GhaleonX Posted March 16, 2009 Share Posted March 16, 2009 Well, as I'm not surprised to find, this isn't the first of it's kind, but nontheless, I've already started and wouldn't be stopping just for that What's Inside Intel D945GCLF2 mini-ITX board (Atom 330, i945/ich7/gma950) 160GB WD Scorpio 2.5" hard drive (16MB/7200RPM/3.0Gbps) 2GB DDR2/667 (Rendition) 210W ATX Power Supply (apparently, it came from a Dell; probably the one that looks kinda 360-ish) - It's got the 2x10 connector (not 2x12) and the 2x2 one, one molex, 1 sata, and 1 mini-molex(whatever it's called ) RF Module from an Xbox 360 (Acts as PW Switch, HDD LED, and Power LED) Power socket from a dead PSU Sata cable from a 360 Front USB ports from a 360 Tools Used: Dremel Mount screws Solder/Flux Screwdriver Electrical tape That anti-electric shield from the psu, and some foam from a motherboard box To Do List: Cooling & shielding Add card reader (or something cool) to former memcard slots Add a reset switch and use it where the sync button was (thanx to will5 @ xboxhacker for the idea) Add an internal Blu-ray drive My desire to do this project came from wanting to do some sort of custom case for a small-form computer, and luckily I couldn't find a mac mini case Without further ado, here's the work in progress (please disregard the ugliness of the phone cam; it's all I could take pics with). Here we have the overhead shot. You can see the PSU along the right side, and the motherboard on the left, with the hard drive mounted upside down on the left side, etc. Side view, showing the screws that hold the hdd. A look at the PSU. A full frontal (well, it's work in progress, so I guess it's only a half frontal, but it *is* essentially naked). The RF module from a real 360 is being used as the power button (not pictured). The backside. I/O plate is fitting nicely, but there's that gap on the side due to how the chasis is cut for a 360. If you can make out where the power plug goes, you can see I haven't cut the side screwhole off yet (hangs over). Has anyone done much with the RF module on a PC? Is there a way I can use the LEDs without wiring directly to them (ie, through the pinout)? I saw on will's post he was using a 360 controller, and it looked wireless (though it was dark, so I might not have seen the cord) - Is there any point to hooking up the USB on the RF Module? What would I do about the 3.3v power, as the USB ports are 5v? As for the DVD drive, I can't really decide yet. I kinda want to go with a tray so I can use the 360 bezel, but a slot loading drive would be nice, too. With the PSU, I've been told that since I've took precautions to make sure the mobo and the psu pcb don't contact, that I don't need to worry about shielding for such a low psu. Is this accurate? Or do I need to do something, here? It's already a tight squeeze, and I'm not sure how I'd pull that off. This thing keeps cool already, so one fan will probably suffice... need to find a place for it, though, but I could get a small one close to the power plug. As for the OS, I've decided to make it Leopard(only). My reasoning is that if it were a real 360, and the 360 were hacked, the PPC architecture could theoretically be compatible with OSX (but certainly not Windows). Additionally, it's more unique, given it's now a Hackintosh 360 . Update 26Mar2009 Well, I fished out a dead 360 and took the USB ports off the front, and threw them in this. They didn't quite fit, originally, and there was the matter of securing them, too. I took the shielding off, got the dremel out and trimmed it up a bit, and took the shielding off the ports themselves, and put the header in (upside-down). I then put the port shields through the outside, and secured them to the USB fixture with some wood glue (because I didn't have any other glue ). I found out the hard way that wiring the ports by soldering to the bottomside of the header (where there are pins) wouldn't properly connect the USB ports. Since I didn't want to break what seems to be a nicely secured port, I went through the horribly tedius and arderous task of re-soldering the wires to the points right on the port (which was a {censored} to do, because I could barely fit my fingers in such a tight space). Nontheless, mission accomplished - my USB ports are working perfectly, and are actually from a 360, which kinda adds to the mod, IMO. I added a fan from a dead PS2 to help cool it a little, though it seems to run quite cool on it's own, so far. I need to run some more extensive tests before I say one way or the other, tho. Here's the RF module; wired up. I cut the traces around the LEDs that I'm using, though they still need to be wired the exact way I have them in order to work right. I'm sure I just haven't cut the right trace or something, though. Here's the install up and running. I had a USB keyboard from an old imac (first gen, iirc), which kinda adds to the mac-ness of the mod. Has 2 USB ports on it, too, though the system probably won't need them, or be able to power too many more Wish I could get the power button on the keyboard to work, but I don't think I can (unless it was a real mac). Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
