Xbox 360 PC [WIP]

[zack247]

First off, yea, i know, what a unoriginal idea.
second, this might not be the right forum, but i decided to post here since it'll be more pc than 360 anyways.

i was given a RRoD'd 360 from my brother, since we tried every possible fix but still it didnt work.

the first idea that came to mind was when i saw the mini ATX motherboard sitting in the other room, then i knew exactly what was gonna happen, i was going to use the asrock motherboard, a 60GB laptop hard drive, a laptop SATA dvd burner, a 1.6GHz Pentium 4, and 512mb of DDR ram.

i started off with probably one of the more time consuming parts of the mod: the ring of light.

so originally, i was going to have a section of the ring light up for different status indicators, like HDD, internet, power ok and something else. that idea was quickly scrapped once i realized how much of a  rewiring it would be, then attatching those wires to the appropriate locations.
i decided i was going to have all the red LEDs light up, until i blew one out with a 3.6v rechargable. then i thought of using a white LED, a Red and a green original, and a blue LED. this idea was scrapped after i lost the tiny blue led i was going to use, and burned out the remainder of the original xbox LEDs by accident. (no one ever said i had to be careful )

i ended up soldering on 4 white leds i got from a old walkman cell phone, then i ended up doing all that rewiring anyways when i found out that the pins for te lights didnt go to the connector but through a IC first. one old 80 wire IDE cable later, i had the LEDs rewired and running off 3v safely. i tried several lights for the middle one, but every green light i found sucked too much current for the white lights to stay bright so i decided to forget about it and just leave the center empty. the power switch was rewired and the rf board was put back onto the case after header cables were attached.

every single heatsink i own for the PGA478 board ws just a bit too tall to fit inside the xbox case, so i ended up using the original xbox cpu heatsink with the aid of my favorite fastener, zip ties. i have the perfect fans to put in the box for cooling that strange xbox heatsink.

after that came the test fit of the motherboard.
after cutting out a section of the support fins on the plastic of the xbox case, and excluding the useless metal shield, the motherboard fit with not even a millimetre to spare between the heatsink and the plastic. they were just barely avoiding contact.

after the test fit showed me that there was still plenty of space left i started on the cd drive.
since laptop SATA cd drives use a power cable 1/3 of the size a sata hard drive uses, i went to google and searched up a pinout of the tiny sata power connection. after finding it, i soldered on two wires for the +5v and the GND.
next i took the cd cover from the original cd drive and realized that after i replace the cover on the new cd drive with it i wont have access to the button anymore. a multimeter and more of that 80 pin ide cable, and i had two more wires sticking out the back of the drive. the new cover plate was glued on, and i realized i am stuck.

now im having a hard time fitting the drive in the shell of the 360. i tried using some cheap mekano pieces, which would have worked if it werent for their  build quality, the bends are so crude that they are not sharp and straight, but curvy and inaccurate. i need to find some other way to mount the cd drive, im thinking of making a platform of the appropriate height that i can epoxy/bolt to the metal in the shell and then the drive can screw/glue onto that. i need  with that if you guys have any to offer.

and i cut off the parts that stick out on all sides of the eject button, another stupid mistake. now instead of the original method for a button, i have to think of a new one.
BUT!
if anyone knows how the fat ps3's power and eject buttons work (they just appear to be metal) i might be able to use the same technique for the eject button here, the pain on it is not just metallic, but conductive.

i would put in internal wifi but i dont really want to buy a riser for the ability to fit the wireles card, so that idea might not be used for this one.

i hope i have some followers for this project, because i may need a bit of help along the way.

Picture 1 is the white ring of light. yes, one quadrant is darker than the others, i dont know why though.
Picture 2 is the ring of light in the dark
Picture 3 is the motherboard in the case, not mounted and the heatsink isnt either
Picture 4 is showing ho the case cannot close because of the fins.
Pitcure 5 is showing just how close the fit really is, although its blurry (you try taking pictures from obscure angles through the AV port hole) you can see how close it is.

