

Additionally, you can Flash, Erase and Name you BIOS banks. To flash you will pick the Flashing sub-menu and then can browse the C, E, CD-RW/DVD-ROM for your file using a nice custom file browser. The files can actually be named anything you like and you aren’t limited to naming the actual BIOS files to a special name before burning them.

Once you pick the BIOS you want you can force it to fit into the bank by selecting “Mirror to Fit” then just select the bank you wish to flash and pick “Program Flash NOW!”. Lastly, you can rename the bank using an onscreen keyboard controlled by your Gamepad or you can use a USB keyboard.

EEprom Tool – Configure, check, backup and restore your EEprom settings. It includes the Video Mode, Game Region and DVD Region. Will also let you Display your Hard Drive password.

Settings – This is a general settings menu to pick the way your SmartXX v3 will operate. You can set Quick boot modes here, auto shutdown time and to fix the system clock.

Linux – This is a cool menu that will configure how you boot your various installations of Linux (if you have more then one that is). The SmartXX v3 comes with a version of Xebian on a disc. You toggle the 128MB from here, test your extended memory installation and select it to AutoBoot from either your Linux FATX Partition, HDA Partition, DVD, BIOS Flash and can pick to QuickBoot from the Eject Only, Power Only or Eject + Power buttons.

Network – Simply a network setup screen where you can turn the Ethernet/DHCP ON/OFF or manually configuration your network settings.

X-LCD – Configure the use of the X3™ or 3rd Party LCD module here. You can turn the unit ON/OFF, have it display custom text, adjust the backlight, contrast and how many lines/characters it will display.

Usage – Continuation

After navigating around the menus I started the normal process of backing up my main hard drive and EEprom. It is important to do this if you wish to use the hard drive again for play on XBOX Live or without any modchip installed. I first backed up my EEprom and then backed up my C drive. To backup the C drive I put a second hard drive inside the XBOX in place of the DVD and set the first to Master and Second to slave (using the jumpers) and used the SmartXX’s backup function. It worked and then I unlocked the main hard drive. I could have just booted Slayer’s disc and backed up my hard drive over the network, but I wanted to test out the SmartXX’s new features.

Next, I went to the BIOS flashing menu and picked to load a BIOS from the CD-ROM and then once it popped the tray out I placed in a CD-RW disc with a few BIOS files on it and pressed “A”. The drive closed and I was then moved into the file browser. I picked the BIOS I wanted to flash, but it was too large. So I went into the Bank Mode and configured both banks to fit the various BIOS I was going to install and went to town flashing.

I flashed a 256KB, 512KB and 1MB BIOS to the chip. Once this was done I booted up SmartXX's ED@Chip and used it’s built in FTP Server to transfer over some applications (XBMC, DVD2XBOX, etc) and a bunch of emulators. Next I ran the 256KB M8 v1.6 BIOS and it booted fine. I then tried the 512KB X2™ BIOS and it also booted fine. Lastly, I booted the gigantic X3™ BIOS and it also worked like a charm.

Next, I moved on to configuration the X3™ LCD screen. This entire time it had been lighting up, but only displaying a bunch of solid blocks. So I went into the X-LCD Configuration menu and turned it on, set some custom text and then saved the settings. I could now navigate my way through the SmartXX’s BIOS and XBMC without the need for a television. This could be very useful if you would like to use you XBOX as a remote stereo system such as in your house or car. One thing I did notice is that after I removed the X3™ LCD the XBOX would no longer boot. I found out that you must disable the X-LCD before you unhook it from the SmartXX modchip.

It was now time to test XBOX Live. So I did another 1:1 Copy of the Hard Drive (in reverse) to restore my data and then locked the hard drive. I booted the console and picked “Boot Original BIOS” from the main menu which boots into the original Dashboard and disables the SmartXX v3. I signed on and everything was good to go. Note, if I hadn’t already signed on before I would have had to remove the SmartXX from the Pinheader during the first time I logged in. Additionally, if I wanted to disable the modchip I could have soldered the yellow wire onto a switch or a ground point to play XBOX live with.

