How I put 256MB of RAM in the original Xbox

[@markaz2kk]

i just watched the macho nacho nacho guy do this. cannot wait for the second revision! great to see people making this system keep growing!

[@garystinten9339]

@@markaz2kk this video is the guy that made the mod for macho nacho to make his video. I like how innovative that this guy is.

[@markaz2kk]

@@garystinten9339 kzbin.info/www/bejne/iGPLp4aCaJWFosksi=UON4vnKqanJ0VOJq

[@markaz2kk]

@@garystinten9339 development is in alpha phase but they are working on a fix with the chip to solder to, due to the fact the first revision does work, but you have to be gentle in bending the flange of the solder points. 👍

[@ukmk3supra]

The solution you've developed, using the hybrid flexPCB with FRP to make an interposer for QFP packages will abolutely be so useful to those of us in the vintage mac community - there are numerous glue logic chips there that may not be possible to interpose using standard castellated holes because of the pitch - brilliant, brilliant solution!

[@LeonSteelpaw]

Any progress?

[@SocialisedMedicine]

Hey, I suspect that the memory clocking issues are due to the interposer pcb you made _not_ length matching the traces on the data and addressing pins. Even at the slow clockrates of DDR memory, length matching traces is absolutely critical for avoiding random data corruption. You can see on the xbox mobo how some traces tend to snake back and forth for no reason, and length matching is pretty much always the reason why. I encountered this issue personally when I worked in QA testing. I was getting random frame corruption on our prototype's gigabit ethernet port. Gigabit ethernet is actually clocked at only 250Mhz, so neither engineering or I thought that length matching would matter, especially since the traces only differed in length by 2mm. But after testing and a new PCB prototype with correctly matched traces the problem disappeared entirely.

[@professor_jonny]

I did notice that the chip he has picked has a datastrobe for each byte to align the transmission unlike the original chips that have a single datastrobe pin for the whole databus, I do wonder if this is causing an issue?

[@yeezusjesus7617]

​@@professor_jonny newbie here. Would the result be random data corruption or is there a way to measure desynchronization?

[@professor_jonny]

@@yeezusjesus7617 yes, a logic probe but even connecting a logic probe can cause corruption high speed signals if not integrated properly.

[@Creesic]

Not only was this process interesting, but it appears to be extremely useful for many different groups! Lots to take away and learn from here. And the irony of how sadly useless the end product was makes it really funny. Bravo! What a well paced, informative, and comprehensive video you made. Please do more.

[@Voultar]

Fantastic work my friend!

[@bl3ivids]

Random Voultar moment. (Sorry to hijack your vid OP, great vid btw :) )

[@GmrDad82]

I failed electronics in college, but I definitely love watching your videos!

[@helmutzollner5496]

My God! This was a true labour of love. Congratulations!

[@CosmicGecko]

Absolutely brilliant work! You took this project to a whole new level I never thought was possible.

[@Cliffsrepaircorner]

Congratulations on figuring this out quite a unique solution you came up with the development community at Large

[@pkf4124]

So much scope for future applications and emulation on the OG. Cant wait to see where it goes. We are at a pivotable point in OGXbox history where we can all look back to this time and remember where it all started.

[@nick-leffler]

I was searching for your channel from machonacho and couldn't find it. Then bam, it shows up in my feed. Just sub'd.

[@DiegoGomezG]

Came here from nacho nacho channel, cool stuff dude

[@AmaroqStarwind]

Keep upgrading, man! I heard that there are some Xeon CPUs from the Xbox era that should be socket-compatible. It’d also be cool to upgrade the DVD drive to a faster model, or to find a better GPU.

[@jm036]

P3 Xeons came on cards for their entire lifespan. I dont know if the BGA of the CPU on the card is compatible with standard P3s but if it is then a 2MB cache Xeon in the xbox would be insane indeed.

[@AmaroqStarwind]

@ Custom PCB adapter boards could probably be made.

[@SP95]

Good work 👍I bet the homebrew scene never grew mostly because of the lack of memory so your contribution might kickstart something

[@garystinten9339]

I'm hoping to see something like PS2 on Xbox.. This would concrete Xbox as the most moddable console in history.. Side not.. not a fanboy

[@shemlesh]

@@garystinten9339 not going to happen, the xbox doesn't have the grunt even with upgrades to emulate the PS2, maybe some level of HLE might get you part of the way, but emulating the emotion engine/graphics synthesizer is a complex ask even for modern PCs, hell even modern PCs struggle to emulate the RCP in the N64.

[@gatorhand]

Did this gentleman just literally build his own RAM?