[zack247]

after a little while i found exactly what i needed to fit the cd drive in place, 3 sides of a old container.
i cut off the 3 useless sides and was left with the perfect stand for the cd drive, but after test fitting once it was screwed in i noticed i should have cut it a bit shorter but i can fix that easy by regluing the xboxes cd drive cover part on a bit lower.

i also got the fan vents cut out on the back, the hole is a bit large, but i have plenty of plastic i can use to fix that.
i may be able to use expansion cards, but it would have to be small form factor ones, big ones like some sound cards simply wont fit.
i plan to solder wires from the card to the connector on the motherboard, that are long enough to let me place the card elsewhere in the case.
i also got a 32mb AGP card to experiment with, and a 3.2GHz pentium 4 if i want to upgrade.
i have a stick of some old sdram (128mb) and it has 8 ram chips on it, which means that if i do it well enough, i can upgrade the 32mb card to 64mb so long as i get the chips off the ram card easily enough.
its a GeForce card, so i wont be expencting super HD graphics, but it will be better than the chipset video, i dont want to take any of the ram away just to give it to the video as shared.
assuming i can get the cards attached to the motherboard via wires instead of 90 degree risers then i can orient them in the case a bit better, the vga connection for the video card, i hope not to move it, but if i have to i will.
i got this cool little piece of plastic from a laptop that had indicator LEDs behind it, im going to put it in one of the memory card slots and use it for displaying:
-power connected
-power on
-HDD activity
-Wireless/LAN activity

im still having troubles with the eject button, but sooner or later i will figure something out.

[Rodent]

Looks good! I have been wanting to make on of  these for  a while, but I want to be able to use it for flashing my xbox dvd drives.

Soon I hope to make one. Nice work coming along great!

[zack247]

thanks! the main reason for me building this is so i can take my games with me wherever i go (where theres a tv). i dont have any really high requirements games, but my laptop GPU is just way too underpowered to run any off battery, the only disadvantage to ATI's hypermemory.

when you do build one, i reccomend a mini itx board, this mini atx takes up a lot of space, but so far this project has cost me $0 since ive been working with what i have on hand.

the only problem now is the power supply, if i could just get that -12v figured out i could probably build one but from what ive read thats made by the center coil of the transformer.
if anyone knows how i can get a stable 17v and 15.3v i could probably scrap build a power supply for this.

i had to hand solder a converter cable for the hard drive, it works, i just hope 60GB is enough for this machine.
a modified version of windows xp will be going on it.

[3D0kassiah]

good job
ive been also wanting to do this for awhile since i have a mini itx board laying around with no case also have a cod moderen warfare 2 360 case that i got from a buddy after we couldnt fix his RROD
but im missing dvd drive hdd ram lol pretty much got the bare bones
ROL light looks badass

[zack247]

look for some newer trashed laptops, if you can find a sata cd drive you dont need a converter, just solder wires to the 5v and gnd line inside the drive, then just a regular sata connection for data.

i plan to paint this case, but im not sure what color yet.

[Rodent]

Would like to know how you wired the led board so it would work when you turned the computer on seen many do this but I am not that smart .....lol just not enough experiance i guess. also what would you recommend if i were to buy a  new motherboard. to start this project? I want 8gb of memory and going to use a video card not a on board .like i said going to be using it to flash xbox 360 dvd drives do to i use it for repairs and its a pain always hooking up my main computer to always do that. being the console is small and would be awsome when people see that I have a 360 to fix 360's ...lol

[zack247]

so long as i remember to take pictures tomorrow-- er, later today (its 3AM here)i will put them up for you to see.
basically i soldered a side lighting white led (similar to those in LED lcd backilghts in ds's and phones) to the two pads that had contacts that went through the board that i could solder to. (those spots where the trace goes to the other side of the board)
i used some wire from a asus 80-wire 40 pin ide cable (its very thin wire, but difficult to solder because of the metal its made of) and after scratching away the solder mask i stuck the tinned wire through the hole and melted the solder to make contact. (make sure not to tin the wire too much) i repeated this for the other 3 corners and put the front diffuser back on, i wired them all in parallel, so all the led -ves and +ves wre connected at the same point. i tested with a 3v button cell and it was working, so i soldered a header plug onto the wires i used for testing.

its a bit harder to explain than i thought, so i suppose i will certainly have to remember pictures to save the confusion.
if you are going to use white leds like i did, then a center led might not work, some conume too much current for the white LEDs to stay nice and bright.

to be honest i havent started this motherboard yet, i still need to find a power supply. but i know it works, i burnt out a trace with a bad fan before and after i repaired it it was working again.

to put it simple i just wired directly to the leds, but if you are going to do it that way you have to cut all the traces going from the chip on the back of the board, it will not let your ROL light up, and it will get very hot.
you might as well remove the original connector since it will just be in the way.

