Xbox:Chihiro General Information

The Sega Chihiro is an arcade system based around the Xbox motherboard. It is comprised of:

A JVS standard panel board on one side.
A DIMM board (DIMM or NetDIMM) unit that plugs into the top board
A top board
A middle board (mediaboard)
A bottom board. This is an Xbox motherboard that is nearly identical to retail hardware, with the only differences being it uses an earlier version MCPX chip (MCPX X2), it running a Chihiro-specific kernel, and it having the extra RAM slots populated to bring the total RAM up to 128MB.

Like any early Xbox motherboard, you will need to remove the Xbox:Clock Capacitor to prevent severe damage to the motherboard.

See the Xbox:Chihiro Games on Xbox page for instructions on how to play some Chihiro games on a modded retail Xbox.

Powering the Unit

The Chihiro is powered by a standard JVS power harness used in arcades. However, you can either buy an adapter cable or DIY your own out of a JST VL 4x2 connector and a JST VL 3x2 connector (shown below) to connect them to a standard desktop ATX power supply. A video over how to wire up such a cable can be found on the Video Game Esoterica YouTube channel.

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Video Output

The unit outputs 480p RGBS video via a standard VGA port on the fan side of the unit. Although the Xbox board can output a variety of resolutions, the output from it traverses the link cable to the mediaboard where it is changed into 480p RGBS.

Games

Games are loaded off of a separate GD-ROM that is connected by a single cable OR if a NetDIMM module is installed on the top of the top-most board, games can be booted over a network, from a Compact Flash card (with official or unofficial adapter), or from a hard drive connected to a Compact Flash adapter.

Regardless of method, a security key must be plugged into the USB port on the side of the unit. Games loaded from GD-ROM must use a USB key specific to that game, while booting games from a NetDIMM can use a "zero security key" which works for any game. See the Xbox:Chihiro Security Keys page for more information.