Xbox 360 ATX power supply

posted Jan 5th 2006 2:00am by Eliot Phillips
filed under: xbox hacks

power supply

Reader Ran Mokady took a pretty big gamble with this project, but didn’t really have any other choice: his power supply was broken and he couldn’t get a replacement. He ended up replacing it with a standard ATX power supply. Follow along for all of the details.

For anyone who is having problems with their Xbox 360 power supply, or who (like me) have managed to end up with a burnt out PSU and can’t get a replacement, here’s how I managed to run the console off a standard ATX computer power supply.

The added advantage for me, living in a 220V country and having bought a 110V console from Japan is that I no longer need a huge stepdown transformer to run my console.

I have been running my console off a 250W computer PSU for a week now with no problems

Related: Xbox 360 Hacks, Xbox Hacks

Comments [137]

Reader Comments

intresting. but you might want to use a different rail for each power connection since power supplys are not designed for or capable of sending all of its power across one rail.

Posted at 2:47 pm on Jan 5th, 2006 by duffman3030

That’s great… a even BIGGER xbox power supply!
all in all, that’s a great hack

Posted at 2:50 pm on Jan 5th, 2006 by Justin wong

Cool tip.. but do yourself a favor and invest in some heatshrink tubing…
That electrical tape looks pretty gnarly ;)

Posted at 2:50 pm on Jan 5th, 2006 by daniel

What about the blue wire? Did you leave it disconnected?

Posted at 2:52 pm on Jan 5th, 2006 by tnkgrl

Why wasn’t replacement an option?

Posted at 3:05 pm on Jan 5th, 2006 by Joshua Holbrook

Thanks for the tip duffman3030.

tnkgrl – Yes, I left the blue wire disconnected. I suspect (but can’t prove) that it is used to wake up the original xbox psu in some way.

Posted at 3:05 pm on Jan 5th, 2006 by Ran mokady

Replacement wasn’t an option because no one sells spares at the moment and because I imported the xbox from Japan so the cost of sending it back would have been prohibitive. The added advantage is that I now have a 220V psu where the original was 110V. Last but not least, this was much more fun…!

Posted at 3:13 pm on Jan 5th, 2006 by Ran mokady

maybe pin 14 should be hooked to the blue cable. If the blue cable goes to ground maybe it “wakes up” the power supply.

Posted at 3:20 pm on Jan 5th, 2006 by jungec

All I can say is you’re brave… I’d worry to much to try any type of hack on an expensive machine like that.

Posted at 3:31 pm on Jan 5th, 2006 by Pedersencato

A Japanese Xbox 360? Crazy!

Posted at 4:49 pm on Jan 5th, 2006 by Joshua Holbrook

Would a original xbox psu be able to have enough to power a 360?

Posted at 4:56 pm on Jan 5th, 2006 by justin pierringer

Ever hear of heatshrink tubing? Wicked dirty job on that cable. It’s beautiful!

Posted at 5:13 pm on Jan 5th, 2006 by Pocketbrain

What was wrong with the power supply? Would it not have just been easier to fix the PSU in the xbox? I understand that fixing the PSU that came with the the would not be very hackish. But perhaps it would have saved you some time?

Posted at 6:13 pm on Jan 5th, 2006 by brandon kinman

I looked at a US powersupply i believe it showed 5 amps at 120 volts so fallowing watts law volts times amps
120*5 should be around 500 watts or so you might want to get a bigger psu also you might be able to wake up the psu by connecting green psu to blue xbox hopefully that will work.

Posted at 6:27 pm on Jan 5th, 2006 by Mike

I do believe you are suppose to use a resistor between the green and ground on an ATX. But I agree, hooking the blue to the green may be beneficial (or maybe not).

Posted at 6:40 pm on Jan 5th, 2006 by hawkeyeaz1

LoL Japanese Sexbox,
They hate the original,
+10 points for Ghettoness
+10 Points for drunk luck
+10 points for Dirty cabling
-10 points for faulty sexbox
-10 points for getting a sexbox free-sex-ty
-10 points for not using different rails.
+1,000,000 points for buying imports (w00t)

Nice hack, Keep it up, now i wanna see an original sexbox with water or phase change cooling, and i wanna see UNIX or Linux botting on its fast(ish) hardware (3 IBM power PC cores, low latency speedy ram, Sata DVD drive)

Posted at 6:42 pm on Jan 5th, 2006 by Mrgreen

@11

Usually a dead psu indicates components critically failing, occasionally accompanied by smoke and frequently followed by much cursing.