well, ive never bought anything computer related brand new (except for a hard drive) so im not sure about reccomendatons, but if you want small form factor and 8GB of ram you might want to look at a mini itx board that supports ddr2 or ddr3 ram, since ddr is expensive and slow. ive heard of Zotac brand boars before, but im pretty sure a lot of manufacturers are making mini itx boards now that theyre more popular. with a video card, unless you plan to do a lot of serious gaming a pci grapics card should be all right, but if your board has pcie slots then you could probably get something more powerful. keep in mind that pci graphics cards can be difficult sometimes, and some may need a beefy power supply.

im not sure how you go about flashing xbox drives but im assuming its done via sata, so maybe a external sata connection would be nice so you wouldnt have to open the case. i think they make adapter cards for that, but it should be possible to get a sata extension cable or something.

some advice for those tiny LEDs, you will need a steady hand and a good soldering iron, and its cheaper to pick up some free broken cell phones than to buy brand new LEDs, all of my led mods were done with leds from cell phones.

[1TONpete]

They make small form factor power supplies. Try searching server power supplies. Also anyone else going to do this , they make some nice low power , low profile video cards. 

[zack247]

i was hoping i could find a picopsu, with those the power supply is external, but they might not be powerful enough to run my board.
my current plan is to either find a high wattage 24v supply and build my on PSU, or get a standard PSU and minimalize it so its smaller. either way its probably going to be outside the case.

i had a hd2400 pro pci video card, but unfortunately i sold it a couple weeks before i started this project, it was 256mb too.
so now ive got this GeForce, unless the one i might be getting today is better, but its a GeForce too.

the power supplies you are talking about are probably mini itx power supplies, they would be ideal for a project like this.

[zack247]

Rodent i got the pictures you asked for.

1- an example of how i wired the LEDs
2- the indicator piece, held in place.
3- my modified RF board
4- how the power switch was wired, notice the cut trace on the right.
5- top left LED
6- top right LED
7- bottom right LED
8- bottom left LED
9- the chip i talked about earlier
and my wiring is just a horrible mess, but it works, although i should have cleaned it up better than i did..

[Rodent]

Thanks zack I will have to take a look later but thanks for your time and again nice work.

[1TONpete]

I don't know if your mobo has sata or not, but if you have a sata connection you can reuse the xbox hdd case. Just hard wire the sata connection by cutting a sata cable and splicing the cut end onto the hdd.

[zack247]

only problem is its a IDE hard drive, but the cd drive is sata.

[zack247]

update on some system info.
got a new gfx card today, 64mb and a GeForce mx440, a little on the light side, but so long as its capable i dont mind. plus its got 8 ram chips so if i want i can have it at 128mb by swapping.
its not a low form factor card and there is going to be a bit more soldering involved, but ofr a better card it'll be worth it, the old one was a mx400.
this one also has a fan on it, so it might not be as quiet but we'll see, if the fan is bad or anything i can use the old card's heatsink and i have the fan from the 360's power brick.
im going away for a week so i probably wont be able to reply (unless i find wireless :P) but i am going to get my soldering iron and i'll be able to start soldering stuff either the week im gone or when i get back.

at this point the XPC weighs about 5 pounds, maybe a little more.
the new card also has svideo output, which means i can just wire up a plug so i can use a regular RCA cable to hook it up.
i havent been able to test the card yet, so i dont know if it works or not, i was told the motherboard died in the pc it was from so it could be damaged, but for $5 it wouldnt be a huge loss. the VGA connector in soldered onto the board but if i really end up needing to use it for some odd reason i can rewire it to somewhere else, or maybe just remove the connector and wire it to the motherboard connector, but i dont think i will just in case the card fails.

im gonna need to see if my really thin wire will be sufficient for handling the 12v rail, if its not then a higher guage will be necessary.

as far as this post goes, there should be wireless connectivity on this machine.

[Mogler]

Its looking good man! cant wait to see it finished

[zack247]

i might end up taking the XPC with me while im gone, going to the middle of nowhere so im gonna need something to work on..
probably just going to be soldering wires to important points on the board, getting it ready for tv capability, etc.
i need to find some female RCA jacks that i can mount on the case somewhere, but my main priority is getting the expansion cards to work properly without being plugged directly in the sockets, should be easy enough, right?

