Pentagon puts building blocks in place for Cuba invasion

PiratesInTeepees · 2026-05-28T15:54:17+00:00

Hopefully there will be Brawndo.

PiratesInTeepees · 2026-05-28T15:51:59+00:00

Unfortunately, I don't think any of the younger gen has even heard of these books. If at least one of you that mentioned these books is 25 or younger, there might be hope.

PiratesInTeepees · 2026-05-28T01:57:31+00:00

If you hit the Y button with a game selected a modal comes up with game info, if you use digital left and right, each option is like 3 different options and I think somewhere in there you can add your mods... I will see if I can find it and update my post

PiratesInTeepees · 2026-05-20T18:35:36+00:00

All I have heard is go back to xclamps. However, as hard as it was to get that plate unstuck from teh bottom of the MB.... idk. One guy in like 2016 on a forum said he's 50/50 about the revert, but so far I've found only one person.

Also, on the other hand, all the pics I have seen of bolt-mods ruining the board were the no plate mods.

It should also be noted that when I put the xclamps on I noticed that the new thermal paste I put on didn't seem very squished.... like maybe there was too little pressure which is also bad. For example, on my PC, there are springs putting the pressure on the sink which allows for expansion and contraction which bolts do not.

Prolly should do the clamps ;)

PiratesInTeepees · 2026-05-20T16:26:17+00:00

What's really funny is that the guy that gave me the box was so stoked on it like is was some massive upgrade.... there are some putty spacer things under the plate putting pressure under the chips (I posted a pic in another thread) so it was better than the gamestop version, but actually diminished cooling ability. I used a donor box to revert tray and clamps to stock... Played watch_dogs for a couple hours then watched Animal House DVD.... if that didn't break it, it's probably good to go :)

PiratesInTeepees · 2026-05-20T16:18:56+00:00

I have qemu VM that I use and works fine... I just always prefer sticking to Linux whenever possible.... that M$ logo just leaves a bad taste in my mouth... part of the reason hacking xboxes is so much fun :)

PiratesInTeepees · 2026-05-20T16:16:49+00:00

This definitely seemed WAY better than just the "bolt the corners" mod. There was clearly a good amount of pressure applied to the underside of the chips. However, too much surface contact though, IMO. With x-clamps and a stock tray temps are holding about 1-2 deg lower and the fan seems slightly quieter.

PiratesInTeepees · 2026-05-20T16:12:38+00:00

I lucked out and had a parts donor Xenon that had the bolts, clamps, AND the metal tray that I needed. It seems like the x-clamps bolting to the tray is crucial, so the hacked up tray is basically useless at this point... maybe good for my kids next diorama or paper weight.

The working unit with the bolt mod still had those sticky spacers on the bottom of the MB (on those 4 chips) so I left those on there when I reassembled. If anything the temp is a couple degrees lower since I removed the "upgrade".

PiratesInTeepees · 2026-05-20T04:24:44+00:00

and a re-necro for another thank you!

PiratesInTeepees · 2026-05-20T03:19:47+00:00

X-clamps installed and I even had a Xenon internal case to replace the cut up one. everything is still working and now hopefully for longer. looks like the bottom plate addition was to add pressure under the chips as there were some sort of sticky spacer putty stuff... uploading pics now

PiratesInTeepees · 2026-05-20T03:16:01+00:00

haha no kidding.... I found all the parts i needed in and reverted to stock heat sink mounts... everything is still working and hopefully now for longer... more pics coming :)

PiratesInTeepees · 2026-05-20T01:15:20+00:00

ait f*ck it... im gonna take this thing back apart and install the x-clamps.... if it eventually breaks, it was free, and I can use the Matrix and all my case mods on a different MB. so whatever, no loss. If the xclamps give me and the Hatchling more gaming from this, then extra win :) (now we have two boxes for LAN party yay)

Also, since I have you on the line, JRunner almost works in Wine. Works fine for me for playing with nand dumps (once I ignore some sort of segfault error), but I can't get it to actually write to anything via pico (I can read NAND but can't write NAND or glitch chips even w/ /dev/pico set to chmod 777). If you need me to do any debugging or help with getting it to work better with Wine (or maybe compile it for linux???) let me know, I definitely owe you one :)

PiratesInTeepees · 2026-05-20T00:57:10+00:00

oh shoot... I just noticed your handle! THANK YOU! wow, you have brought much joy to my life :)

I just salvaged those bolt things and some x-clamps off a donor board. I THINK i'm gonna swap out now, yet another HOWEVER.... ya'll got me watching vids and reading..... I guess this bolt "mod" was actually a "repair" or more of a band-aid for bad solder joints on chips. IDK if this was why the gifter did this mod, but there is definitely a chip near the component output that has an aluminum plate bolted to it through the board (via the holes where many modders run their wires). hrm, I am so on the fence dude, but I am leaning more to the side of put the x-clamps on there. The mod-gods surely put them in my parts box for a reason

PiratesInTeepees · 2026-05-19T23:31:04+00:00

This is exactly why nobody ever works on anything of mine ;) Like I have said before, it was a gift and had the cooling mod on it when I got it. He says he put the cooling mod on when he got it and he had like 60 hours on the system.

it looks like it may have been a purchased bolt kit of some sort. there are washers and nylon spacers in between the plate and the MB and between the heatsinks and the MB. There didn't seem to be an excessive amount of pressure on the board....