[@JoshLineberry]

Man I'm so freaking excited about this! I've been wanting 256mb of ram for quite a while now! My God!

[@garystinten9339]

What are you using the ram upgrade for??

[@JoshLineberry]

@@garystinten9339 mostly my skin on the dashboard 😂😂 This means I can make it as fancy as I want. One thing I tried to do wouldn't quite work with 128mb of ram so 256 would be nice to stretch it a bit further! Also 256mb of ram + a cpu upgrade would be huge for media. I've got 800+ movies and 100+ TV series on mine and it would be amazing to be able to squeeze the most out of the Xbox I could.

[@garystinten9339]

@@JoshLineberry well decoding 8k at 1 frame should allow for 4K 60 frames easy.. meaning Xbox (unless a GPU/CPU combo can be found that would allow 8k) mean it's the most modded console to date.. imagine if more memory could be found for other consoles and update them also.

[@Crispe1Official]

@@garystinten9339 Why would you bother rendering a movie at 4K when the maximum resolution that the xbox supports is 1080i?

[@shanem2059]

Joshua this is going to be a game changer for the ogxbox scene

[@CodeAsm]

This is so cool, especially also how you figured these things out :D great video

[@0100101000]

Hi friend, great video. I'd like to share some tips and considerations for you to keep in mind. I think you made the memory testing part more complicated than it needed to be. With good soldering technique, you should be able to achieve a perfect solder on the first try without any issues. Compared to other packages, FBGA-144 is actually quite large. Some tips: Avoid using hot air for soldering. The best technique for soldering these types of components is to use a hot plate. It provides better temperature control and ensures uniform soldering. If the soldering process takes too long, it might be because the manufacturer used an alloy with a high melting point. It's best to replace the memory solder with a low-temperature alloy. 183°C paste solder should work well and reduce heating time. There are stencils available that allow you to do reballing relatively easily with enough practice. Considering all these points, you should be able to fabricate the memory modules much faster and without needing to test them extensively before installing them in the console. I have plenty more tips, but this is getting quite lengthy. If you need any help, I'm here. Cheers!

[@userPrehistoricman]

Thanks for the advice. I'd still need to test the memory chips on their own. Oh and my hot air technique for these chips was to heat the PCB from the bottom side, so it's a bit like a hot plate just less controlled. Also, it's good to test the chip after soldering because the heating could induce a failure. I got a few failures from the soldering step until I started baking chips first.

[@0100101000]

@@userPrehistoricman I understand, but using hot air isn't the right way to solder the memory modules. With hot air, you can't control the temperature or timing accurately. The correct method is to follow a temperature and time profile to avoid stressing the memory. I get that you need to test the memory modules, but with the right technique, you wouldn't need to check if the soldering was done correctly each time.

[@ConsoleWorkshop]

Awesome work!! Speaking as someone who's experienced in BGA work, I wouldn't mind assembling my own modules to be honest :) 👍

[@2khz]

Fantastic video man

[@thisislargemouth5566]

AMAZING work bro. Seriously. The R&D, the execution, the video. All of it. Bravo Man.

[@DavidDaniels-h5p]

bro needs to drink a glass of water 💀

[@avisprimey]

1 like = 1 glass of water for homie

[@skimesss]

Bro he does all the soldering himself..

[@avisprimey]

@@skimesss Love is temporary, lead poisoning is forever

[@nullmind]

This is so extremely overengineered. I love it.

[@shanem2059]

Such an amazing video and educational content and well explained 👏

[@thcoura]

Excelent work done here. Congratulations

[@phirenz]

At some point, it's going to make more sense to just create a replacement motherboard that implements various modifications including accepting BGA memory directly. Only problem is that transferring the BGA parts from the original motherboard (especially the MCPX chip) won't be easy.

[@DrGoldfieldHwang]

I've seen this mentioned here in the comments already but this would make upgrading the 1.6 to 128mb easier

[@ferna2294]

This is Microsoft level of engineering, but without the bloat that MS usually adds nowadays. Great time to be alive.

[@darkpadden]

Good work, that is just awesome.

[@TheNitroPython]

love it! this is amazing

[@pbalerig]

I saved my og Xbox. Very cool mod. Would love to give it a little better performance if all the bugs get worked out

[@radionmynayev865]

What about using one of those soft vertical conducting strips that are used behind the screen of plain old calculators. They can work as a conductor and as a pressure source. Although not sure how much current they could handle 😅

[@userPrehistoricman]

I thought about that but you need a mechanical setup to apply pressure to the strip which would complicate the whole thing a lot.

[@shanem2059]

Where can we buy the ram from ? That’s the big question and what an amazing project, well done 👏This is going to change the ogxbox scene and your going to make some serious money dude when these ram sets are for sale

[@420.........]