[zack247]

hey guys, i tested the xpc using my computers power supply earlier and ive got some pretty good results.
it was tested out of the case, since i havent gotten a new tip for my soldering iron so i can do that small soldering to the expansion cards yet.
it runs pretty good for the specs it has, service pack 2 is installed for winXP and i'll install all the other software i need to after i find a power supply that can be modified for this project.
when i was setting up the bios, the cpu was running at just 33*C!
while it was installing windows and the service pack the heatsink never got near 45*, the fan i have runs at around 5000RPM and combined with the xboxes heatsink architecture it keeps the PC extremely cool. the graphics card never even got warm, but the fan is a bit on the noisy side, i might install the passive cooling heatsink and use a blower fan instead if the noise is too much.
i have a 3.2GHz pentium 4 that i might swap out for the 1.6GHz one, but thats only if the build runs too sluggishly for my preferences, i hope the 3.2GHz doesnt generate to much heat for the sink+fan combo.

there is one minor problem though, upon first tests my sata cd drive would not properly respond to the motherboard and so the m'board wouldnt let it read a CD to install windows.
i tweaked the mods to it a bit and tested with my desktop computer and it appears to work fine, if it still wont cooperate with the board in this project then the cd drive might have to be omitted until further notice.
i had to use a regular ide cd drive to install windows.
ive been looking for a power supply ever since i started this project but im having tough luck trying to find one, since im not about to pay $30 for one anywhere local or online, thats too much for what i need it for.
after i find one its going to be tested thouroughly and then i'll have to figure out the best way to make it externalized from the system, no matter what it isnt going to be inside the case, it cant be.

[zack247]

hey hey hey!
this is still happening guys!
i fixed the cd drive (i suppose i shorted a contact and the case after i soldered the wires for the button)
i have it fully operational out of the case, and today i got a 300W PSU for it, i paid $10, it was a bit much for a 300W but the person selling it dropped it off.
i havent tested any games on it yet because i want to get the basics down, i have already started to dismantle and modify the PSU so it can be externalized, i have this old SyQuest EZ-Drive 135 case that the PSU will fit in perfectly with a little room to spare after i modify the heatsinks and lay down the tallest caps. Its a standard ATX power supply, so for no cutting being done to the board i think that its a pretty good size to be sized down to. it's shorter and wider than a 360's power brick, but exactly the same length.
I will have to cut a small hole in the top of the case for the top couple mm of the biggest transformer so i can fit the board into it, but its no big deal since the top of the transformer doesnt generate electricity.
I also redid the ROL, not to 360 standards though.
i tried hooking up my white LED array to 3.3v and what do yu know, 2 of the LEDs burnt out, so i picked up this cell phone backlight and put it to use. the ROL is now 2x brighter than before and can really light up a room. since the backlight piece covered up the peg used to press the button inside the 360 case i glued a metal plate onto the back of the backlight and glued the backlight right onto the center circle of the ROL, so the backlight and metal plate replace that plastic peg.
one downside to not thinking about it before hand was that i had to cut away a bit of the plastic case to make it fit, but it doesnt show when the faceplate is on. another bonus is that the backlight runs off 12v (weird for something from a cell phone).
ive got more pics here:

NEWS!
i got a wiring harness made and soldered it into the power supply, then i hooked the power supply to test the wiring and to my luck, the region selector switch (115-220) with its elasticy wires, flopped over onto the main transformer and a diode and caused a demoralizing spark. the power supply i just spent that time on is now dead
looks like ive gotta find a new one.

Pic 1 is the ROL in pitch black darkness.
Pic 2 is the ROL with just the faceplate.
Pic 3 is the backlight i used with the lights in the room on, compare the shot with other "lights on" ones, it is that bright.
Pic 4 is the power supply i am using, its made by Bestec.
Pic 5 is the case i will be using for the power supply, its not beautiful, but its quite sturdy.
Pic 6 is the case and a 360 power brick side by side for comparison.
Pic 7 is a height comparison of the case and the PSU board, as level as possible. it'll be close but it will fit.

[zack247]

its a small update but i felt it was pretty important.
the CD drive is fully functional and mounted now, and today i built a big feature of this project; a touch sensitive switch.
yes, just like the ps3, you poke it and t does something. in this case it pops open the cd drive, but its still pretty cool.
the best part has to be that it was made with a 555 of all the ICs, there was a design for a NAND gate but i didnt have the parts for it.
so now you can eject the disc tray without any effort.

