There's already plenty of similar pics floating around and where to get this voltage and that, some good, some not so good, and some that haven't been done before, so I did these up and tossed them together all in one place for anyone that needs/wants them.

There are only a few Ground spots marked throughout (Black in the first pic, Blue after that), mainly for a quick spot to stick a meter or whatever, but if ya want a known ground source use the metal cage or spots under the power plug, as long as the motherboard is installed and screwed down the metal cage is ground. You can also use the shielding of any of the Main Connectors that are on the board, USB, Memory Card ports, any of them, they're all grounded and are very easy to solder to. Just be careful and don't have the heat on them too long because they're plastic inside.

This is under the Power Connector, you have access to the 12v right from the PSU (when it's on) as well as the 5v Standby voltage. The Standby voltage is always present, as long as the PSU is plugged into the 360 and a good outlet, it remains on even when the 360 is turned off. The 12v, and every 12v spot as well as other voltages, in the 360 are Switched, they turn on/off with the 360. If the 360 isn't on, there's no 12v anywhere, if there's no 12v there's no 5v, 3.3v 1.8v and whatever other voltages are in there I haven't traced out yet.




Here you can get to the 5v Standby (Red) from the top of the board, there are also a couple of 12v (Yellow) spots that are fairly easy to use as well. Remember Blue spots are Ground from here on.




Here is the older good 5v spot and is still a good place to get 5v from, but some may not like soldering onto that SMT Capacitor there. You can also use the small spot there at DB6G1. There is also a 12v spot there at the tab of the MOSFET Q6F1. Soldering onto a tab of one of these MOSFETs can be difficult if you don't have a Soldering Iron that can sustain the heat long enough to get the tab and large plane it's soldered to hot enough to flow new solder on and melt the old as well.




These are 5v spots that are under the board. They're right about the exact same spot as the 5v on the top ya just looked at, there is also a 12v spot here.




Here are some other 5v locations (The ones in Red) that are at the front left of the 360. The Violet spots are 3.3v for the DVD drive (Large Regulator in the middle U1F1). 3.3v for the Memory Cards (Small Regulator at the bottom U1F2) and the 3.3v Regulator at the top (U1E1) supplies voltage to a 1.8v Regulator that's under the board (U2T1) that powers the Southbridge. There's also a 12v spot there at the tab of Q3F1.




The row of MOSFETs on the right hand side of the 360 (The pic is turned) all have 12v on the tabs.




These are all Standby voltages, Red = 5v, Violet = 3.3v and the pink Grapefruit looking color is 1.8v, these voltages are always present as long as the 360 has power, doesn't matter if it's turned on or off. The 5v is the same as the 5v Standby that's the Power Connector. The 3.3v powers the RF board and I'm sure a few other places and the 1.8v goes mainly to the Southbridge, I haven't finished tracking down all the places they go to yet.

wow! thank you so much RDC!

this is really what kind of a power source post i was looking for... and you happened to make one just in time!

this really deserves to be pinned / bookmarked... i love it!

thanks!

-java

Nice, super detailed. I guess this should clear everyone's doubts about power sources inside the box.

Awesome. Finally a clear tut on ALL the voltage spots in a 360.

Thanks RDC!

Thank you so much RDC! This is a much better explination of the power sources on the 360!
Well done!

Thanks

Very nice looking.
If only I had a color printer....

^lmfao

Very nice tutorial RDC. You make me proud

thanks for the awsome post

Thanks. The 12v under the PSU worked great to power my 8 LEDs.

This is much better than the other sources of power pictures. This one not only has more on there, but has close up pics of each section

Thanks RDC

thnx for this man and i have a quick question. you can connect a led to any of these spots right?

as long as you have the proper resistors for your leds you can use any of the power spots

thanks box u helped alot with me understandin this stuff kinda confusing at first but im gettin it thanks again bro

no problem

and if you need a resistor calculator just google it and there should be plenty of them you just need to know your volts supplied the volts of your leds and the ma and the number of leds if they are soldered in parallel

im actually using the sickmod one it seems to be the easist one to use is there a better one i should know of

Don't use any of the Standby voltage sources for driving LEDs, with the exception of maybe a few from the 5v Standby, and even then it's kinda pointless since they'll be on all the time, any of the other 5v and 12v spots are fair game though.

ya i understand that u did a good job with the power source pictures and explaining it so i wont be using those since it be really annoying to have the leds on all the time

Someone told me that the only place you should draw power was from the power sources under the Power Brick connector. Is this true?