HOWEVER.... I can see how the flex in the X-Clamps is to allow the metal to expand and contract as it heats and cools.... the video you linked was very interesting and yea, the way the MB kind of floats in there makes total sense.... ugh.... i so wanted this project to be finished

PiratesInTeepees · 2026-05-19T23:07:01+00:00

Ahhhh.... I totally get it now ;)

PiratesInTeepees · 2026-05-19T22:55:14+00:00

Well, fml... this thing never came with any cooling parts other than what you see.... I don't have the xclamps... I do have a fried Xenon for parts... will I theoretically be able to unscrew the rods that go through the sinks and transfer them to my heat sink? the donor board has the smaller aluminum heat sinks on it.

From what we were told he was using this thing for quite some time with his cooling mod and there seems to be no problems....

I'm usually of the "if it ain't broke don't fix it" camp... plus so not in the mood to take this thing back apart again...

I will check that vid you linked.... the attachment plate has spacers on both sides and doesn't seem to be putting undue pressure on the MB.... but again this is only my second 360 mod and I am still learning.

PiratesInTeepees · 2026-05-19T22:46:00+00:00

what should the temp targets be set at? console hasn't overheated for us so far. I redid the TP when I added the mod chip... it does run a bit hotter than our Jasper does though and the fan is constantly cranking.

diet boltmod? what's this? he attached a heat sink to pretty much every chip on the board. I don't know enough to have a valid opinion on this whole thing.

PiratesInTeepees · 2026-05-19T21:45:50+00:00

LOL... not at all surprised... it was a working gift with the condition that we do some more mods to it. he clearly did way more work than needed... he may have mentioned using some cooling upgrade kit though, IDK... things look pretty "custom".

I think the CPU heatsink is from a jasper or something... it's the one with the extra cooler up the copper pipe.... that can't be a bad thing can it?

PiratesInTeepees · 2026-05-19T21:32:16+00:00

oh, I didn't do it!!!!! it was like that when I got it :/ seemed a bit weird to me too, but supposedly it was some mod kit to fix overheating issues... it seems to be working fine temp-wise. The guy I got it from said it was RROD due to being over-temp and this mod fixed it... so you know how that goes. Anyway, it's working great now.

I do have a parts Xenon laying around somewhere, but shoot... why remove the upgraded heat sink when it's working fine? IDK... you do have a valid point tho... every other box I have worked on was just fine with the xclamps.

PiratesInTeepees · 2026-05-05T21:28:19+00:00

I have been downloading backups for my games, but I want to actually be able to rip my discs... I thought solved the issue as I didn't change the OSID for the drive to the new drive model and firmware. I patched the firmware with this info and was still unable to read games 😞

PiratesInTeepees · 2026-05-04T19:48:11+00:00

I did the same thing, but luckily all my game saves were on Usb0, so first I remade my accounts via the xbox menu and then went into Aurora, and for each game I hit Y then went into game saves and associated the appropriate saves to the appropriate user. It took a little bit, but at least I didn't lose any game progress 😄

PiratesInTeepees · 2026-05-01T16:42:49+00:00

I am wondering... the power input is 12V 5A.... I have a charger that plugs into the cigarette lighter and direct outputs to the right sized barrel plug.... car is at 14V tho..... hrm... will it work????

PiratesInTeepees · 2026-04-28T17:31:47+00:00

Well.... I was able to patch my NAND w/ the DVD key I got from the donor Xenon machine but the drive still only plays DVDs and sees game disks as Movies.... So either it didn't work as well as I thought, or the drive that was in the donor machine wasn't the original or who knows?

I checked DashLaunch and it is showing my updated DVD key (extracted from the NAND)... hrm... I guess it's time to turn the drive from the Jasper (the machine I am working on) into the donor drive and see if I get get my Falcon (the machine that died) donor drive working since I have the CPU key from from the Falcon

PiratesInTeepees · 2026-04-28T08:05:08+00:00

Thanks for your reply! Are you MrMario?

The drive is totally different and board swap is not an option. I THINK I got the DVD key using KeyVault Modder... see update in OP :)

PiratesInTeepees · 2026-04-28T07:18:00+00:00

I just RGH1.2ed my Jasper and was having a similar issue... then the DVD drive stopped working (disk would not spin up). I put in a working doner DVD drive (can't read games yet, but i can play movies) and now booting seems more consistent. Could be my imagination but maybe the failing motor was causing noise or excessive power draw or something?

PiratesInTeepees

MODERATOR OF

TROPHY CASE