[zack247]

ive gotten a video up of the cd drive in action, the eject button isnt in place yet but it proves its totally functional.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KeJin5_zW60

Ive decided to start calling this project the Blitz mod, hence the title of the video.

[hyper999]

I have two questions

1. Why did you make an optocoupler (the led and the transistor) ? why not buy one?

2. How did you do that awesome touch switch?

[Monk3y]

Wow dude this is by far gonna turn out better than any other xbox pc that I've seen. Can't wait to see the finished product. You definitely did way better than I did on my xbox pc :P

[zack247]

@hyper
i made the optopcoupler without even knowing what a optocoupler was
i just figured i had a photoresistor and a bright led, there was no reason for it not to work, also it was about 1AM and nowhere would be open :P

i attached the schematic for the touch sensitive switch, i tried with a relay but i couldnt get it to properly work so i used the optocoupler. pin 3 and GND are your outputs (a bit less than what you put in, 5v input = 4.4v output)
pin 2 is the sensor wire, pin 5 might need to be used but it didnt in my case.

and the xbox eject button and cd drive cover have a conductive metal paint on them.

@Monk3y
haha thanks!
without buying online or spending a lot of cash finding that power supply is being difficult though :P
its really the only important thing left that i still need..

[Rodent]

do you have the part # for the 555 timer?

[hyper999]

do you have the part # for the 555 timer?

Just use any any 555 with an input voltage range suitable for your application

[zack247]

pretty much any 555 will work, im running mine off 5v and any 555 can run off that.
at the source (radioshack in the us + other places) they sell the 555's there for pretty cheap.
mine was NE555 but the model number would depend on the manufacturer.
also in the diagram for the capacitor C1, 0.1uF means almost instant turn off after release, and a 10uF means the circuit will be one for a second after you take away your finger. i used a 10uF capacitor in mine.

if you plan to get more than one 555 then buying online in bulk would probably be a lot cheaper than radioshack (the source)
if there are other DIY electronics parts stores i would check there and compare prices, but theres only one in my city.

[zack247]

really small update:
painted the metal part of the case matte black and mounted the motherboard in it too.
the color scheme i plan to use on this box is light blue, black and white, but more blue and white than black.
the cd drive and the base its on will most likely be painted, not black, but blue or white.
its not the most beautiful coat of paint ive ever done but i blame the fact that the spray can refused to spray for longer than a few seconds before i had to mess with the nozzle to get it to spray again. that and the fact that it started getting windy after i started, so the paint dried fast, but that also meant there was bits of leaves and dandelion seeds that wanted to get into the paint too. thankfully the ugliest parts are covered by the motherboard.

as far as lights go i dont want to add a lot of LED lighting in it but i might add some if i cant find a suitable inverter for my many ccfl's ive collected from various monitors, laptops and portable dvd players.
i have one bulb that has a 90* angle in it so if i get it to work that might be interesting.

pic 1 is of the mtherboard and cd drive in place in the metal cage.
pic 2 is the xbox standing upright, in that position the fan may not do enough so i plan to add a fan and a half shroud on the side panel so when you tilt it on its side the fan activates and sucks the air out the side instead of through the bottom.
pic 3 is of the fan and heatsink
pic 4 shows the clearance between the hetsink and the plastic side panel of the case.
pic 5 shows the space above the cd drive.

[zack247]

hyper i forgot to mention, the optocoupler or a similar piece is necessary since the circuit puts out what you put in, so i needed it so i wouldnt damage my cd drive.

a tiny update, ive got a bit of tweaking to do on the cd drive, the faceplate piece sat a bit too high and there was a bit of friction when it opened, so i lowered the faceplate and i am going to sand the tray and the 360 main faceplate a bit so it glides nice and smooth.

[zack247]

okay guys i found 6 power supplies for free on my local classifieds site!
some have bad caps but there is a 400W cooler master one that is almost brand new except for the tiniest bit of dust on the fan.
hile i look amongst the other 4 here are some disturbing pictures of one of the bad ones i got; a 250W one from '98 that has had something spilled in it. i hope. im not even going to consider using it but to keep you guys occupied while i mod here it is 

pic 1: exterior
pic 2: look around the plastic shielding.
pic 3: more or less a overall shot of the insides.

all bad caps inside it except for the 2 biggest ones, i wonder why...?