Modding question..

[thorns]

I am going to be modding my xbox tomorrow with Aladdin XT chip. I am not interested in replacing my harddrive, I just want to use it as a region-free DVD player and playing imports, and possibly XBMC. I am currently subscribed to live, is there any chance that I'll get banned? What precautions do I need to take?

Thanks in advance..

[sj33]

You will have to turn your modchip off to go on Live (I'm 99% sure the Aladdin XT supports this). If you don't, they will detect you are using a non-standard bios and you *will* be banned.

[thorns]

I've read reports of people getting banned, even when the modchip is off.. That was my main concern.

[randombs]

if you sign up to live (trial or whatever) and then change your hard drive you get banned, this is the main reason people are getting banned (excluding the muppets who go on live with their chips on, as you do). obviously you've already mentioned you're not planning this.



however you mentioned region-free dvd playback. there are two ways about this - dvdx2 is a standalone program that plys any region dvd but only works with the joypad and is thus annoying as heck for me. the second way is the newer dvd region free program that you use to patch your xbox dashboard to allow multiregion. problem with this is that if you then go on live, you'll get banned as the dash has been edited. the way around it is to copy your xbox dashboard to another folder (maybe in your 'apps' folder along with xbmc etc) and patch that one, thus keeping your regular ms dash unedited.

personally i've still got an old xecuter 2 lite that's a few years old. it has a switch fitted to turn it on and off when on live. i feel safer as i can tell at a glance that the chip is off, being the muppet i am.

i assume the aladdin XT works by turning itself on/off depending on whether you turn the console on with the power or eject buttons, or by pressing the power button for longer or something.

the best thing to do is to flash the chip with one of those 'coloured' bioses so you'll know for sure what's booting. my chip still shows the green xbox logo but doesn't have the animation at the start (speeds up booting). some people have blue, red, etc startup logos too

[guiddruid]

just use one of the bioses that disables xbox live, that way you can't go online by accident with the chip enabled:

http://www.xbox-scene.com/bios_retail.html

hth,
gd

[thorns]

How about playing NTSC games on live? I guess I can change the region of the xbox using configmagic or something like that. Will that get me banned from Live?

[Valken]

For now that works but don't bank on this always being the case.

[thorns]

however you mentioned region-free dvd playback. there are two ways about this - dvdx2 is a standalone program that plys any region dvd but only works with the joypad and is thus annoying as heck for me. the second way is the newer dvd region free program that you use to patch your xbox dashboard to allow multiregion. problem with this is that if you then go on live, you'll get banned as the dash has been edited. the way around it is to copy your xbox dashboard to another folder (maybe in your 'apps' folder along with xbmc etc) and patch that one, thus keeping your regular ms dash unedited.

wouldn't using configmagic to switch regions also work for playing region 1 dvds?

also the guy who's going to help me with modding said I shouldn't install evox if I don't want to get banned from live. So I'm quite confused now..

[sj33]

wouldn't using configmagic to switch regions also work for playing region 1 dvds?

also the guy who's going to help me with modding said I shouldn't install evox if I don't want to get banned from live. So I'm quite confused now..

No-ones ever been banned for installing EvoX (or any other dashboard). There are just paranoid people.

[mid]

wouldn't using configmagic to switch regions also work for playing region 1 dvds?

The problem there is that the DVD dongle has a region lock on it. So either you need to use something other than the official DVD player (or at least a hacked up version of it), or buy a dongle for each region, unlocking the region with configmagic each time you switch.

[thorns]

The problem there is that the DVD dongle has a region lock on it. So either you need to use something other than the official DVD player (or at least a hacked up version of it), or buy a dongle for each region, unlocking the region with configmagic each time you switch.

actually I have a 3rd party dongle, that looks really cheap (and was made in china) and probably doesn't have a region lock on it. Maybe it can play r1 even without modding? Too bad I don't have any region 1 dvds to try it with yet..

[Pavey]

I have an Alladin in my smoky and its totally normal when you turn it on with the on button.
Turning it on with the eject button activates the chip,so just dont do that when going on Live.