xeno gc still giving red light, may hav fkd up

[spartan8440]

okay, i dont really know if anyone is still here but, here goes.
i just received my xeno gc (or "xen8 gc" as the board says topside) soldered it on, runs the normal disks fine still starts red, blinks red once, and goes back to continuous red.
So i decided to try to unsolder it to connect it by wire, but cant unsolder it,( i think my irontip is too big) cant heat it and get the sucker on it. well in all my trying, i noticed i shoved this black thing over next to the P line and then i tried to shove it back----

and now i really dont know what im doing or how to fix
my chip--


and my irons tip



edit- still lights up red in the same way, still plays the norm us disks, starting+holding down START gives me a bunch of lines scrolling down my tv (this was not tested initially)

[novenary]

If holding start does something, your drive is being patched. Have you actually tried booting a backup or an import ?

[spartan8440]

only disks i have right now are sony dvdr 120min/4.7gb accucore 16x/1x and the slowest my drive writes is 8x or 16x, dont have import.....got this mod mainly to avoid the high prices of the gbplayer bootup disk
about to try again using an old external drive, it writes at 2x and 4x

edit--it only writes 4x

[spartan8440]

so this appon starting official disk while holding start is normal? Do i need to adjust the pot more? took it from ~800 to 198 OHM
also the 4x write speed disk- the gamecube dont even reconize- the 16x one i get the message to read the manual

[theclaw]

Pressing start on some xeno gc versions, loads a menu that uses PAL mode.
It's unclear why the xeno gc makers never released an NTSC edition of those chips.
http://www.eurasia.nu/modules.php?name= ... 0&thold=-1

(NTSC gamecubes display 50hz composite or s-video in black and white. like usual it's best to force games to NTSC, 50hz needs a component cable or other solution for full color even on a PAL ready TV)

[Nimecim]

From what I've seen, the XenoGC's marked "Xen8GC" all have two red LEDs which is incredibly unhelpful. thewheelman282 says in his youtube video that it's two slightly different shades of red, but I really beg to differ.

If holding start while booting a retail disc gives you what you showed us, then the chip is probably installed fine. As theclaw said, the menu is PAL only, that's why it shows up scrambled.

Can you reliably start and play retail games with the chip? If so, then you're left with finding the right pot value, media, write speed and burner to use. Otherwise, you might have damaged the drive or the laser.

[spartan8440]

From what I've seen, the XenoGC's marked "Xen8GC" all have two red LEDs which is incredibly unhelpful. thewheelman282 says in his youtube video that it's two slightly different shades of red, but I really beg to differ.

If holding start while booting a retail disc gives you what you showed us, then the chip is probably installed fine. As theclaw said, the menu is PAL only, that's why it shows up scrambled.

Can you reliably start and play retail games with the chip? If so, then you're left with finding the right pot value, media, write speed and burner to use. Otherwise, you might have damaged the drive or the laser.

I have only 2 games, both usa retail and they still work perfectly. And thank you for that info on this model having 2 red leds

[novenary]

Not only will the output be black and white on composite in 50hz mode with an ntsc console, but if your tv doesn't support 50hz signaling, it won't show anything. There's also the possibility that it's a poorly made clone that doesn't upload multiboot menu when you hold start. Shouldn't be a problem for you as long as you can get a disc burnt and recognized.

[Nimecim]

Not only will the output be black and white on composite in 50hz mode with an ntsc console, but if your tv doesn't support 50hz signaling, it won't show anything. There's also the possibility that it's a poorly made clone that doesn't upload multiboot menu when you hold start. Shouldn't be a problem for you as long as you can get a disc burnt and recognized.

I've just tried launching the XenoGC menu on my crappy Toshiba NTSC CRT (which doesn't support PAL) and I pretty much get what spartan8440 is getting. On the other hand, on my HDTV which apparently supports PAL (that was news to me), I get a somewhat distorted "XenoGC Shell v1.05" in black and white. I think I have to owe the distortion to the NTSC Gamecube's not being able to output PAL properly.

[Nimecim]

I'm looking at your install pictures, and you seem to have nudged the pull-up resistor for the reset pin (the one next to the "X" in Xen8) quite a bit. It looks like the resistor is being bypassed entirely and VCC is going straight to the reset pin. I don't think the microcontroller would particularly like having its reset pin pulled up like that.

If you have a multimeter, you should measure the resistance between any of the letters and the power pad (the one next to the resistor, with the beefy trace). You should be getting 1000 Ohms (or slightly less since the chip is installed). If it's close to 0 Ohms instead, you should remedy that.

[Extrems]

Not only will the output be black and white on composite in 50hz mode with an ntsc console, but if your tv doesn't support 50hz signaling, it won't show anything. There's also the possibility that it's a poorly made clone that doesn't upload multiboot menu when you hold start. Shouldn't be a problem for you as long as you can get a disc burnt and recognized.

I've just tried launching the XenoGC menu on my crappy Toshiba NTSC CRT (which doesn't support PAL) and I pretty much get what spartan8440 is getting. On the other hand, on my HDTV which apparently supports PAL (that was news to me), I get a somewhat distorted "XenoGC Shell v1.05" in black and white. I think I have to owe the distortion to the NTSC Gamecube's not being able to output PAL properly.

It outputs PAL-M, but in 50 Hz. It looks almost right with a PAL-N decoder.

[Nimecim]

Not only will the output be black and white on composite in 50hz mode with an ntsc console, but if your tv doesn't support 50hz signaling, it won't show anything. There's also the possibility that it's a poorly made clone that doesn't upload multiboot menu when you hold start. Shouldn't be a problem for you as long as you can get a disc burnt and recognized.

I've just tried launching the XenoGC menu on my crappy Toshiba NTSC CRT (which doesn't support PAL) and I pretty much get what spartan8440 is getting. On the other hand, on my HDTV which apparently supports PAL (that was news to me), I get a somewhat distorted "XenoGC Shell v1.05" in black and white. I think I have to owe the distortion to the NTSC Gamecube's not being able to output PAL properly.

It outputs PAL-M, but in 50 Hz. It looks almost right with a PAL-N decoder.

Oh! That explains why European games get cropped at the bottom, the lack of color, and the distortion. Thanks for the info.

[theclaw]

PAL-M at 50hz? No idea about how to deal with that. Definitely not a TV standard...