This is legendary.

[@spragzpc1]

This was my dream back in the early kodi era, those who know knows

[@sjuut89]

I think one great added value is having enough RAM to load (the latest xbdm) dll, and have full debug functionality on retail systems!

[@Ronin7477]

Would be interesting to see this in conjunction with a CPU mod, and what could be done with that combo. I would actually provide mine from Lukas Dietz to have it done.

[@ArranShort]

What a journey! The suspense from the reveal of the jig was fantastic, great video! I've just dug out my 1.0 board that I did the 128mb ram module upgrade on back in the day and it seems to now be getting a red & orange 3 boot "frag" I've gone over my work a few times but I'm not having much luck and it did work with xbmc at the time... Would your debug xcode bios help for tracking down shorts and faults for the 128mb mod as well? Once the kits are available where will we find them? I can't wait to see how Linux runs with 256mb and an SSD!

[@bl3ivids]

I should not be laughing at the text on screen with the "--> balls" at 14:37 but as a Vegas user, that was too funny to me

[@userPrehistoricman]

hehe

[@userPrehistoricman]

Vegas only crashed twice during this, pretty impressive really.

[@alexrtaudio]

This guy is the next generation of superhero

[@TheRasteri]

sorry if you answered this in the video, but could you not make the whole thing flex rather than flex-rigid? seems like it would make things simpler

[@userPrehistoricman]

Yep, will try this out.

[@joveaaron-real]

I'm the Thousandth sub! Congrats!!

[@mbe102]

Could this work to get a 1.6 up to 128 a LOT easier than just stacking the chips?

[@LoneWolvezMontages]

I would love to get these chips to install on my 1.6 ram staking is such a pain and this would make it so so much easier please let me know when they will be available!

[@damiandudycz]

Amazing job man! Do you happened to know if this kind of magic is theoretically possible on the PS3 also? That would be my dream come true.

[@userPrehistoricman]

Thanks. I have no idea

[@gnrtx-36969]

Imagine replacing those xdr with a ddr4 memory

[@oOignignoktOo1]

could this work with just two modules to get 128MB on the 1.6 revision xboxes without needing to stacck IC's ?

[@userPrehistoricman]

Yes!

[@oOignignoktOo1]

@@userPrehistoricman Excellent my brother has a v1.6 model console and I may have to look into this at somepoint since it'd likely improve the snappiness of XBMC4gamers.

[@Rod_Knee]

Your interposer design could be adapted for a boatload of retro computing hardware...

[@alectrona6400]

THAT XBOX IS A SPY

[@Nihongames]

Are you planing to share the KiCAD files for the interposer board?

[@PhyChris]

Look into using ribbon cable headers for the motherboard contacts and then you can extend the length of your interposer pins and fold them down on the four sides and just plug it in ;)

[@userPrehistoricman]

Possible. Don't want to make them too long and delay the signals

[@PhyChris]

@@userPrehistoricman amazing work by the way! I would have argued 256MB ram was impossible to address on the xbox. There are also ribbon cable headers that lay flat on the board and have a fold down tab, if these 'fit' you would not need to bend the interposer sides.

[@professor_jonny]

@@userPrehistoricman would it be possible to make a single interposer and sandwich it between the nv2a and the motherboard with a sodimm on it ??

[@MotownBatman]

This is Freaking w!ZaRd!! Well Done Sir! New Sub, Detroit, Michigan, USA

[@eugenioarpayoglou]

Awesome achievement. Would the modified BIOS with the RAM test of the first 4 modules be useful for say fixing a Fragging Xbox? If so, would you be willing to share it?

[@DigitalVersionOfMe]

@ prehistoric you’re capacitors who makes them sir? Links what do you recommend

[@MichaelGiacomelli]

How much did PCBway charge for that rigid flex pcb and how long did it take? Seems super useful for prototyping if the price isn't crazy.

[@tommik1283]

This guy could probably do a 240p output on AV encoder to get proper retro picture on CRT after all these years of waiting...

[@Leicht_Sinn]

fully watched your video -> really impressive what you achived here even thow i don't have not a lot of Know-how hardware or software you explaned it so well that even i understand quite a bit i would love to see if claude or chatgpt could like help for software understanding modding to support more ram

[@blakegriplingph]

You madlad! Too bad this would also call for both homebrew and retail games to be modified to account for the additional memory.

[@Смайлик-ч7с]

Hello. where can I order these modules?

[@JoshLineberry]

So one question, will we be able to run these at the stock ram speeds eventually?

