Xbox users who have modded firmwares may want to steer clear of Xbox Live for a little while. It seems Microsoft is once again exercising their banhammer muscles with a good old-fashioned ban wave.

More on the banning after the jump!

Team modfreakz made waves yesterday after it showed evidence on how an Xbox 360 can run on a consumer SATA DVD drive with the original BenQ firmware. Now this discovery was first claimed a month ago, which was preceded by another mod using a Hitachi drive, but it was the second video released yesterday that presented proof that Microsoft's Xbox 360 console would run backup games and not compromise Xbox Live access.

Team modfreakz used a Philips DVD drive, a product available for PC users, and utilized the actual firmware from a retail Xbox 360 DVD drive - the BenQ VAD6038. So it's basically a Philips drive running on retail Xbox 360 firmware. Take note that this feat requires no actual modification to the game console, allowing the machine to log in to Xbox Live. Need to see to believe? Watch the video below. 

You've probably heard enough about the just-released Spring Dashboard update already (Previous coverage: here, here and here), so we won't bore you guys with any more duplicate coverage. If you've been under a large rock all this while, our previous coverages will bring you up to speed with the latest happenings regarding the Dashboard update. The update brings a lot of great new features making your Xbox 360 experience that much more enjoyable.

Anyways, the main reason for this article is to douse the suspense surrounding the fate of people who've modified their DVD drives with a hacked firmware to play pirated games, err backups. This might sound surprising: the latest Dashboard update doesn't mess with hacked DVD drives; meaning that if you've modified your DVD drive firmware, you'll still be safe with the latest update. People having Hitachi drives haven't been lucky enough to get regular updates to the hacked firmware, but even that doesn't matter, they're safe too!

While this doesn't rule out the possibility that Microsoft might be collecting data regarding these hacked drives and waiting to do something a little later, it's safe to say that's close to being improbable. Hackers, like Commodore4Eva, have made claims that they have complete control over the DVD drive and that Microsoft can't really do anything with it. Even though Microsoft might have something up their sleeve, it would be pretty risky to do something now.

In related news, Commodore4Eva has also announced that he is working on an Xtreme Firmware v2.4 for Hitachi users which would include the latest Disc Jitter update recently packed in Xtreme 5.3 for Samsung drives. We'll keep you posted on C4E's work, stay tuned.

While a head-on collision threatens to break over the Spring Update's cross-border Marketplace restrictions, another head-to-head is brewing up on the horizon. Gameswank snagged a Q&A with Commodore4Eva about his views on the Spring Update - but not about cross-border DL - and Xtreme Firmware 5.3.

It all begins, Commodore4Eva tells Gameswank, when a little mouse whispered into his ear that the Spring Update might contain an ability to detect backup games and not make it boot (Commodore4Eva emphasizes this detection method isn't about modded disk drives). Hence Xtreme FW v5.3 Patch, which Commodore4Eva hopes to release before Microsoft releases the Spring Update.

v5.2, he notes, "already has many FEATURES that prevent detection, 5.3 just adds another," although it seems that the patch is a stopgap based on Commodore's uncertainty whether Microsoft will really implement the detection capability.

The plan is to do an emergency patch if required after the update if the detection is put in by MS, otherwise a full update for Hitachi to bring it up to V5.3 from V2 will come in the next several weeks...

Caveats: v5.3 currently works on Samsung drives, although work is underway to bring it up to spec for other DVD drives.

(To be fair and just to Gameswank, we must include his emphasis that he's not taking any stance regarding modding with this interview with Commodore4Eva; he is simply conducting an interview with the guy. We take quite the similar stance, too: not weaving flags for either side. Besides, we remember a quite painful story back towards Halloween 2006 about Live updates, mods... and debunked rumors of brickage. Got it?)

  

So what's the difference between the Elite and the Classic Xbox 360? Besides the color, the HDMI and the hard drive, of course. Llama.com dissected the Elite in order to discover the answer, and now they put it through side-by-side performance tests to get hard numbers.

Those same hard numbers reconfirm their suspicions that it ain't the 65nm chip in the Elite - although by now that point is moot: industry sources reporting that the Xbox 360 will receive its 65nm chips later this Fall.

Llama's results show that the Xbox 360 Elite on average uses slightly less power than the classic, particularly when watching DVD movies. Results slightly differed between Original 360s using BENQ drives and those using Hitachi drives vs. the Elite's Hitachi drive. The "slightly less" number is not significant enough, Llama notes, to justify the presence of a power-saving 65nm chip (or any tech with the same power-saving ends) in the Elite.

Measuring the noise output of the Elite, Llama found the newer console to be again, slightly lower than both Hitachi and BENQ drive Classic 360s, by a couple of decibels here and there. And then there was heat: no change whatsoever, all test units expelling 128 degrees F (ambient room temperature  = 73 deg. F) of pure, keep-my-360-from-melting exhaust air.

Nearly the same results: probably the same chip tech. Then again, the 65nm 360 seems still set for a Fall debut.

*UPDATE* Llama decided to do a Part 2 to their little anatomy discussion. The new pics come from the back of the Elite motherboard, but by comparing these with the launch 360 motherboards, they've strengthened their suspicions that the Elite isn't using (yet) 65-nm technology.

