Who can mod my Xbox for me?

[norkusa]

With the $120 in credit I have on my Gamerush card right now, I'm going to pick up a second Xbox tomorrow for mod purposes (basically so I can just play the SNES and Genesis emulators for it). There is no way in hell that I'm going to try to install the modchip myself though. What are the names of some reputable places online that can do it for me? Does anyone here from the forums mod systems?

I have a small problem though. I have a Mac. I hear that if you get your system moded, you have to flash the bios somehow with a PC. I obviously can't do that. Is there any way around this or a way to do it with a Mac?

Another thing...if I'm going to get a system for moding purposes, is it best to get one with a Samsung drive, or will any of the 3 will be fine? And are all new Xbox systems sold with Samsung drives?

[spoon]

Last I knew, all three drives were still being used. Yes, it is best to get one with the Samsung drive. The Phillips is a bit better than the Thomson. Stay away from the Thomson drives. The best drive you can have would be a modified Samsung 616T PC drive. If you got one of those, you could also install an enhnced cooling kit and a new ATA133 cable. Would make your X-Box load around 25% faster. Very easy to do.

I know that FABomnjoy could mod it for you.

As for info on MAC compatability, there are a few very nice X-Box emu sites out there. No links off hand though, sorry.

[FABombjoy]

I have a small problem though. I have a Mac. I hear that if you get your system moded, you have to flash the bios somehow with a PC. I obviously can't do that. Is there any way around this or a way to do it with a Mac?

Nope, no PC required. The newer chips come with a license free BIOS preinstalled that will automatically load your favorite black-market BIOS from CD/DVD. After that, you can do updates right from the Xbox itself.

[norkusa]

I have a small problem though. I have a Mac. I hear that if you get your system moded, you have to flash the bios somehow with a PC. I obviously can't do that. Is there any way around this or a way to do it with a Mac?

Nope, no PC required. The newer chips come with a license free BIOS preinstalled that will automatically load your favorite black-market BIOS from CD/DVD. After that, you can do updates right from the Xbox itself.

Wow, that's great news! Do you know which chips these are? If I could get a non-solder chip with a BIOS preinstaled on it, I could probably just install it myself and not worry about shipping it out to get modded.

[robotriot]

I got a non-solder chip for mine (Xbit) and it was really very easy to install and works perfectly. There was no BIOS preinstalled though and I think the software is only available for Win32. But you could just do that over at a friend's house, couldn't you? (You don't need to get the whole box over, just the chip alone will do as it is flashable even if it isn't installed yet)

Oh yea, I forgot: the newest XBox models (1.5 or 1.6 I think) aren't that easy to mod without soldering afaik, so you might want to get an older model than that.

[FABombjoy]

The Xecuter chips support this method. They also make a solderless chip, too. The install FAQs are biased towards PCs, but there's nothing you couldn't do on a Mac.