[@reginaldojunior3517]

What is the practical advantage of having 256mb to play old games designed for 64mb

[@userPrehistoricman]

None

[@InternationalLiaison]

This type of RAM upgrade is only worth it for a faster CPU. The stock 700Mhz celeron that comes equipped with the XBOX will never utilize that size RAM for a pre render computation. I believe the fastest processor ever installed on the XBOX is pentium 1.4 Ghz and even then with that faster pre render that CPU doesnt even over load the 128 MB memory that was used for the XBOX debug kits. Essentially a dual core cpu with at least 1.7Ghz would be needed with bios modification to push that ram to its limit. I believe because of the polygon and vertex shading methods used by the GPU it wont ever use more than 128MB, possibly as tad more. Its still fascinating to see that this Ram increase was achievable.

[@userPrehistoricman]

It doesn't really work like that: processing speed isn't so directly related to memory usage. You can easily make a program that requires no computation but lots of memory. In terms of games, sure, because you can only increase the memory usage by increasing the resolution.

[@ETERNAL_MODS]

I guess is more about getting a faster ram too with a cpu upgrade cause stock cpu on ogx are 128mb cache and tualatin p3 are 512k cache.

[@Polo4413]

I take my hat off man

[@UserX-02]

Radical

[@BlackDroid12]

The pcb files where you posted them

[@8bitnation419]

Would love to use these for my 1.6. Anywhere to order this?

[@randomweirdyoutubechannel8955]

This is impressive as hell my only question is do you think you can go higher?

[@userPrehistoricman]

Nah, strongly doubt it

[@shemlesh]

@@userPrehistoricman we had similar issues with the N64, on paper it looks like you can address more than 8MB of RDRAM but the silicon itself can't manage more than 8 1MB banks, although to be honest the biggest bottleneck is the 4kb texture cache in the RDP.

[@Crowthezotaxmaster]

Just curious what you can do with 256mb ram. I'm assuming custom linux distro

[@danielrichards121]

Your mad and I Love it

[@stephenroberts-vl8rf]

where can i get my xbox upgraded to 256 please

[@keksi360]

Any Updates?

[@coppermine733]

Does your custom memory testing BIOS that runs from flash work to test the stock RAM chips as well? Could be a great debugging tool for systems with bad RAM.

[@userPrehistoricman]

Probably will, yes. I'll look into it.

[@ludger0815]

15:30 PCB Trace Length Matching?

[@userPrehistoricman]

Possibly, but I don't believe the length matching requirements are so strict.

[@ludger0815]

​@@userPrehistoricman But I find it more interesting to install faster RAM instead of twice the capacity. in order to achieve a difference in performance if necessary.

[@userPrehistoricman]

@@ludger0815 That has been tried too. I think they hit a hard limit around 250MHz (25% faster than stock).

[@felixokeefe]

Would you consider releasing the KiCAD files for your original BGA to TQFP interposer board.

[@userPrehistoricman]

yeah will do it some time

[@brendonbone1459]

Did they change that wiki page that said the max mem was 128mb

[@remasteredretropcgames3312]

BRO. I thought I was making exotic retro p()rn. Id like to see Prey 2006 ported to X Box. Im reverse engineering texture streaming using an exotic unused solution historically. And its more CPU efficient than DOOM 3s texture streaming overhead.

[@R4dm1n]

What's next, we somehow make an IBM compatible BIOS for the Xbox?

[@shemlesh]

its possible to a large extent, as there are open source BIOSes out there like SeaBIOS, GlaBIOS. however that won't mean DOS apps will run or Windows as they make assumptions about the hardware also being IBM compatible.

[@Teo97b]

cool stuff

[@tsclly2377]

quite interesting fab methods

[@MsJom123]

When will the v2s be available for purchase??

[@EnrysonFerraz]

Did he share the link of the custom bios? This tool can help a LOT on 64mb consoles.. bad ram chips are a Pain in the @ss to debug...

[@userPrehistoricman]

Good point. I can make a 64MB variant

[@EnrysonFerraz]

@@userPrehistoricman Ace console repairs and Computer Booter will praise you man! Debugging bad ram chips is a very nice feature..

[@Retro_Works]

Agreed, it would be extremely helpful

[@simmydsimmyd]

Isn't there a performance penalty because of the swapped address lines?

[@userPrehistoricman]

If I routed them directly, then no. But I do route them via some solder jumpers so that could have an impact, yes.

[@simmydsimmyd]

@@userPrehistoricman not the layout itself, but the way the DRAM works with swapped address bits.

[@userPrehistoricman]

@@simmydsimmyd I don't think that has any impact. The DRAM isn't aware of the swap

[@simmydsimmyd]

@@userPrehistoricman I imagine word operations would be fine, but wouldn't the swap cause issue for burst operations?