The interesting part to most is the area under where the CPU connects we see lots of changes around here but its mostly just smaller components in a tighter space. The Ball Grid Array size has of course not changed so although we see a denser arrangement of smaller components we should not take this to mean that it is necessarily the 65nm core.

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Llama.com takes an Xbox 360 Elite and takes the stuffing out of it. Hey, it's all in the name of "being able to repair - or mod - the Xbox 360 Elite in the future (no matter what Microsoft's EULA may say)." Here are the bare essentials of what they found:

• It uses the Hitachi GDR-3120L FK78 DVD drive, meaning "extracting the drive key and flashing the firmware of this unit won't be a problem!"
• Llama's amused at "Microsoft's most creative measures to minimize the dreaded Xbox 360 3 flashing red lights 'Ring of Death' error caused by poor BGA connections of the CPU and GPU": ""The good ol' a dab (of glue) will do ya methodology"
• The 120GB HDD uses a Fujitsu MHW2120BH drive. "Our initial attempts at dumping Sector 16 using The Specialist's hdhacker application was not a success... Without the Sector 16 you will not be able to upgrade your stock 20GB drive to 120GB the cheap way." Oh well, for now, you have to buy Microsoft.
• The fan header's been switched from the 4-pin Molex to a standard 3-pin fan header connection. For those who're using the Talismoon Whisper Fan, Llama's now offering 3-4 pin adaptors.

More at the Full article.

The team of tmbinc, Cpasjuste, stonersmurf and the rest of free60.org, who've been furiously at work porting Linux to Microsoft's Xbox 360 have just made two big releases getting us closer to the dream of having a full-blown Linux distro on our 360.

First, the Free60.org team released X.org drivers for the Xbox 360 hardware called xenosfb. X.org is the implementation of X Window System, the software used by Linux to render graphical user interfaces. This means that once distros incorporate these drivers into themselves, you can run these distros with better graphical compatibility, including higher resolution support.

And the second release is what I just talked about. Cpasjuste has released a Gentoo LiveCD (Full version - 608 MB) with these new drivers built into it. This means that you will be able to run the LiveCD with the GUI and with a lot more compatibility. The livecd uses the xenosfb drivers, plus it includes a powerpc toolchain so that you can compile and build applications on the 360 itself, without having to cross-compile applications on your PC and then transferring them to the 360. The Gentoo LiveCD contains the Gnome Desktop Environment.

Firstly, here's what the Free60.org team had to say about their new drivers:

X.org driver and a new LiveCD No April Fools' Day joke. We have released a preliminary X.org driver and Cpasjuste has built a new LiveCD which makes use of it. Unfortunately, support for Samsung drives and sound drivers are still missing.

The full article awaits after the jump!

It's just been announced on the Team Xecuter forums that a new tutorial for the Blaster360 has finally been uploaded. This tutorial focuses on the Hitachi 078fk firmware update. Team Xecuter also announced that the tutorial is still usable by other Xecuter item users, specifically those who don't have a Blaster 360 and are simply using the Xecuter Connectivity kit.

Team Xecuter's Blaster360 allows Xbox 360 owners to flash their drives with minimal physical tinkering with the Xbox 360 console. The Blaster360 uses a Digital SATA Exchange Circuit, letting users update the Xbox 360's DVD ROM with the latest available firmware. It can also be used to make backups of games to the PC.

To check out the tutorial, click on the via link below. You can also check it out under the Tutorials section of the official Blaster360 website.

The Official Xbox forum thread is attracting attention: M3ATPUPPET reported a couple of days ago that his Xbox 360 locks up "semi-frequently" while playing Ghost Recon Advanced Warfighter 2. Five pages later, replies to the thread are mixed: some report lockups at different points in the game, others report flawless playing.

They also seem to have different DVD drive setups (which might contribute to the lockup - or maybe not). Other games work fine - including sister Ubisoft title Rainbow Six: Vegas. Multiplayer also seems to be running without a hitch, according to many of the reports. Hopefully Ubisoft is keeping tabs on these reports and are working on a solution.

So far, reading through the thread, they seem to suggest that early/launch 360s, and with Hitachi-LG drives, are more prone to locking up with GRAW 2, if that helps.

  

This serves, more than anything, as a reminder for all of you guys. At the start of this month, we gave you a heads up about the competition Xbox Live Arcade Challenge. It involves games Small Arms and Lumines Live. It then came to our attention that today, December 22, is the last day of registration.

We're doing this because the competition is quite lucrative. The grand prize, in case you didn't know is a Hitachi UltraVision 42-inch Plasma HDTV. There will be separate winners for both games, so that means they will be giving away two HDTV sets! Aside from that, other prizes include a Holiday Challenge Prize Pack (HD DVD Player bundle, Wireless Wheel and Wireless Headset) and 500 Microsoft Points Tokens to be redeemed for Xbox Live imagery.

The Lumines Live challenge actually began last December 17 and will end just before Christmas on December 24. On the other hand, the competition for Small Arms will start on December 24 and end on the 30th.