XBOX / Windows xp Laptop

[chico85224@aol.com]

hey i am a new user and i came across your xbox 360 laptop while searching for how to repair a broken xbox nic and let me tell you that thing was pure genius and microsoft should buy your idea from you for a bagillion dollars and start mass producing those things imediatly.

but the real reason i am here is because i was searching to see if i could get windows xp onto my regular xbox frankly i dont wanna mess up my 360 lol. and it seems that it may be possible but it would be way to slow and not worth the time. but then i was thinking if you take the mother board from the xbox and one from a computer or laptop and maby place them on top of each other the top one upside down of course and have them contained into one case with an lcd monitor and something sorta like a kvm switch to switch between the pc and xbox. then of course integrate an keyboard and a laptop mouse "pad" into it. but also for the power supply use a notebook battery so its good to go. get like a controller and cut the cord short so its not all tangled up when your playing with it on your lap. and integrate a wireless card into the xbox half so you get the wifi. cause wouldnt that be cool to role up to the local star Bucks and bust that bad boy out and start playing halo 2 right there then when your done type up that research paper for your science class all in the same trip at the press of a button or flip of a switch.

so give me your thoughts on this, and if you think it can be done at a resonable price.

[Rellizate]

Can it be done? Yes.
Easy? No way.
Cheap? No way.

Hope that helps.

[nubie]

Here is the lowdown. Yes you could do exactly what you described, for about $1,000-2,000 if you did all the work yourself. Less ($500-1,000) if you did it the way I describe here, it involves sacrificing a bit, but the end outcome is cooler I think:

For the first way you need a screen, and a Via embedded ITX motherboard, trust me they scream on XP with enough RAM, not for gaming mind you, but isn't that why the Xbox?

But I invision a real Xbox as the actual Laptop, just lose the DVD or switch it for a laptop unit (I know, no more booting actual Xbox games that way, just make backups or rip them to the Hdd). Then use a Laptop HDD and lose the PSU, you will have to make a replacement PSU, I would suggest possibly one of those power bricks for external use of a hard drive, they make 5 and 12 volts. Looks like an Xbox needs 3.3 volts as well ( http://pinouts.ru/Game/xbox_power_pinout.shtml ), it would probably be a good idea to test exactly how much power it uses on each line. I forgot, use a Pico-PSU, ( http://www.mini-box.com/picoPSU-60-WI?sc=8&category=13 ) problem solved.

Using Laptop drives simplifies things because they only use 5volt power, unlike the original Xbox (or a desktop PC), which use 12 volts to spin the drives. You could even go nuts and use a flash drive (AKA compactflash), instead of the hard drive, but that is expensive and would cost a lot more (a LOT more). 1.8" HDD are available on ebay, you want the ones that are like shorter laptop HDDs, not the ones from an Ipod, they work, but the adapter is bulky.

Then fill the PSU space with NiMH D-Cells or AA cells or those Li-Ions and use that for power.

The lid would start at the line on the front that runs under the CD faceplate, it would hinge away from there and you would have a sweet lid.

So it would be a real X-box, and if you can ditch XP and use XDSL (X Damn Small Linux), it has Firefox, and Linux is cooler than XP anyway, and that would be the point of the Project right? Actually a dual-boot mod-chip with 2 hard drives, one with a real linux Distro, and one with the Xbox stuff on it would be smashing. I know you would be without a CD drive, but you still have networking.

I would suggest this as a cool option, you can get 128MB Xbox Motherboards pretty easily, and they would help Linux run better.

Just modding the Xbox to output VGA would enable pretty much any LCD monitor to work, then for Linux you just have a switch so it will detect VGA output (different from gaming in VGA).

So there you go, ditch the PSU, use smaller drives, add a pico-psu, cut the top off for a lid, put an LCD in it. Then you can use a mini USB keyboard under the lid and you are set.

To get more space you can lose the X-Box shielding, replace with a stick-on shield, and cut down the stand-offs to lower the motherboard in the case. The heatsink can be switched for an all-copper low profile unit with some arctic silver, and the GPU/NB can probably use a low-profile VGA heatsink.

[Bibin]

He probably wants XP so he can run more supported and available software.

[Talon55]

Hey guys, new to this site... but i love it


question is what happens when you use a different dvd-rom drive, like from a computer,

wouldn't there be no way to rip it to the hd using that Drive... cause it wont be able to read the actual disc....

i ask becaus i'm thinking of building something similar

P.S. what could we use for a shorter heatsink? how would we attach it

ive got a few spare box's so i'll have to check it out...

55

[lifeisbetterwithketchup]

He probably wants XP so he can run more supported and available software.

If he wants to do that, he could use ReactOS(It's still in alpha, but looks very promising).