a lot of Xbox quesions (want to make a laptop)

mdmfootball82 · Post by **mdmfootball82** » Wed Jun 20, 2007 7:08 pm

Hey guys I have a lot of questions so bare with me here I'm pretty much a noob with all this stuff, but I'm good with LCD's and electronics. So here goes nothing...

1) I heard you can put the a Hitachi drive into an xbox would that make a large difference?

2) How large of an LCD so I be looking at for an xbox laptop, 15.4" wide or a 17" wide?

3) Is there a mod chip out there that upscales the xbox to like 720p output or anything like that? I read that somewhere.

4) this may sound dumb but is the board in the xbox as big (length, and width wise) as the xbox?

5) Is it going to be hard to keep to keep this under/around 3" thick because the xbox is pretty huge, and has anyone built one before?

Thanks for the help I'm going to need all the help I can get!

Kurt_ · Post by **Kurt_** » Wed Jun 20, 2007 7:13 pm

Xboxes are big, require lots of power, and are BIG.

Don't expect to make a portable you can hold. Try for a backpack or suitcase portable xbox.

mdmfootball82 · Post by **mdmfootball82** » Wed Jun 20, 2007 7:21 pm

would this work better with a PS2 (the older one)? I have both so I could use either one.

timmeh87 · Post by **timmeh87** » Wed Jun 20, 2007 10:54 pm

1) You only need to upgrade if you are getting disc errors and the laser tweak didnt work. The only advantage to an unmodded xbox is that it replaces a broken old drive (but you can read burned discs better)

2) however large you want. not much difference btwn 15 and 17. you have to plan it all out and see what suits your design

3) I haven't heard of one... on a side note, can someone explain to me why upscaling is so great? I dont think i get what it is, cause if you are just stretching the image larger... it wouldn't make the quality any better.

4) its as deep as the xbox, but not quite as wide (the power supply takes up the last 4 inches on one side)

5) yes. yes.

specter539 · Post by **specter539** » Thu Jun 21, 2007 10:24 am

if you were to look at a normal laptop, the xbox board would be smaller than that. it is relatively square, the heatsink is the tallest item and can be cut down. the powersupply is huge and should be seperate the laptop (like ben did with the 360) im also doing this so ill try to help you as i go

OprahDust · Post by **OprahDust** » Thu Jun 21, 2007 10:32 am

i had to fix the laser in my friends xbox a couple days ago and lemme just say... the mother board and power supply are HUGE... like, the mobo and power supply together are the same size as the xbox case

mdmfootball82 · Post by **mdmfootball82** » Thu Jun 21, 2007 2:39 pm

specter539 wrote:if you were to look at a normal laptop, the xbox board would be smaller than that. it is relatively square, the heatsink is the tallest item and can be cut down. the powersupply is huge and should be seperate the laptop (like ben did with the 360) im also doing this so ill try to help you as i go

Is the power supply on the original xbox inside or outside the box? Also can i take the heatsink off and put on like a water cooling thing like ben did?

specter539 · Post by **specter539** » Thu Jun 21, 2007 6:08 pm

i think its on the outside, or he might have made his own. I didn't want to make my own because it would really take a long time, and be a waste. What i will be doing is cutting the 12 wire connector and the molex and extending them so that i can run the power supply in a radio shack enclosure away from the laptop itself (with the lcd screen powerboard).
i think that water cooling might be pointless in a normal xbox but the heatsink is pretty big. i just plan to cut it in half. i already desoldered the caps and layed them flat. I have to do it over again tho, cause all im getting is like the first 3 secs of the xbox load screen and then it freezes.
also i plan to run the xbox off a laptop harddrive. i have one but i think its only like 2 gigs

mdmfootball82 · Post by **mdmfootball82** » Thu Jun 21, 2007 8:46 pm

specter539 wrote:i think its on the outside, or he might have made his own. I didn't want to make my own because it would really take a long time, and be a waste. What i will be doing is cutting the 12 wire connector and the molex and extending them so that i can run the power supply in a radio shack enclosure away from the laptop itself (with the lcd screen powerboard).
i think that water cooling might be pointless in a normal xbox but the heatsink is pretty big. i just plan to cut it in half. i already desoldered the caps and layed them flat. I have to do it over again tho, cause all im getting is like the first 3 secs of the xbox load screen and then it freezes.
also i plan to run the xbox off a laptop harddrive. i have one but i think its only like 2 gigs

Yeah im planning on using a 2.5" laptop hard drive too, im thinking like 20 or 40gb's so I can load music on it. I found a cheap water cooling system so I think I'll do that because t will be be smaller than having a heatsink in there. Keep me updated though!

specter539 · Post by **specter539** » Fri Jun 22, 2007 7:15 pm

you need to make sure to get a mod chip if you want to run a diff drive, and a 2.5" converter for the lappy hd. as for liquid cooling i say use at your own risk, and then post a tut on how to make it cause id like to see how ya did it. did you decide on a screen yet? i think im gonna try to get one of the ones that ben used (the westinghouse i think) and i have no clue how ill be making the case. for my project im gonna be trying to follow bens plans for the 360, but for the xbox. hopefully when im done ill be able to sell it. so far a laid the caps flat to the board and decided i needed a mod chip before i did anything else that was useful.

mdmfootball82 · Post by **mdmfootball82** » Fri Jun 22, 2007 9:16 pm

specter539 wrote:you need to make sure to get a mod chip if you want to run a diff drive, and a 2.5" converter for the lappy hd. as for liquid cooling i say use at your own risk, and then post a tut on how to make it cause id like to see how ya did it. did you decide on a screen yet? i think im gonna try to get one of the ones that ben used (the westinghouse i think) and i have no clue how ill be making the case. for my project im gonna be trying to follow bens plans for the 360, but for the xbox. hopefully when im done ill be able to sell it. so far a laid the caps flat to the board and decided i needed a mod chip before i did anything else that was useful.

Yeah I'm pretty sure i'm going to use this LCD its a 17" widescreen its nice, its CHEAP, and it has VGA and DVI. Yeah I know the liquid cooling is a risk but I'm good with computer CPU's and cooling so I should be fine (should being the main word there

). Do you think you could measure the xbox's board and tell me how big it is? I'm trying to make a mock up of how I will do it on google sketch-up but I need to know about how big the board is (I'll post it for every to look at when im done with the mock up)

BlackWaterOp · Post by **BlackWaterOp** » Fri Jun 22, 2007 9:46 pm

I didn't take the time to read everyone's posts, but to answer some of your questions..

-the Xbox MOBO is roughly 8" square

-I'm guessing the Hitachi drive ytou mean is the Hitachi/LG drive which came in a very limited number of Xbox's. It is not any better than the res, the Samsung 605B (has to be ver.B) is the best IMO

-The modchip doesn't regulate the HD output, the dashboard does. Currently ( as far as I know) only XBMC (Xbox Media Center) runs 1080i. You can download it free from IRC and the newest version is a replica of the 360 dashboard.

-As far as thickness, I built a "Slimbox" (9" square design with no DVD and the PSU is mounted inverted on top of the MOBO and a Laptop HDD is used) that is just over 3" tall.

specter539 · Post by **specter539** » Mon Jun 25, 2007 10:49 am

i was gonna get that monitor for christmas. lol ive stopped in the progress of my portable because i need to relocate the caps (on a different board) buy a modchip, laptop harddrive and a monitor. i didnt want to do any more before i got all this stuff. when i get it i can keep you posted. the mobo is pretty much square. i think it is 8" so ill just take his word on it.

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a lot of Xbox quesions (want to make a laptop)

a lot of Xbox quesions (want to make a laptop)

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