Right, I'm gonna get myself a modded Xbox within the next couple of weeks, and I know a few of you have one, so I've got a few questions....

What is the best modchip to have installed? I've had my mind set on getting it premodded with 'X-Ecuter 2.3b Lite', is that adequate?

Playing games online......Does the game NEED to be an original copy before I can play it online? Do backups work at all for playing online?

Installing games to the HDD..... Do I need to have a DVD burner to do this? Is it possible to download game ISO's and FTP them straight to the Xbox, without the need of burning the ISO to a DVD-R?

That's all for just now, I'm sure I'll think of a couple more.

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I've got 3 now (!)

More than adequate, it's a damn fine chip

Sort of, you need originals to use xbox live, but there's an alternative service called Xbconnect which is free

You don't need a DVD burner, just use qwix to transfer the files from your PC (via FTP) to the xbox's HD, be aware though that unless you upgrade your drive, it'll only hold 1 or 2 games before it's full.

Hope that helps

How much does the whole deal cost nowadays?

Xbox + solderlesschip + DVDstuff

I hear that you have to solder the 'solderless' ones for new boxes, that true?

Cheers for such a quick and helpful reply!

I was gonna use premodded.co.uk to order it from, which for an extra tenner, gives you the option of having it fitted with a Samsung drive, which seems like a wise thing to do, do you have a Samsung drive fitted in any/all of your 3(!) Xboxes?

Do you know of any place that offers a better service than premodded.co.uk? although it seems like a really good service anyway.

Are there any substantial differences between 'X-Ecuter 2.3b Lite' and 'X-Ecuter 2.3b Pro' that would be worth me paying an extra tenner for?

Regarding that HDD, I was intending to to upgrade it to 80Gb+, but it would be cheaper to just buy the HDD seperately, and fit it myself, rather than have premodded include it in the package. I've read through several guides on xbox-scene, and it seems straight forward enough.

Oh, and one more thing regarding Xbox Live games. Are preowned games ok to use with Xbox Live? even if the previous owner has used it online? or is it similar to Phantasy Star Online, on the DC, where once that game had been registered on a particular console, it couldn't be used on any other console

Cheers,

Buckethead

The last box I bought was ?60 (I traded in the freebie games I got with My old xbox), softmodded and using dvdx2 (no remote needed).

Total Cost = ?60

With an offer like that it's too good to pass up.

With the newer xbox's and chips, some of the solderless chips do work (but I can't remember which ATM)

If I see a decent (samsung drive and older (before Sept '03)) xbox for a reasonable price, I'll keep on buying 'em and selling them on

I've got a samsung in 2 of them, and a Thompson in the other, the ?10 is definately worth it.

I did it myself so I can't help with any pre mod services (sorry)
The 2.3b lite should be more than enough for what you need, the Pro offers more memory and more BIOS banks (unneeded if you're using to play games / multimedia etc)

Yep, Piece of cake. It's just a question of opening the xbox and dropping it in


Pre owned games are fine, it's only copies that cause problems, bear in mind you HAVE to turn your mod off to go on live though (else you get banned). Also rumour has it that M$ are due to start banning people with larger HD's as well

Be carfule with Xbox live. Make surf the chip is turned off when you connect or Xbox Live will auto ban your box hardware code (every box has a unique chip code)

Also there is XLink for playing online games on xbox. I think their network is a bit faster from some of the games.

But once you get it set up, make sure you grab Xbox Media Player... it is THE reason for getting an Xbox....

You can play all movie formats, has full subtitle support, you can manualy stretch and shrink the image. You can stream movies directly from you PC harddrives, play movies from Hdrive. Run effects like soften and block remover. Watch internet TV, play music with visulizations... the works. Check it out.

(eg:- instead of a weather report I just turn on xbox and open the NSAS space station channel and look through my xbox out the window at the earth. (they have cameras at every portal facing the planet)

The one at premodders says it contains software to change the code (easy to do i guess, just circumnativgate the code that checks hardware and route it to a soft key) and unban you.

That said, online gameplay holds little interest for me, LAN gaming would be cool.
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Damn PCA, where did you get an xbox for ?60 at? Was it second hand i take it? There's a computer Exchange in leeds i might see what they offer in partX over there.

I p/exed a couple of games and got ?30 off the second hand price of ?90

The new version of the evox bios (4981) will not allow you to go online if you accidentaly leave your chip on. However, if you are banned, the only thing you can do is to rip someone elses eeprom off (software) and reprogram yours with their (unbanned) code.