For Anyone Who Needs A 360 Power Supply Cheap, well sort of Options

[89c4l98]

This isnt my work but thought it would be useful.

psu mod page

Reader Ran Mokady took a pretty big gamble with this project, but didn’t really have any other choice: his power supply was broken and he couldn’t get a replacement. He ended up replacing it with a standard ATX power supply. Follow along for all of the details.

For anyone who is having problems with their Xbox 360 power supply, or who (like me) have managed to end up with a burnt out PSU and can’t get a replacement, here’s how I managed to run the console off a standard ATX computer power supply.

The added advantage for me, living in a 220V country and having bought a 110V console from Japan is that I no longer need a huge stepdown transformer to run my console.

I have been running my console off a 250W computer PSU for a week now with no problems – of course there are no guarantees and if you decide to do what I did I accept no responsibility for what happens, the only thing I know for sure is that it worked for me.

Here’s what I did:

Cut the cable

If you cut the Xbox power cable (I cut mine near the power supply to leave me with the maximum length of cable) and peel back the grey sleeve, the shielding and the internal black sleeve you will see 10 wires running through the cable. 4 Yellow, 4 Black, Red and Blue

A quick continuity check showed that all the black wires were connected together as were all the yellow ones. The Xbox PSU says on it it produced 12V and 5V so I decided to be brave and assume that the color coding on the Xbox cable was the same as the one on an ATX (PC) power supply.

Connect it up

Find an ATX power supply. The one I had was rated at 250W, the Xbox PSU says 203W on it – so I figured it should be ok.

I cut the wires of one of the hard disk type connectors and connected them to the Xbox cable –


Black to all the black wires from the Xbox cable
Yellow to all the yellow wires from the Xbox cable
Red to the red wire from the Xbox cable



Rig the ATX power supply to power up

In order to get an ATX power supply to power up you have to connect pin 14 (the green wire) of the large ATX power connector to ground.

Cut the green wire from pin 14 and the ground (black) wire from pin 13 and connect them together.



Connect the cable to the Xbox 360 and go…

Connected the power cable to the Xbox, power the PSU up and then the Xbox and you have a working xbox 360 running off an atx power supply.

[Chancer]

Added this to the pinned Topics thread.
thanks

[deacon187]

whats the blue wire you speak of for ? is it just not connected, i dont recall ever seeing any blue wires in the atx power supplies i have owned, cepter the ones going from the 14-16 or whatever pin connector to the mother board

[jymboche]

very useful info... what size (in watts) is suitable for this application... i was just wondering cause ive seen a lot of 230 watt micro atx psu's... would that work? also, whats the smallest dimensions possible to achieve when dissassembling an atx power supply? sorry if i come off as an idiot, but i really do have very little experience in this area.

[xboxexpert]

very useful info... what size (in watts) is suitable for this application... i was just wondering cause ive seen a lot of 230 watt micro atx psu's... would that work? also, whats the smallest dimensions possible to achieve when dissassembling an atx power supply? sorry if i come off as an idiot, but i really do have very little experience in this area.

I'd go with the exact items he used and got it to work which was I think a 250. I'd email the author and get the exact items before I attempt this.

[InfernO8]

Cool find but this is very old news. I would go with a power supply with at least 250W since the stock power brick is 203W. The only other specifications you need is a 12V line of at least 16.5 amps, but again to play it safe go 17A and a 5v line of at least 1A. Any power supply with these specification should work just fine.

[VinnySem]

Hmmm... maybe, a combination of this and a water cooling setup... in an ATX case... oh man, I can sense the mod of all mods...

[jymboche]

ive been having a great deal of trouble finding a power supply with a 12v line with that many amps... the highest ive found is 12amps i believe.
Anyone know of some good PS's? i am looking for a microatx one preferably...

[jymboche]

nevermind, i just ordered a 400 watt power supply with suitable amperage... not micro tho

[explosive2]

This mod doesn't really have any use except for people whoe PSUs is broken or want a different looking one since you still have to cut an original MS PSU to get the plug part and not many people would do that.
Most of the people looking for a 2nd PSU is so that they can have two in different places.

[funnyperson1]

This mod doesn't really have any use except for people whoe PSUs is broken or want a different looking one since you still have to cut an original MS PSU to get the plug part and not many people would do that.
Most of the people looking for a 2nd PSU is so that they can have two in different places.

Well it most definitely would solve the overheating PSU problem some seem to be facing. I do give the dude some props for ingenuity.

[JaXbox]

Thx for the tut - I'm putting my box inside an ATX casing and want to use a regular PSU. I saw this (pinned), bought a decent PSU, fiddled with the wires, and presto - perfect replacement PSU Thx again..

For those interested in the PSU I selected > Antec SL400 (400W PSU - 23Amps @ 12V max)

Edit: thought it might be nice to get a shot of the PSU-sticker..



This post has been edited by JaXbox: May 1 2006, 09:53 PM

[bigjimmy]

In order to get an ATX power supply to power up you have to connect pin 14 (the green wire) of the large ATX power connector to ground.

So your saying the ATX PSU will always be on? Would nt you be able to just connect the green wire to the power on wire on the 360 plug?

I just want to clear things up because when i get a 360 in a week ill have to do this mod (damn americans running on 110V ) Oh well ill be able to sell the power brick for some money lol Has anyone done this mod and not had it work?

Also, if the psu is on all the time, wont that mean that parts like the hdd will be running all the time?

And one more thing, anyone have the plug off a 360 PSU i could buy?? im not gunna go hacking up the psu lead if im gunna sell it.

[patrick2269]

So your saying the ATX PSU will always be on? Would nt you be able to just connect the green wire to the power on wire on the 360 plug?

I just want to clear things up because when i get a 360 in a week ill have to do this mod (damn americans running on 110V ) Oh well ill be able to sell the power brick for some money lol Has anyone done this mod and not had it work?

Also, if the psu is on all the time, wont that mean that parts like the hdd will be running all the time?

And one more thing, anyone have the plug off a 360 PSU i could buy?? im not gunna go hacking up the psu lead if im gunna sell it.

You might be able to still the plug off a nyko 360 intercooler

And if you want the PSU to come on when you turn on the 360 then try this wiring method

360 Wires----ATX Wires
Black----------Black
Yellow--------Yellow
Blue-----------Black (Ground)
Red------------Green (Pin 14)

This post has been edited by patrick2269: May 5 2006, 07:31 PM

[bigjimmy]

You might be able to still the plug off a nyko 360 intercooler

Hey thats a good idea!

Yeah thats the way i was thinking you had to wire it.