Posted at 6:50 pm on Jan 5th, 2006 by CaptSnuffy

mrgreen – Someone is already selling a 360 watercooling kit.

Congrats on getting it to work, ran, it takes balls to just hope that the red and yellow wires are 5v and 12v respectively. Glad it worked out.

Posted at 7:59 pm on Jan 5th, 2006 by tiuk

I agree with most of what’s been said about getting a beefier PSU and connecting to multiple rails. What I’d probably do is go to your nearest electronic supply and invest in some male molex drive connectors, enough so you would have one for each of a given color. Crimp those on your Xbox psu cable and split the load among seperate connectors on your ATX PSU. I’d also investigate that blue wire as well. It’s unlikely that it’s exactly the kind of signal the green wire of your AXT PSU needs to power-on, but you may be able to come up with a circuit which would give you what you need. All likelihood has it that it’s momentarily shorted to ground when you press the power button on the Xbox, so you’ll need to make a circuit which will, when that switch is closed, ground the green wire and keep it that way. It may also serve to put the PSU to sleep as well so take that into consideration.

Posted at 8:33 pm on Jan 5th, 2006 by Mr. Spork

below are some good resources for atx power supply modification, with varying sophistication and technical depth:

http://web2.murraystate.edu/andy.batts/ps/powersupply.htm
http://wiki.ehow.com/Convert-a-Computer-ATX-Power-Supply-to-a-Lab-Power-Supply
http://www.instructables.com/ex/i/D5FC00DAB9B110289B50001143E7E506/?ALLSTEPS

naturally, i checked past hacks only <caps>AFTER</caps> submitting the above to the hackaday tipline (thinking i had something that had not been featured). sorry eliot

Posted at 9:17 pm on Jan 5th, 2006 by Steve

Take a look in almost all 350W psu’s there is only a single 12V rail, all of the wires connect to the same area on the board.

Also the xbox is only specced at ~200W, DC 12V 16.5A, 5V 1A.

The 12V rail takes a fair amount of current however, hopefully the atx psu used has a decent 12v rail. So either keep the wires as short as possible, or maybe even double up the wiring (atx cable is rated for about 16A when used in those lengths).

Posted at 9:57 pm on Jan 5th, 2006 by jap

To fix the PSU you would’ve needed to know something about the PSU – this way you only need to know anything except the voltage and the fact that it’s a DC current.

Posted at 10:17 pm on Jan 5th, 2006 by Nevyn

BE CAREFUL!!
Check the manufacturer of your power supply!
Dell Power supplies have a different wiring scheme on their power supplies. Failure to recognize the differences could potentially result in serious hardware damage.
Standard ATX: http://pinouts.ru/data/atxpower_pinout.shtml
Dell ATX: http://pinouts.ru/data/dell_atxpower_pinout.shtml

Posted at 11:42 pm on Jan 5th, 2006 by steve diraddo

tnx diraddo for your post. When my old dell’s power supply broke I could not find a replacement. Good thing, my friend knows someone who could. Now, I just need a generic atx, wire cutting and stripping tool, and heatshrink tubing.

Posted at 12:23 am on Jan 6th, 2006 by emmanuel Caballero

Great job. I am like everyone else I would have been chicken to “try” to fix it and risk blowing it up! Jap is right, most power supplies common up all of the taps.

Posted at 12:41 am on Jan 6th, 2006 by Alan

The AC power in Japan is actually 100V. Maybe supplying 110V to the power supply led to it’s failure? Although many switching power supplies I’ve come across have a wide input voltage range like 100-240V 50/60Hz. Helps the manufacturers keep costs down by only needing one model.