[@albnoel]

So if you also do the stacked ram method does that mean you can have 512mb of ram?

[@userPrehistoricman]

no

[@sparky7635]

For what if the os or games are not made for more memory? Well done from a technical perspective but I don’t get it

[@userPrehistoricman]

They aren't made for this much memory, so they don't use it. They will still run though.

[@ETERNAL_MODS]

upgrades are mainly for emulator and collectors. not really for retail games.

[@jonathanbutler6635]

Would this be a good combination with an upgraded cpu? I’ve seen someone put a 1.4ghz processor on one.

[@Paulo-sb4de]

What is the pcb software that are you using?

[@userPrehistoricman]

KiCAD

[@countzer0408]

Do any of the OG Xbox games use more than 64MB? Would be cool if they did.

[@userPrehistoricman]

No, but they can be modded to use more

[@oliviru100]

now you will probably run virtual cop 3

[@Zeper]

banger

[@RiggityWRECKED]

Why not implement sockets of some sort?

[@userPrehistoricman]

Like what?

[@clintsuperhero]

Im wondering if a cpu upgrade would assist the bottleneck i saw in macho nachos vid. Ive seen someone get a chip that runs 1400mhz any comments on this would be appreciated!!!

[@userPrehistoricman]

Overclocking the CPU does help offset the slowdown caused by underclocking the memory

[@llugnuto7795]

could you run windows xp on this?

[@userPrehistoricman]

yeah probably

[@shemlesh]

maybe via a PC emulator, but Windows XP won't boot without a PC compatible bios. ReactOS will and can boot though so you can have an XP like environment.

[@ichrismoku]

Ok but come on what can we do with 256mb??? IDEAS!?

[@userPrehistoricman]

640kb is more than anyone will ever need

[@ConsoleKingRepair]

Do you plan to realease these interposer files to the public? Or are you going to wait until you develop a better version.

[@userPrehistoricman]

I will definitely be releasing design files but not sure about which versions yet.

[@ConsoleKingRepair]

@@userPrehistoricman Ive been doing 1.4Ghz cpu upgrades not that long, and this whole modding scene is exploding! Cant wait to eventually install 256MB ram on top of the 1.4Ghz cpu. Keep up the fantastic work.

[@Siktah]

Lovely Jubly

[@420.........]

I wanted this done on my dvt4

[@rockpie.iso.tar.bz2]

I knew this was possible by piggy backing all the RAM chips.

[@garystinten9339]

Please look for a solution to upgrading the gpu.. surely there is a better gpu to upgrade. Perhaps even make a socket to fit the ram rather than resoldering memory onto board.. like a socket that allows ram to be simply clipped into place.. ??? I know sounds slightly tedious but for those that arent confident.

[@VivianDoremy]

installing a socket would likely be even harder than what he just did to fit the chips.

[@garystinten9339]

@@VivianDoremy but it's been done.. so socketed CPU and GPU and socketed ram.

[@shemlesh]

@@garystinten9339 at that point its just a PC, in which case just chuck a mini itx board in the case and call it a day.

[@garystinten9339]

@@shemlesh no.. because we are modding an Xbox.. not building a PC.. If I wanted to see a mini itx computer being built. I'd go watch a mini itx computer being built.. this I find more interesting as it isn't just like add more ram, upgrade your CPU.. it's taking some actual risk and being more than Microsoft was. I like it.

[@shemlesh]

@@garystinten9339 the reason for why is because there are no xbox compatible GPU upgrades, the only way to "upgrade" would be to replace the northbridge that contains the GPU and the bits that make it an xbox rather than a PC, with a regular PC nforce northbridge, at which point you are just using the PCB as a carrierboard to build a PC, you won't have the ability to run xbox games so it would just be a paperweight. otherwise you can spend $10k to get a high end current FPGA evaluation board and design it yourself, or spend approximately $0.5-2 million to prototype completely new silicon using a faster process to build something that is faster from scratch.

[@LucasDaRonco]

Why do this of the software won't even use it?

[@userPrehistoricman]

fun

[@betag24cn]

but, why excellent job btw

[@SqualidsargeStudios]

Were you recording this late at night and trying to stay quiet?

[@hexidev]

He probably isnt a youtuber, and this is just a deep dive into his work

[@userPrehistoricman]

I just sound like this, I'm not actually whispering

[@SqualidsargeStudios]

@@userPrehistoricman fair enough, it just brought back flashbacks from early yt. Especially as early in the morning i was watching the vid. Regardless it was an educational and interesting vid.