Find it difficult to run wires from that location.

JAmerican

It's advised to, its direct power there and no risk of blowing capacitors.

You can use any of the spots I have marked in these pics, except the Standby voltage sources.

In oder to blow a capacitor up you have to either throw way too much voltage into it, run a lot of AC in on it, or heat it up until it vents, you're not going to cause any of that during any type of 'normal' soldering/modding circumstances or from soldering onto the 12v line farther away from the power connector.

Thanks for confirming. Now how the hell do you solder to the head of the transistors. Its hard as heck.

JAmerican

this is great will deffinatly help with all mods

Just have to use a little more heat since you're having to heat the tab of the MOSFET and the larger copper trace it's soldered to. Use a little bit of fresh solder if ya don't have any flux to help wit the heat transfer, or use 2 irons, or get a decent soldering iron with around 40w or so and an adjustable temperature for bigger jobs like this where ya need more heat.

Yeah but plenty of people have done it though...

Is this pinned? I couldn't find it in the tutorials section.

Name 1 that's blown a capacitor up soldering onto the 12v line somewhere other than the power connector. Transistors for the rear fan header are another story, but people blowing caps up isn't a common thing at all, if any, breaking off the SMT ones left and right is though.

Yes, it's under the Extras: section in the tutorials, with all the other Sources of Power threads.

Hi i need two solder up two of sickmods led boards, is it ok to solder them both at the 5v spot on the top of the board near where the power supply is?

No, that is a 5v Standby spot and is always on. Give reading the thread a shot and use either a switched 5v or 12v spot to power them.

sorry i did read the thread, ok i diddnt read it but i skimmed through it very quickly. sickdimension said to use 5v, but you said use either 5v or 12v, theres allready resistors on the led boards so is it 5v or 12v?

The board will work from either but is designed for a 5v source, so if you go powering it from a 12v spot you'll need to toss in the correct Resistor(s) for it. Stick with the 5v spots that are at the front left of the board and you'll be fine, they're not that hard to solder to.

rdc in your second pic'er could i run my rear fans off the 12v spots you have marked (c9b4&c9c3) or would it be best to do it at the power plug? trying to avoid taking mobo out ,because I've already done the x-clamp mod,which been doing fine until now. it wants to freeze up even on the dashboard. haven't got 3rod yet. I've notice when it froze(even while playing a game) the air coming out was hot ,but not much air movement.

@ meathse - Yeah you can use those spots for the fans, that'll be fine. Only difference between them and the 12v from under the power connector is it goes thru L9B1 there, but it's still 12v and is fine to use for what ya wanna do.

If you've already done the X-clamp mod and it's still freezing up on ya, it may be time to try having it reflowed, unless you've take the towel or heat gun to it already, makes it more difficult to reflow properly. Keeping it cooler may slow down the freezing, but before long I'd wager it's gonna show up again and before long 3RLOD on ya.

ok, thanks for the reply. well you were right on the 3rlod, thought i try in on more time before taking it apart and it went strait to the 3rlod . as for having it reflowed , i have no clue were to go to have that done. also i've never have done the towel or heat gun trick to it.

The forum members superbee (Canada based) and bojngles (US based) are the only two I know of on here that offer the services with proper reflow setups for that kind of work. It's possible there may be someone more local to ya, but you'd have to go hunting for them. You'd need to find a place that does BGA Rework and has the ability to reflow the GPU/CPU on the 360, and they would most likely have to see the board unless they were familiar with it to start with. Since you haven't messed with any 'tricks' to get it going again there's a better chance a reflow will take and be a longer solution as well as having the X-clamp mod done to it afterwards.

thank you rdc i just put my 12v fan under my psu plug, works nicely. just wish i had a little extra wire on it, made the plug a little short.

