This is my tutorial on how to wire an ATX PSU to your Xbox 360. And be able to use the 360s power button to power on/off the ATX PSU with your 360. (And YES the power button on your media remote and controller can still be used to power on/off the 360 and ATX PSU)

Parts List:
200 Watt Micro ATX PSU
NyKo 360 intercooler power plug (A good place to get a power plug)
www.radioshack.com part numbers:
IC PC Board: 276-159
150-Ohm Resistors: 271-1109
PC Board Terminals: 276-1388
Hook-up Wire 18 or 20 Gauge: 278-1226, 278-1225
(Optional) Test/Jumper Leads: 278-1157

www.digikey.com
Digi-key part number: TLP222G-ND, Pkg. Type 4-DIP, Be sure to get a DIP type because its easer to mount on an IC Board.


Step One: Make your Relay
Relay Diagram



Relay Bottom


Color code same for Pic below

Relay Top


And if you want it to be smaller I am sure you can find away to cut the board, and also you don’t have to use the screw terminals if you don’t want to. You can just solder the wire in, like the blue wire is at top.



Step Two:
You take apart the NyKo intercooler and get the power plug or you can cut the one off the 360s PSU.


Step Three:
Wire up your plug



Yellow to Yellow
Black to Black
360 Red to ATX Pin 9=5VSB purple/violet
360 Blue to Resistor, Resistor to Relay Anode (+)

It is better if you spread the 360s load over 3 12V and ground rails from the ATX PSU you will end up getting a lot less 3 red light errors (mostly error code 0001) in the long run. Hopefully if done right you will have no errors.

And now you can power on and off your 360 just as if you had a MS 360 PSU, Have fun!!!!

Amperage Information:
I was able to test two 360s and I found that each 12V rail on average pulls 2.5 amps which adds up to an average of 7.5 amps, but what I found interesting about this is that the 360s PSU says 12VDC at 16.5 amps.

Additional Information:
I did my test with both a 200 watt micro ATX PUS out of a gateway and a 400 watt Rosewill ATX PSU.

200 Watt PSU


400 Watt PSU






If you have any Questions or if there is any problems in this tutorial please let me know.

Time to get some sleep; I’m real sleepy so I hope I covered everything.

Patrick2269

** UPDATE May 17, 2006**

Thanks to twistedsymphony, G0t M4xx 21, and bigjimmy. You now have 3 ways to do this new wiring method, by using a relay, transistor, or a logic inverter. My update shows how to use a transistor.

Parts list:
Radio Shack
276-2058
271-1131


Transistor Diagram from bigjimmy


I didnt solder any thing here but you can see how to use an IC board





And here you can use a little bit of solder and heat shrink tubing and make it inline without using an IC board

I'm not very up to date on the 360, but as I can see what you are doing is simply to invert the PS_ON signal via the relay, right? If that is the case then it probably would be cheaper to just use a normal logic inverter.

just my 2c

/pablot

yeah the electronics store near where I went to school used to sell the 7404 hex inverters for 2 cents a piece... I have a whole frigging bag of them somewhere. I'm actually using on in the PC PUS adapter I'm making for my Xbox 1's power enable signal

I’m not really sure on how a logic inverter works, but what I do know is that when the 360 is powered on it starts sending a 3VDC 10-15mA current out on the blue wire. And I said to myself “hey this can be used to turn on a small solid state relay, which then the load on the relay would be to ground pin 14 on the ATX PSU”.

a logic inverter simply inverts the signal... so if it comes in a logic high (your +3V) then the output will be logic low (0V or ground), and if it comes in at logic low, then the output will be logic high.

The relay works but considering it's just a signal wire something like a relay is overkill... kind of like busting out a wheelbarrow to carry a piece of paper across a room

yeah instead of a relay you could use an inverter, or, even better, just a NPN transistor. (just dont forget to put a ~1k resistor on the base)

Yeh thatd be even better if a transistor was used. Since it only has to switch the 10-15mA a litlle BC548 or 558 transistor (i cant remember wich ones NPN or PNP). The transistor would be a bit easier to get than the relay IC. Either way, Great tut!!

EDIT: I might put up a pic of what u could do as an alternative later today. Lol if only i could figure out how to put my own pics up on here.

yeah, a simple transistor with a 10k resistor on the base (will work without too.. ) would be the best way (cheapest way) to go..

OK heres the alternative:



I hope this is right. If something is wrong, please tell me asap so i can correct it.

Will one of these transistors work
RS:
276-2058
276-2009

You can use any NPN small signal transistors. Those transistors should work fine.

OK people i was just talking to patrick2269 and he has tried this circuit and used a 100k transistor witch seems to work fine for him. Ill update the pic later so it has a 100k resistor.

100k is a little extreme, but hey, if it works, it works, so thats all that matters.

10K is probably better

Updated this thread in post #2

I always go for the extreme, LOL

“Go to the extreme snap in to a Slim-Jim”

Sweet. Oh i feel all special now lol.

Should put up the schematic for the logic circuit. And i suppose if a 100k resistor doesnt work just put in a 10k instead.

EDIT: hey its my 60th post lol

yea try 100k, 47k, or 10k and see what you get.

I tested 100k and 47k and both seam to work fine.

as got_max said, I would recomed a 10k if you want to be sure to have it run stable.

OK i finally did the mod too, even though i have no 360 (Well its coming in the mail this week!!! I cant wait!!!)

It does work cause i put 3.3V on the wire and the PSU will turn on fine. Also i used a 100k resisotr aswell.

