XBOX 360 PC : intro
The XBOX 360 PC
Specs:
3.0Ghz Pentium 4 HT (upgraded from 2.26GHz P4 at start of mod)
512MB RAM
60GB 4200rpm SATA HDD
DVD-ROM, CD-RW
8x USB 2.0 ports
Integrated Intel graphics
The hard drive is in the hard drive case as in the xbox 360 and is fully removable.
The two USB ports in the front of the xbox are fully functional.
One idea I had that I never got round to doing was building an external graphics card, the plan was to basically build an extension for the AGP slot and run the cable out of the back of the xbox can build a case to house the graphics card which would follow the design of the xbox HD-DVD drive.
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XBOX 360 PC : planning
As you can see from these pics, this project was one I was determined not to mess up!
I did a lot of reasearch and planning and sketches before embarking upon the project.
I did a lot of reasearch and planning and sketches before embarking upon the project.
Xbox 360 PC mod : Components
Motherboard arrives!
Faulty xbox 360 (red rings of light) cost me £60, sold the dvd drive for £45, therefore case works out to only cost £15!!
The RAM 2x256mb
XBOX 360 PC : the build
See, the motherboard should fix inside comfortably
Quick test of all the components
Bits and pieces all over the place, but look the mother board sits inside the XBOX metal cage nicely!
First problem, standard DVD drive too big
Quickly resolved by changing plans to use a laptop DVD drive
Everything rigged up an working
I didn't ahve a heat sink for 478 socket, so while waiting to find a cheap on from ebay, just used the xbox 360 heatsink
Installing windows XP
Another look
Windows installed! originally 2.26Ghz P4
Drive Bezel from xbox fitted onto dvd drive
These capacitors are going to need flattening.
Heatsink pulled from a dead P4 laptop
Successfulyl refashioned it to be vertical
Sitting on the CPU nicely and keeping it cool
LED power lights!!
Fitted the back plate for the motherboard on the metal cage,
Motherboard and everything fitted into cage
Initial wiring of the HDD meant the SATA and power cables just ran though the hole (where the hdd socket noramlly was) into the case.
Made a rather crude but working heat sink retainer.
Built a metal frame to hold the laptop dvd drive in the right position,
Fitting everything in.notice new power supply (has same volume as the xbox 360 supply!!)
Screwing the cage onto th case
What look like from behind
another pic from behind
Yes, I got hungry
Wire cutting!!!
All the extra sockets that i didn;t need, cut them off to save space
Testing out new fans.... sadly I fried the other ones, and these weren't keeping the CPU cool enough either since I had decided o stick in a 3.0GHz P4 with HT!!
fitting the front USB ports
inside look of the front USB ports
Hard drive fitted with the connector
Wiring up the socket for the hard drive connector with SATA and power cables
the fitted socket
with the 3.0Ghz P4 HT, the comp suffers from same problem as the real xbox360- overheating! decided that only was around it will have to be to cut a hole for the fan. heres some grill pattern i was trying.
Tha fan i bought actually ended up coming with a transparent grill
Thermaltake smart fan, with a thermistor on a wire which can be placed at different places, sticking it under the heatsink right next to CPU.
Coolmaster all copper low profile P4 CPU heatsink, was designed for servers, but perfect for this mod!
Heatsink fitted, shiny!!
Testing temp of CPU, fan keeps it nice and cool, and very very quiet! automatically increase fan speed when CPU heats up, but never lets CPU get over 60C even at full load, and still remains relatively quiet, perfect!
with the previous heatsink and fans the full load would start pushing the CPU over 70C, otherwise the fans would be so noisy I could hear them in the next room!!!
the grill actually has leds which light up when the comp powers on!
got to admit, the fan is a fugly orange colour, spraying it to silver, which will nicely match the xbox
After spray painting!, massive improvement!
Here its all finished! up and running, and yes I have installed OSX, why? coz i can!! and most of you have prob seen the vid of youtube..
and one last thing, fitting a resistor to the fans on the power supply to keep it quiet. i read that shuttle PC power supply fans where noisy, but had no idea how irritaing it actually is!! shuttle pc owners out there, how do you cope??
i had tried just cutting the wires to the fan but then the power supply got quite hot, and i didn;t want it melting stuff around it. now its quiet and only get midly warm!
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