Xbox Laptop Project, Who cares that the 360 is more powerfull? Options

[ttsgeb]

First test with video. Everything seems to be displaying fine:


Now to figure out sound and override the open tray detection.

And by figure out sound, I mean I'm too lazy to do anything for it, but I know exactly what to do when I get off my bum and actually do something for it.

So, what are you looking at?
Well, in this picture, I have the board for the dvd drive and the HDD hooked up.

Video is achieved by a lovely Y Pb Pr to VGA converter sent through a laptop screen driver board from ebay user NJYTouch and into an old laptop screen from some 2004ish Dell Inspiron.

Power is just using a standard xbox PSU that I'll be putting in an external case (from a 360's power brick)

The motherboard has all the caps over a cm tall replaced with shorter ones, and ones on their sides, and is being cooled using two VGA coolers, one is an Iceberq Pro 4, the other some deal from Titan. The one from Titan is about 1mm taller, but has about a 5mm smaller diameter.

As far as the software goes, this xbox remains completely unmodded.

Also, that HDD looks bigger every day, but I'm determined to keep to the goal of leaving this unmodded software-side. Meanwhile, I have a little 40Gb notebook drive waiting for whenever I start my next project.

This post has been edited by ttsgeb: Jul 16 2012, 05:14 AM

[CrossBox21]

When you make the power brick, the wires that go to the motherboard will have to be lengthened quite a bit. How do you plan on doing that?

-cb

This post has been edited by CrossBox21: Jul 16 2012, 05:48 AM

[ttsgeb]

In all honesty, I plan on having a 6 inch space between the two for now.

Eventually, I plan to redesign the power circuit based off of a 5v supply line, so I only have to have 2 lines running to the box; +5v and ground.

Until then, if I want it to be further away, I have some 14 AWG speaker wire, and I'd just grab some heat shrink tubing to put around it. I don't know how long I could make it, because I have yet to measure what that data signal actually outputs, but I imagine 4'-6' to be totally reasonable.

It already is connected with a 6 pin molex connector, and I only have 6 wires going between the two; one for each voltage. The xbox seems to be perfectly happy with this, although I have yet to playtest it; seeing as I only have two dvd drives that work: the one in my everyday box and the one I took apart for this that doesn't have a lid yet.

The great thing about having all this plastic is that I can make several different back plates for the box without too much hassle, so it's no big deal if I change connectivity a bit later.

This post has been edited by ttsgeb: Jul 16 2012, 06:18 AM

[CrossBox21]

I see. I was just thinking of doing the same power supply idea for my mini xbox, since i have a non working xbox 360 power brick to stuff the original power supply into.

-CB

[flexxo]

how do u made the heatsinks to hold on the board?

[ttsgeb]

I haven't fastened them to the board yet, I just have a bit of thermal paste on the bottom to hold me over for testing. When I fasten them, I have some machine screws that I'll likely use.

As far as where I got the heatsinks, I just looked around for small VGA coolers on Newegg.com Not sure how useful that will be to you in Russia, though.

[eitsuop]

Good work so far man! Please make sure to continue updating- we want to see this come together.

[CrossBox21]

Good work so far man! Please make sure to continue updating- we want to see this come together.

What he said.

[flexxo]

ttsgeb, no matter in what country i live. In russia there is computer shops too.
I just curious about gfx chip cooler. If u can screw cpu cooler well cause there are 4 holes, then how you will screw another one, if it's only one hole?

This post has been edited by flexxo: Aug 2 2012, 09:53 PM

[ttsgeb]

It's actually a bit of an issue I'm facing. The Iceberq Pro 4 cooler is the right size to put on the CPU without any problems, but the GPU heatsink is going to be a bit iffy.

I managed to get a heatsink for it that is designed for a smaller bracket, however it comes with extenders that would let me use it over the CPU. What I've done is to put one of these extenders on, and then angle it so that the side with the extender is in a hole by the cpu and the other side is in the hole next to the GPU. Unfortunatly this doesn't actually cover the entire chip, so I need to do a bit more improvising.

From what I understand though, 1.0 boards have another hole spaced effectively for using two iceberq pro 4 heatsinks without any modifications. I've yet to get off my bum and check for myself, though.

[ttsgeb]

Minor update: I did some work on the jewel for this recently. I had this idea I needed to try, so I did.




I need to get rid of that little bit of dust on the back and polish up the front more, and I'll have quite the little jewel going.

I think I may also try to put a green transparency between the backlight and the jewel, and see if that does anything useful.

I've also been wrestling with the disk drive a bit, I imagine I'll get that figured out pretty soon, though. I need to get my 616t drive modded to work in my other xbox first, though, so I can free its drive to play with.

This post has been edited by ttsgeb: Aug 12 2012, 07:16 AM

[Infamous Ob]

This entire project is very inspiring. Keep us updated, we care. lol Good work.

[ttsgeb]

Well, I made a little video update to show where this thing actually stands, and a bit of casework that I've done.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VfbW4nFLf70

[crusty_punk]

Video is achieved by a lovely Y Pb Pr to VGA converter sent through....

How did you convert this to be used with the xbox a /v pinout?
Do you have or can you supply a diagram, data sheet or pinout conversions?
I'm sure this would be extremely useful to people that want an easier way to use a PC monitor with their xbox.

Thanks in advance.
-Crusty Punk

[ttsgeb]

It uses the same pinout as a component cable, seeing as it's effectively faking VGA output.

So, on one side, you put in +5v YPbPr(Component RGB) and on the other, you use get RGBVsHs.

All the pinouts are labeled on the actual circuit board, and if I remember correctly, the wire colors are intuitive, too.

I've also noticed that you at least need a cap on the +5v or an external power source to get decent video. Luckily, the way it's wired; you can just not hook up the +5v on the xbox, and actually wire an external 5v supply with a RCA connector on it in the bad idea of the century.