Hacking Freezing and Strange issues

Vinnymac · Apr 17, 2013

A few months back I had a problem with Mass Effect 1 loading on my RGH xbox. I posted it to a few forums online, including here and here.

Just to get a few things straight:

Purchased from: Team-Xecuter Forums, November
Motherboard: Zephyr
Fan Speed: 75-80%
Hard Drive: 250 GB
Disc Drive I think its a Hitachi.
Dash: FSD v3 Rev735 (Tried other methods like XeXMenu, FSD2 etc)
DashLaunch: v3.06 (I'll try updating to v3.07)
Kernel: v16197
Boot Times: Under 30 seconds

The temperatures are fine, I run the fan between 75%-80%. The temps remain cool even under load, and I can play newer games like Far Cry 3 or Tomb Raider without ever having a freeze. There are 100s of games I have backed up that play without a hitch.

Now this is the problem. A couple games give me a huge headache.
All ISOs were scanned with ABGX360 and check out.
So far these are the games that are giving me issues:

Mass Effect 1
Final Fantasy XII-2
Bioshock Infinite

The games work fine, they can be left in the main menu for hours and never freeze. But when I start a new game and play they always freeze relatively at the same point in the game.

I have had people recommend all sorts of things.

I have backed up the games, tried extracting the ISO with 3 different programs. Tried GOD formats. Tried downloaded copies online as well. I have tried every booting method I could discover. And no matter what, they all freeze at the same point. The Xbox 360 just locks up, nothing responds, and the image is frozen on my screen.

Every other game I have tried, which is 100s of games, has never frozen. I have read numerous threads where people are saying this is what leads to RROD. But that is just ridiculous to me. My xbox plays far cry 3 for 10 hours straight without a problem, and then immediately freezes upon a new game of Bioshock Infinite with same temps.

If anyone can shed some light on this I would really appreciate it. Even if you have nothing to add, similar experience or discussion might breed some sort of solution. Thank you for reading.

DinohScene · Apr 17, 2013

Latest dash?
Latest Dashlaunch?
Latest FSD?

Xex extracts?

Vinnymac · Apr 17, 2013

Hey DinohScene, the dash I am on is v16197. I know that is not the latest, but I was getting this issue on an older dash as well. I will try it in the end, but don't feel like it is a necessity. DashLaunch is currently on v3.06, I will try v3.07 but I don't have much hope for that working either xD. The FSD is on 3 Rev735.

By XeX extracts are you asking if I have extracted the files from the game ISOs, and booted from the XeX default file? If that is what you mean, yeah I have tried that.

DinohScene · Apr 17, 2013

Hmm..

I'm also kinda having a hardtime buying it's a sign of RRoD.
However I'm not saying that that's false.

What you could do is try and play BS Infinite or any "freezing" game from a external HDD (FAT32 formatted)
And removing your HDD.
If the game is still freezing then it's deffo a problem with your xbox.

And yep, xex extracts are just the game files alone, without padding, without AP stuff and no GOD containers.
I prefer those since they take up the least amount of space + easy modding of games if needed.

edit:
I'd like to know the temperatures of your Zephyr under load.

Vinnymac · Apr 17, 2013

Thanks for helping me out DinohScene.

Okay so here are the test results:

Dashboard (idle):
CPU 59.7
GPU 43.1
EDRAM 42.4
MOBO/CHASSIS: 25.5

Load After 5 Mins of Gameplay (Bioshock Infinite):
60.8
46.3
45.7
25.5

Load After 10 Mins of Gameplay:
61.0
49.8
49.1
26.0

Highest temp I saw while playing was the cpu got to 62. I stopped playing after 20 minutes without any freezes and I got several auto saves which never happened before.

This is what I did differently. First I unplugged the hard drive and then turned on the xbox, then I reattached the hard drive, and plugged in a USB stick with Bioshocks extracted XeX and DashLaunch v3.07 on it. I booted to FSD and updated DashLaunch. I used dashlaunch v3.07 to boot Bioshock from the USB and it had no problems at all. It got waaay past the freezing points from all other attempts.

I was curious so I tried to boot Mass Effect 1 again from FSD. It froze at the same point. I am going to try booing Mass Effect 1 from DashLaunch, and check if I extracted that as well. I am just glad Bioshock is working :]

I am not sure what caused my Freezing issue to stop with bioshock because I changed more than one variable. I have updated DashLaunch before without anything getting fixed, so I am skeptical to expect that to be the thing that fixed it. However I don't often launch games from dash launch, so that may be the solution. I will have to do further testing to figure it out. But it is late, and that is all I could do for today.

DinohScene · Apr 17, 2013

Hmm.
Temps aren't that high.
However your CPU is (for my doing) a bit to high.
RAM is way lower then my Falcon ;p (66c after hours of Bioshock)

Anyways, what you can do is get a new HDD.
Any 2.5 inch sized HDD will work fine.
And reinstall everything.
Building a completely clean hacked NAND (from your virgin NAND dump) reinstalling Dashlaunch, reinstalling FSD.
Maybe there's something in FSD that prevents you from playing.

Anyway if that doesn't work then the only way of booting it is via XeXMenu/Dashlaunch.
It's clumsy but it works ahah ;p

Oh, mind posting your Dashlaunch settings?
Dashlaunch can interfere with certain things.
(Livestrong enabled prevents FSD from downloading covers from JQE360)

Vinnymac · Apr 19, 2013

I would love for the temps to be lower for the CPU. But I am not sure what I can do at this point. It is after all an older xbox.

I'll always keep that option in my back pocket. I am really busy lately, so I doubt I will find time to completely rebuild the hack.

I might do more testing tonight, I'll try doing the same thing I did with Bioshock Infinite. I also want to do a test where I transfer the JTAG rip files onto the internal HDD, and see if that will work the same way the USB worked. The more variables I can eliminate the better.

I'll make sure I check out the dashlaunch settings also. I haven't messed around with them as far as I know, and if updates change them they are definitely at the default values right now.

DinohScene · Apr 19, 2013

You can mount a 50 mm fan in front of the CPU and hook it up to the PSU port at 12v.
I did something similar but with a 40MM fan to the 2nd heatsink of the GPU on me Falcon.

Don't mess with the wiring ;p
Zephyrs are extremely difficult to boot.
Just keep it on the software side.

Hmm something came in mind.
you sure you ripped all the files?
It shouldn't impact the game that much tho and considering you tried an GOD conversions also...

Anyway I'd check Dashlaunch.
I remember when COD:BO was leaked that you couldn't play it due to Dashlaunch interfering with it.

Vinnymac · Apr 21, 2013

Alright so I ripped my entire collections ISOs to a new hard drive. I plugged this hard drive into the Xbox via USB. After lots of testing, it seems that none of the games are freezing even when booting from FSD3 via a USB Hard Drive. I am not sure why that's the case. But I am glad it is working. If I recognize anything else strange, I'll be sure to post about it. But for now I am happy.

I am pretty sure the Zephyrs fan is already modified, so I won't be messing around with that at all. But I might do a case mod if I ever find some time. I think I will be watching those temps like Hawk if what you say is true, and zephyrs really do have trouble.

Thanks a lot Dinoh :]

DinohScene · Apr 22, 2013

Aye no problem ;]

Neato that it works out.
Strange tho since I never had a game freeze/fail to boot from the internal drive.
But glad it's resolved!

Hacking Freezing and Strange issues

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