Welcome to the Xbox FAQ

Welcome to the Xbox F.A.Q.

Read through the titles and click to jump to that section, some of the answers are on this page and others reguired more room so I've linked to a new page.

Parental Control Password Bypass:
In the event you have set a parental control and have forgotten the password you can follow this procedure to rest the password.

Open the dashboard and go to settings, from there continue to the parental lockout option
Input the following when prompted for the password. X, Y, Left Trigger, X. This will bypass the parental lockout function!

	Xbox error codes and what they mean
	01 - Bootldr	Motherboard related error
	02 - Bootldr	Eeprom check failed
	03 - Bootldr	Unknown
	04 - Bootldr	RAM check failed
	05 - Kernal	HDD not locked (required to be locked by original bios)
	06 - Kernal	Cannot unlock HDD
	07 - Kernal	HDD Timeout (possible bad drive)
	08 - Kernal	HDD not found (bad or missing HDD)
	09 - Kernal	HDD parameters (PIO/DMA/or size{debug}, certain size minimum is required for debug
	10 - Kernal	DVD Timeout (possible bad DVD-Rom)
	11 - Kernal	No DVD found (bad or missing DVD-Rom)
	12 - Kernal	DVD parameters (PIO/DMA)
	13 - Kernal	Dashboard launch fail(due to missing/bad key, or anything else that would prevent it from running) and the dashboard didn't specify why it failed
	14 -Dashboard	Error loading dashboard (dashboard generic error)
	16 -Dashboard	Other files to do with dashboard or dashboard settings (specific dashboard error)
	20 - Kernal	The dashboard attempted to load and failed; it was a cold boot, and the dashboard didn't specify why it failed, but it (for some reason) needed to be noted that the DVD passed the challenge/response authentication
	21 - Kernal	This error says the machine was booted to display a error, basically someone told the machine to reboot (or launch .xbe) with this flag, and the error code just means its been rebooted by the flag

Flashing Error Codes
This refers to the outer ring color that is displayed around the DVD eject button on the Xbox.
Note: this may not apply if your box has been 'Modded' either with a chip or 'softmod'.

Solid Red, indicates system is overheated or possible hardware failure.
Flashing Green, bad bios load.
Flashing Red-Orange, bad video output, could be damaged hardware.
Flashing Red-Green, The MCPX chip is overheating or damaged. If the problem is intermittent, try placing a heatsink on the MCPX and cleaning out your Xbox (Note: the MCPX chip is the one with the nvidia logo on it.
Flashing Orange, if you've modded it may be a solder splash or damaged trace also overheating.
Flashing Orange-Green, no Audio/Video pack installed. check the cable for proper installation, if using the High definition pack revert to the standard cable.
Solid Green with no audio or video, this is probably a problem with audio settings. try to reboot your Xbox with a standard A/V cable instead of the High Definition A/V cable.
Xbox boots three times and displays a flashing Red-Green usually means your mod chip is installed incorrectly

Xbox Specifications and Features

General Features:

Four game controller ports (USB) Note USB has a different wiring configuration and connector but complies to the full USB 1.0 Specifications
A front loading DVD tray
A multisignal audio-video connector that allows for hookup to televisions and Home Theater systems
An Ethernet port for online gaming via a broadband connection
An Nvidia GPU (Graphics Processing Unit) that delivers more than three times the graphics performance of other consoles
An Intel 733 Mhz processor, the most powerful of any console
An Internal Hard-Drive for massive storage of Game information and Music.

Graphics Processor Specifications:

233 Mhz custom designed X-Chip, developed by Microsoft and Nvidia
64 Mb of System Memory
Memory bandwidth=6.4 Gb/sec
Polygon Performance=300 M/sec
Sustained Polygon Performance (full features)=100+ M/sec (non-gameplay)
Micropolygon/particles per second=300 M/sec
Simultaneous Textures=4
Pixel Fill Rate 1 Texture=4.8 G/sec (anti-aliased)
Compressed Texture support of 6:1
Full Scene Anti-aliasing
Maximum resolution=1920x1080 (2x32bpp frame buffers+Z)
HDTV support at 480i, 480p, 720p and 1080i

Storage Specifications

Optical media DVD (4x reader)
Hard-Drive 8 Gb
Memory card (optional) 8Mb

Audio Specifications

Supports up to 256 Audio channels
Supports 3D audio
MIDI and DLS2 support
AC3 (Dolby Digital) encoded games support

How to use your Xbox hard-drive in a PC
Believe it or not the Xbox hard-drive is a regular PC hard-drive! The reason it can't normally be used in a PC is that the Xbox uses a little trick called "hard-drive locking", essentially what happens is that the Xbox contains the unique password for the drive that's installed with it, and only that Xbox can unlock that drive (this is the reason you'll often see auctions selling the motherboard and hard-drive as a matching pair). So these are the points to consider if you wish to unlock your hard-drive.

An unlocked hard-drive will get you booted (and probably banned) from the Xbox 'LIVE' network!
you can only unlock the hard-drive if you can boot your Xbox!
you will need a 'Modded' Xbox to complete the process as you need to run a 'homebrew' program

If you wish to continue with the process then you will need a program called 'ConfigMagic' which can be downloaded from euarsia, a free registration is required to access the downloads section please visit them and register before clicking on the following links or access to the files will be denied click Here to register the link will take you to eurasia.nu registration screen.
Important All the files you will download use a compression called '.rar' so you will need a tool called Winrar to decompress the files it can be downloaded from Here
Now to download 'ConfigMagic' click Here

I'm assuming you have an alternate dashboard such as Avalaunch or Evox installed if this is not the case you will need to install such a dashboard before you can continue. Decompress the 'ConfigMagic Final.rar' and transfer the directory to your Xbox using your favorite FTP program (click Here to download FlashFXP) The program goes into your Xbox drive e:\apps directory (note by default most dashboards will scan this directory if not you will have to figure out how your dash works and put the files in the proper directory for your dash). after rebooting select applications and you should now see the 'ConfigMagic Final' tool launch the program and press start to get the menu system up now scroll down to the item that says 'Unlock Hard-drive' and press the 'A' button after a short wait it should report that the drive has been 'unlocked'. Shutdown and remove your 'unlocked' hard-drive install it as you would any PC hard-drive but of course partition and format the drive before trying to put data on it as the Xbox format is not readable by other operating systems.

Logon and Password
works for most dashboards

Logon or user=xbox
Password=xbox
(Note both are lower case)

The Definition of a 'Clock Loop'
A 'Clock Loop' is when your Xbox loses time. Since the Xbox does not have a CMOS battery after a certain amount of time of not being plugged the clock is rest. This can happen anytime after 45 minutes. (15 hours for me) When your Xbox loses time, it's going to want to go to MS Dash to set the time. You can't get to MS Dash, because your modified something on your Xbox if you played with the font files and are trying to boot "PBL" with the Dash of your choice. By default your Xbox wants to go to MS Dash, but the modified fonts etc.. are saying "No, no, launch PBL". The Xbox gets pulled it two different directions at once. Then it gets all confused and reboots.

Some ways to try and fix the problem, but not all suggestions will work for everyone.

Let it boot. Let your Xbox boot until it breaks out. Fonts will kick in a set the time.
Plug your Xbox into an active computer network. After a couple of boots, you should be out.
Put an Audio CD in your Xbox
Unplug all controlers
Try all of the above in diffrent combo's (it works for some indviduals)

If all else fails, then you'll have to get access to your Xbox HD, disable the fonts, set the time and then turn them back on again. (You really hope this never happens it isn't an easy fix)