Heres a crappy pic:




Now the only problem will be actually connecting it to the 360. I dont have an intercooler (theyre not real common in australia) and im not taking the 360 apart as it has the warrenty till next febuary. Would i be able to try solder the wires onto the metal contacts on the power plug?

I put a tread in the BST asking if anyone has an intercooler or a 360 power lead theyd want to sell me.

EDIT: Oh yeah i also used a BC 548 NPN transistor

Cool, Good Job

I got together a 1k and 10K resistor to test with my transistor and the PSU will not power on, so it seems with my transistor the higher you go with the resistor the more stable it becomes, so I’m going to stick with the 100K, or I might jump it up to 200k or 300K. LOL

hmm you were maybe overloading the transistor. Too much current on the base and it will blow up (not literally, but it wont work anymore. Remeber the transistor in the 1.6 that always breaks?)

I didnt test it with a 10k resistor as i couldnt find one. i think ill stick with the 100k.

the board terminals are optional right? i can just hard-solder this ish, correct?

I would like to see somebody prove that this actually works when there is a disc in the tray..

wait? so this DOESN'T work!?

Well, it most likely does work. It just didn't work for me.

have any clues as to why it didnt work for you? Id rather not bust apart something to do this if it doesn't work..........

My PSU was only putting out 10.4V under load, and had one 12V rail. So al long as your PSU can put out around 11.9V@17A you should be fine. I think I just had a bad PSU.

Alright, so why'd you post what ya did if it was YOUR psu????

Because I posted before i figured it out..
It used to run fine in testing, but I never tried a disc. Then I gave up and posted that, which led to ppl giving me ideas and I found out what was wrong.

hahaha, well good. i just got my 360 today, next ill be ordering my pc case and a PSU. I bought the stuff from RS too already. Now to pick a nice HTPC case to house my 360 in.........
Thanks for this tut guys!

do these specs meet the requirements to do this?



If not, what should I be looking into for specs?

I'm figuring:
200W minimum and +12V @ 16A minimum

Hello?

can the people that have done this PM me. I'd like to know how reliable this will be.

16A is pushing it, as the stock sticker on the 360 says 16.5A

If I was ever going to try this again(and space was at a premium) I would use a X connect PSU. Wiring would be super easy as all the cables are unplugable. This way you dont even open the psu to wire it for 360 use, not to mention hack up ur psu wires. Just get a spare atx connector, plug into the PSU and do all the trasistor wiring on the plug. Take a look at the pictures if u don't get what i'm talking about.

http://www.xoxide.com/ultra.html?gclid=CO-...CFSAKFQodTndXpA
You can get them alot cheaper then that.

Yeah I know about the X connect PSU. Nice looking PSU's. Think I'm going to go with this one:

http://www.xoxide.com/ultra-x-connect2-titanium.html

I don't want to fry my 360, obviously... So I just want to make sure that that PSU will work and be reliable for me... Thanks.

Buy a cheaper one. Afterall your 360 dosn't have SLI. You can pick one up on ebay for about $40 shipped.

Ok guys I am almost ready start mine up. I need to fix a couple crimps and then im good to go.

Red Bird - PLEASE let me know if your successful - Iv'e wanting to find out too!

GooD LuCK!


SuDDeN

Damn.. Do I have to do this mod again to prove that I was talking out of my ass earlier???(or someone should wipe that post)
Believe me, this works fine. MY PSU just was a POS

Unsuccessful. I guess Ill buy a regular PSU off of ebay.

The transistor switch does not work. I then grounded the green wire from the psu which then supplied power to the XBOX so the fan would come on. Thats all that happened. The device tututorial needs to be modified.

The Nyko plug was a good idea though.

I also tried it with the NPN, i made the same extact tutorial using 100k ohm resistor, i grounded pin 14 the fans turned on and i go the 3 red lights upper right wasn't red any help, I also used the Nyko cooler

So I guess it's a good thing I didn't go out and buy a PSU since this DOESN'T actually work...

well, I don't think there is anything wrong with the tutorial. The method works, you just need a atx psu that can handle the huge load that the 360 pulls.

I agree. The tutorial works. The transistor method works too.

thanks everyone for the info, have just do this and saved me 100bucks on a new psu

tanks for the tutorial, i use the transistor it wok realy great.

I did get the atx psu to power my 360 but I did not get the 360 to switch on my psu. I tied the green wire to a black one that was the only way I could get my psu to work. I built the transistor the way it shows and it never would power on my psu. Is it possibly because my psu has a switch of it's on, but with the switch on or off I got the same results.

Hi there. Just joined the forum, so far specifically to discuss on this topic.

I've bought a pretty decent PSU and wired it to the XBox360 according to the instructions herein.
It works fine, stable and stays cold all the time. I'd say its better than the original XBox PSU.

However the transistor scheme for grounding the green wire does not work for me.
I've triple-checked the components and connections, tried resistors from 200K to 10K to no avail...

I also did some testing and found out that the XBox sends back a pretty low voltage thru the blue wire when the PSU is on standby - maybe not enough for triggering the transistor.

The PSU itself (as a power source) is working fine.
I've installed an on-off mini switch to ground the green wire as needed, so I can leave the PSU's original switch on, thus having it on STANDBY and providing current to the XBox (could be good for the memory backup cell/gold capacitor/whatever it uses) but not really ON - meaning no fans/fan noise/main power until I click that mini switch to ground the green wire.

Anyway, it would be nice to be able to turn the XBox on via remote controller, getting rid of this mini-switch, or in other words make intended use of the blue wire to turn on the PSU.

Any tips are appreciated.