X-Book (XBox Laptop) NOW FEATURING PICTURES!

tom61 · Post by **tom61** » Tue May 06, 2008 8:08 pm

1. Yes and yes.
2. Batteries would make your mod much cooler by making it fully portable. A PicoPSU should be able to provide all the voltages if you get a nice 12V Li-Ion battery pack.
3. This requires a BIOS mod on the original X-Box.
4. Not really. Reminds me of my old crap Lexmark made "Lexbook"
5. Magnets should work
6. Make the pivot stiff
(7.) Fairly thin, about the height of the controller symbols (1,2,3,4) is a common height for slimmed down X-Boxes.

geekbait111 · Post by **geekbait111** » Tue May 06, 2008 8:36 pm

if you added batteries to your X-book, it would suck them dry immediately.

and the X-Book is an okay name...I think?

evilteddy · Post by **evilteddy** » Wed May 07, 2008 4:23 am

definitely replace the hdd (laptop) and chuck the dvd drive (ftp games from another xbox or computer instead).

Power draw is about 50W from memory. Dkaps runs on batteries so its possible.

VGA lcd would look great.

Love the name

Thats about it.

APHawkes · Post by **APHawkes** » Wed May 07, 2008 8:21 am

I'm working on a laptop myself, but if I had the resources to BUY stuff I wouldn't make a laptop at all! I'd make a handheld, which seems perfectly feasible. Main board is about 8"x8.5", and only a few components required to reduce thickness.

If you REALLY want to save space, ditch the HDD and the DVD. Put a mod-chip so you don't need the normal drives. Use a large (removable?) Compact Flash card as a HDD. 32 GB is enough for a few games! If you ditched the moving parts the power draw is fairly low, yes.

If you want VGA output done properly you'll have to hack the bios and put some circuitry for the sync signals (not sure if that monitor will do sync-on-green). More info available at http://xbox-linux.org on that mod. Personally, I'd get a 5"-10" screen that accepts Component inputs and use that. What I'm doing is using a converter box that goes from S-Video to VGA.... not because that's what I recommend, but because that's what I HAD.

Best of luck on yours... while I work on mine as well!

Negative_Creep · Post by **Negative_Creep** » Wed May 07, 2008 10:23 am

1. Afaik No, def. use a laptop hdd though.
2. It will be a bit of a task getting any decent time of the Xbox with a battery
3. No problems there, widescreen isnt much of a nesscity with Xbox1 unlike Xbox 360
4. Yes I do
5. No idea
6. Read 5

tom61 · Post by **tom61** » Wed May 07, 2008 11:47 am

APHawkes wrote:If you REALLY want to save space, ditch the HDD and the DVD. Put a mod-chip so you don't need the normal drives. Use a large (removable?) Compact Flash card as a HDD. 32 GB is enough for a few games! If you ditched the moving parts the power draw is fairly low, yes.

Interesting idea. If Hackmodford is willing to plop down $140 for a 32GB card, that would be rather nice way to go. No worries about shock mounting for the HD, and even smaller.

Helpplease · Post by **Helpplease** » Wed May 07, 2008 12:42 pm

Looks like a lot of people are building/planing on building a xbox laptop, evan i going to build one, hmm maybe i shall remove my "Smallest xbox laptop ever" in my sign... Someone might beat me or i will beat them, let the time decide.

Nice name! Got a nice ring to it.

A laptop harddrive will work just fine after some tinkering with the xbox.
xbox scene got some nice info in thier forum about that.

APHawkes · Post by **APHawkes** » Thu May 08, 2008 12:54 pm

Best way to mod/replace heatsink?
Just replace it! You should be able to use off-the-shelf heatsinks, or modify with different fans. And, you can always cut it down with a hack saw.
How thin in inches could I get it?
I don't think you could go much thinner than about 2", even with all your slim components, if you include screen and all.
Aren't magnets (latch) going to ruin the hardware?
They may scramble the bits on the hard drive. Everything else would be ok, though. If you can keep the hard drive away from the latch then you'll probably be fine.
Are there any good emulators for the xbox?
Of course! I have NES and SNES emulators on mine. There's a few popular emulators for each platform, so try them out and see which you like.
What screen should I use? Widescreen is useless? If I can't get VGA can I get RBG?
Widescreen isn't useless. Standard Xbox will do 720p to component output. That said, most games are only 480p. Some games are only 480i! However, if you intend to use this as a laptop, you should consider what resolution and size you want. It's a personal choice.
The Xbox will output SCART, which is basically RGB, but I'm not sure what good that is to you. People DO use the VGA trick, they just manage to hack their bios to do so.
USB & Controllers I'm thinking that the keyboard will be plugged in the 1st controller port... but what happens if I plug in a controller also? Do I need a switch to turn it off?
Definitely need a switch to turn the keyboard on/off. You should be able to use a DPST or DPDT switch on the power lines of the USB to enable/disable the keyboard. More complicated options exist, but given the level of these questions it's probably a bit out of reach. You could maybe use another port instead of #1?
How do I shock mount a hard drive?
Put some rubber mounts for the hard drive. The idea is to dampen vibrations between the hard drive and the rest of the case. It's a good idea for noise reasons as well.

Neildo_64 · Post by **Neildo_64** » Thu May 08, 2008 1:07 pm

You can download a torrent (xbox emulator pack or something like that) that has like 30 different emulators in it. There is an emulator for just about ANY system you can think of, but they are really hard to find unless you find a torrent with all of them.

evilteddy · Post by **evilteddy** » Fri May 09, 2008 2:45 am

If you want to find xbox programs then search the usual place.

This is the instructions most often given to people on the xbscene forums just search for easy xbins or another way to connect to xbins. Don't be discouraged by list errors its great.

evilteddy · Post by **evilteddy** » Fri May 09, 2008 2:39 pm

Yes you can replace the hdd after (or before) doing a softmod. I could explain how to do it but the xbox scene tutorials are much better. Here's one-link, scroll down to hdd upgrade

LoyalistRevolt · Post by **LoyalistRevolt** » Sat May 10, 2008 9:58 am

I really want to see this work out. How many rechargeable batteries do you think it will take.

timmeh87 · Post by **timmeh87** » Sat May 10, 2008 11:19 am

evilteddy wrote:If you want to find xbox programs then search the usual place.

This is the instructions most often given to people on the xbscene forums just search for easy xbins or another way to connect to xbins. Don't be discouraged by list errors its great.

Lol they changed the listing system. Took me like 5 minutes to figure it out. Helps to read everything in the channel first

.

but yeah, the xbox-scene tutorial is therefore probably a bit outdated.

Post by **Black Six** » Mon May 12, 2008 8:06 pm

Please don't double post. Just edit your previous posts.

evilteddy · Post by **evilteddy** » Tue May 13, 2008 1:52 am

You really dont need a modchip just do a softmod and Dkap spent $200 on his batteries so its not economical.