I am sure a lot of you already know about this but I think everyone should.
The original XBox has a bottleneck in it's loading system. This bottleneck is it's IDE cable. How it goes is that, the hard drive itself can transfer data at up to 66MHz, the controller can transfer up to 100MHz, but the hard drive data transfer cable only goes up to 33MHz at most.
There is a fix, replacing the standard IDE cable with a computer-standard ATA-100 cable which will go up to 100MHz. This has been proven across the internet to speed up loading times an average of 25%
If you don't believe me, watch these two clips comparing loading speed from the first level of Halo:
Loading before the cable upgrade; 31 seconds:
http://www.xboxrepairguide.com/timetest/halo_dvd_320x240.mpg
Loading after the cable upgrade; 23 seconds:
http://www.xboxrepairguide.com/timetest/halo_dvdwata133_320x240.mpg
I got these video from here:
http://www.xboxrepairguide.com/newsdesk_info.php?newsdesk_id=1
Which is the full article, and is from where I learned about this mod myself.
For installation instructions, look here:
http://www.web-nine.com/projects/xbox/ide/
This cable is also cheap as dirt, if you want one, I recommend ordering from Newegg or going to the closest computer store, here's the Newegg link: http://www.newegg.com/Product/ProductList.aspx?Submit=ENE&N=2010010001+1177412122+1177512109&name=IDE