In all reality, if you’re going to be using the chip and XBOX Live you will want to have two separate hard drives. Using the Xtender v2 XBOX kit you can easily switch between three hard drives. I would recommend doing this as having to restore your drive each time you wish to play Online is a pain in the ass.

Usage – Flashing the BIOS

Due to the many ways you can flash the BIOS I sat down and tested them all out. You can flash the BIOS using a DVD/CDRW disc, Hard Drive, via HTTP or using SmartXX’s Remote Flasher v5 tool. Having so many options is really cool and leaves you the freedom to flash it no matter where you happen to be when you actually setup and configure your system.

I’ve already gone over how I flashed it using the CD-RW disc and this method is the same for the DVD and Hard Drives. All you do is put the BIOS file(s) you wish to flash onto the media, use the file browser and select them, set the bank you wish to flash and hit the “Flash Now” menu selection.

If you’re going to flash it using the SmartXX’s built in Web Server (HTTP) all you do is point your web browser of choice to the IP address of the XBOX and you get a menu with various options. You can flash the BIOS from this menu by picking “Flash BIOS”, select the BIOS bank and the file you wish to flash and then hit “GO”. Additionally, you can boot the XBOX, check its status, display the EEprom/XBOX information, Cook Some Coffee (not sure what this does) and turn your console off.

Lastly, you can use SmartXX’s Remote Flashing utility to flash your BIOS and/or Linux binaries (bootable) such as ED@Chip. All you need to do is download the application from SmartXX’s homepage, install/run it and then tell it to search for your XBOX. Once it’s found it all you do is select with bank to flash, pick the BIOS file and let it go.

Usage – Linux

Due to the fact the SmartXX v3 comes with a distribution of Xebian Linux for the XBOX it would be only fair to boot it up and see how it goes. Due to the fact I had three USB -> XBOX connectors I connected up both a Keyboard and Mouse and plopped in the Xebian disc. I picked to boot Linux from the main menu and set back a while Linux started up.

The version of Xebian booted fine and I could control it with my USB Logitech MX510™ Optical Mouse and Saitek Gamers’™ Keyboard. I loaded up FireFox, xedit and gimp and everything worked fine. Sadly, that’s about all of the applications that come with the distro, but it’s still cool to browse the Internet on your XBOX.

Conclusion

What to say? Yeah, I’m so overwhelmed with this product there is too many things to point out. In my mind it’s a wonderful piece of artwork that has been perfected down to the nanobytes. With its plentiful options at your disposal you can’t go wrong. The SmartXX Team has thought of everything and have used their vast knowledge and experience to produce what I believe to be the “Ultimate” solution for modifying your XBOX. If you’re new to modding and don’t want to mess with soldering this chip is for you. If you currently own a modchip get rid of it and pick up this puppy. You wont be disappointed.

Positives

4 Megabyte Flash
Failsafe/Recovery Mode
LCD Compatible
IR Mod Ready
Installation Options
Quick Linux Boot
Xebian Linux Included
Hard Drive Tools
Flashing Options
USB -> XBOX Converter
File/HTML Browser
Shiny Sticker

Negatives

The only really negative point I could find with the SmartXX v3 was the fact you have to disable the LCD before you physically remove it from the chip. If you don't you will be left with your XBOX fragging.

The lack of documentation on the launch date left me to fend for myself, but with previous experience and pariticipation by Mod-Chip.com (they were extremely helpful) this wasn't too difficult to accomplish. Additonally, Mod-Chip.com has created their own Installation & Usage Manuals for thier customers. I call that some really good support!

Links

SmartXX Webpage
SmartXX v3 ISO-420 Image Gallery
SmartXX xLCD Addon Review
Mod-Chip.com - Official Worldwide Reseller

Special Thanks

Mod-Chip.com for the review samples and profound support
Kurt Camponi for the excellent help and documentation
Emu_Kidid for general assistance
SmartXX for making such a great modchip



-=[ SmartXX v3 Review Discussion Thread ]=-

Product(s) were received from the website above. ISO-420 will always link back to whomever sent the product(s) *respect*, but please remember that the reviews are independently written by our staff and are not subject to alteration by whomever supplies us with the product(s).