GhaleonX Posted March 30, 2009 Author Share Posted March 30, 2009 Updated the OP with details about the USB ports I just added Next is to figure out what to do with the memcard ports. I was thinking I could hook up a memcard module so you could plug in a real 360 memcard, but it's not like you can store anything useful (for a PC) on it, nor do I know of a program for OSX to even read it with (which I'll say really sucks for another reason). I'd like to hack up a SD reader instead, and mount a couple ports where the memcards were, but I don't really know how practical I could make that... I'm open to suggestions about what to do with the port, tho I was also thinking about once the case is on - I'll still have a perfect mounting point for a 360 hard drive. I was thinking of making a port for one to plug into, and converting it to USB, etc, which could be cool because you CAN store movies on your 360 hdd, but I don't know how I could go about reading anything from it from within OSX, let alone extract the desired content. Lastly, I've finally decided on what to do about the DVD drive; I'm going Blu-ray with it. Despite the fact that this thing doesn't have an HDMI port (but it's got VGA, and I've got Component cables for the S-Vid port), it can supposedly handle 1080p fine, and definitely handles 720p fine, so given that it's portable and capable, why not spend $140 on a slim blu-ray drive and replace the bezel with one from a 360? Although I was kinda tempted to go with a slot loading one, but I'd lose the bezel look....except now (as I'm typing ) I'm thinking I could just dremel out a slot in a bezel and just mount it (which may or may not look cool). Guess I've got some more thinking to do... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MGJulius Posted March 30, 2009 Share Posted March 30, 2009 Nice Job so far on the project...I'm assuming your using the onboard GMA 950 for the graphics. Keep up the good work and be sure to show the finished masterpiece XD. -MGJulius Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DiaboliK Posted March 30, 2009 Share Posted March 30, 2009 id toss in a sparkle nvidia 9400GT pci in that build w/ a right angle riser. the gma950 is awful. -D- Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
GhaleonX Posted May 12, 2009 Author Share Posted May 12, 2009 id toss in a sparkle nvidia 9400GT pci in that build w/ a right angle riser. the gma950 is awful. -D- Well, I'd have to re-position the hard drive for that, and also possibly remove the room I have for the optical drive. From what I've read, this combo should still work for what I want it for (as I don't plan to use it as a gaming machine, but possibly watch some movies from). If it proves to be insufficient, however, I'll have to figure out some solution. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
booger_sniffer5000 Posted May 12, 2009 Share Posted May 12, 2009 You're putting a computer inside of an XBOX 360 but don't plan to use it for gaming? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
El Massman Posted May 12, 2009 Share Posted May 12, 2009 as a suggestion for the mem unit ports... could you get an old and possibly broken mem unit and mount inside a usb card reader. then it would just be a case of wiring the port to a usb header on the motherboard. so essentially what you have is a small slit dremmeled into the mem card for inserting cards and when plugging it into the "360" it reads the card. i have the same kind of thing that plugs into usb. and i guess since it would essentially just be a usb port with a fancy connection you could use another mem unit and actually mount a usb socket in it so on the odd occasion when you need an extra usb port you just slide in the mem unit and there you go... i hope i've actually explained my idea in a way that's understandable, lol. nice mod. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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