I've got a fan from a dead PS2 that just seems to fit too perfectly for a front case mounted fan. Only problem is that it requires 7V to run. I know that it will run off 5V, but I want it to run at full speed. What resistor would I need to use the 12V? and If I run off the 12V, I would like to use the one from the power connector, is this one switched?

You can get it to run at 7v by connecting it to a 12v and 5v source. Connect the + wire of the fan to a 12v spot, then connect the - wire of the fan to a 5v spot, the difference is 7v and is the voltage the fan will receive, no Resistor or Regulator needed, isn't that nifty?

Heeey... that IS kinda cool. I didnt know you could do that.
Are you sure no resistor? I can just use both points from under the connector?

Yup, no Resistor or anything needed 12v for + and 5v for - and ya get 7v, all there is to it. Don't use the 5v from under the PSU plug, that's the standby 5v, use one of the other switched 5v spots for it.

Gotcha! will do. Thanx for the help.

think I'm going to use 12v spots on your 2nd pic for my fan. I don't want to unscrew motherboard I want to just solder it straight to the top. any reason to not do this or any tips?

No reason at all, those spots are fine to use for them. If you're talking about the stock fans, you can leave the Black and Blue wires of the fans where they are in the connector, since those are already ground, then just run the Brown and Red wires (+ side of the fans) over to whatever 12v spot ya wanna use. It doesn't have to be 1 spot for each fan either, both can go to the same one so ya really only need to run 1 wire from the 12v spot to the stock fans + wires.

No its a little 1.5 inch radioshack fan im mounting (going to mount tomorrow) against cpu heatsink. anyways my question is what size/ type of solder is good for these smaller applications.

Just about any 60/40 Rosin core solder will do ya, and the diameter of it is a personal preference for the most part, but depends on what you're working on as well. Something like .030in (.77mm) is fine for most things that you'll do in the 360 as well as any circuit boards.

k thanks man. we do soldering in my ee100 lab but when i went to radioshack they had like 50 different sizes and types and im not expert on solder choice so. thanks again.

ok..... wierd problem....
I added a fan using the 12v and GND from under the power connector as in the first pic.
Now, if I power up my box, the fans start at 5v, (slow) then speed up to full power until it sounds like my box is going to take off. They just get faster and faster until they cut off, leaving the box on. I then disconnected the fan, removed the wires, checked for a short, and found nothing. Still, my box wants to fly away... any ideas on what could be wrong? I have removed and replaced the mainboard also just to see if that was the problem. still no change.... Any help would be greatly appreciated. I should also add that when I first did the wiring, the fans would only speed up if I screwed the long screws that hold the top shell on. Now, I don't even put on the top and still have fans that need Ritalin.

I think I got it... stupid me.... I just went and tightened the black screws as tight as I could, and now, no more problem. Oh yeah, and I opted to use the 12V and GND points on top of the board as in pic 2

I've read the comment, and it sounds like most people are going with the second pic.
So I too will do that.

(just so I am clear)
I just solder the 2 fan wires (red & black) to the power & ground spot on that pic, and that it....right?

the solder part is on the top, so I dont even need to take the 360 out of its chasis, correct?

I've soldered to points 6 for 12v and 9 for ground as shown in very first pic of the starting post of
this topic (or http://i50.photobucket.com/albums/f320/RDC...WRConnector.jpg <-thanks RDC)

This is a new box that I just bought and it has the new heat syncs so I'm assuming it is the 'falcon'
MB? (Don't know how to detect which version, searched google for tuts, no luck :/ )

Problem is: for some reason, it wont give power to my fans.

Can anyone confirm using these points on a falcon MB?

Or maybe, I didn't solder well enough? (I had trouble getting the solder to stick to the 12v point
but eventually got a solid hold that i could even give a good tug to)

Thanks!

@ TeEhEeHeE - The power connector on all of the 360s so far has the same layout, so you have the right spots for 12v and Gnd, why it's not working is probably because of the solder job. You can actually get enough new solder on a point like that to where it 'sticks' good, but isn't making an electrical connection at all, the flux from the new solder acts like an insulator. Remove your wiring and heat up just the spots until you can see that solder flow, then attach your wire.