Posted at 12:46 am on Jan 6th, 2006 by brian

admin@hack360.com

Posted at 1:28 am on Jan 6th, 2006 by BrutalMutant

nice mod, looks like somthing i would try :) someone mentioned the need of a resistor, i highly doubt it, i ran a machine with 2 psu’s for over 3 months in a simialr config. while i was getting a cpu replaced i had to run my 6800 gt in a box that had a 250watt psu, (it was a gutted dell board and propritary psu and i couldnt easily upgrade it) so i wired a PSU to always on and hooked it up to my vid card and the other psu up to the mainboard, worked with out a hitch for atleast a month with no issues. id say your all set.
-Wobble

ps. electrial tape is great screw heat shrink :)

Posted at 3:55 am on Jan 6th, 2006 by Wobble

OLD NEWS

Many of us have been running consoles off ATX PSU’s for a long time. Hell, I ran my Gamecube off an old 450w Antec Truepower for over a year because I left the PSU at my parents place, 200 miles away. I’d hardly consider this a ‘hack’. Scraping the barrel, I’d say….

Posted at 5:24 am on Jan 6th, 2006 by Liam

the post about the dell power supply is wrong, at least for all new dells. they comply with the atx standard now. and all the taps come off the same spot in a psu if you have ever opened one up, the limitations would be the current capacity of the wire as long as it is at least 18 gauge he should be fine. I would just hold the “new” wire in your hand and make sure it isnt getting too warm, if not you will be fine

Posted at 8:51 am on Jan 6th, 2006 by notch

mr green-

hardocp did a homebrew water cooling solution for the 360, looks pretty cool for an aftermarket mod.

http://www.hardocp.com/article.html?art=OTM5

Posted at 9:02 am on Jan 6th, 2006 by zipperseven

hey, whoever posted that second post justin wang, wennier, whatever the hell your name is, shut the hell up. he didnt do it to be cool, he did it because he had no other power supply to work with. dumbass

Posted at 10:23 am on Jan 6th, 2006 by chase snyder

great work! all we need now is someone to hack the 360’s PSU to use with a computer…

Posted at 11:41 am on Jan 6th, 2006 by andrew sim

Nice hack; at least someone had the balls to try it :)

As for not being able to buy a replacment psu anywhere.. I wouldn’t say that either… Ebay is a good place.. I’m currently selling one there ;)

http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=8248866566

Posted at 12:11 pm on Jan 6th, 2006 by appleguru

Hey let me first thank u for this, i have my 360 power supply not working too when i start up my 360 the menu would come up but when ever i try putting in the DVD or Game the system would turn off try it with my friends power supply and it worked. i do have a ATX power supply and i do think it’s 250 too . ganna try this out!!

Posted at 12:23 pm on Jan 6th, 2006 by Tifose

i seem to remember that the 360 psu brick had a fan/fans, maybe the blue wire is some kind of control for that…

Posted at 12:59 pm on Jan 6th, 2006 by mtxf

to zipperseven and tiuk, yes i have seen this, but i dont accept it because it looks so proffesional- i want ghetto!

Posted at 1:05 pm on Jan 6th, 2006 by Mrgreen

“i seem to remember that the 360 psu brick had a fan/fans” there is no fans in the power supply i did open my own

Posted at 2:04 pm on Jan 6th, 2006 by Tifose

very nice! computer PSUs are a good idea since they don’t overheat easily. since XBOX 360 only uses 12v and 5v and 136 watts, it would be possible to use one of the older PSUs from a pentium or something because they use a real power switch instead of a clicky switch so you don’t have to worry about the green wire and stuff. they also ouput 12v and 5v at 150 watts which, if i’m rigt about XBOX 360 taking 136 watts, should be enough

Posted at 5:21 pm on Jan 6th, 2006 by daguuy

OmG I HaD A pOwEr SuPpLy OnCe!!
NoT On A xBoX ThO

Posted at 7:15 pm on Jan 6th, 2006 by j0hnnywest

so what about the blue wire…is it a trigger switch to power the psu…i dunno this may be answered in the comments

Posted at 11:03 pm on Jan 6th, 2006 by pimpmaul69

ok so on the blue wire check for dc voltage output while powered off then try it powered on…that will tell you if it is power for psu’s fans if there are or supposed to be there….and to check if it powers on the psu then run a continuity test…put one bar to the cables ground and one to the blue wire and with the psu turned off press the power button…if you get a quick connection then this means you need to connect the blue wire to pin number 14

Posted at 11:33 pm on Jan 6th, 2006 by pimpmaul69

oh and one more note…if you do it the way this guy did install a pushbutton on the psu and attach pin 13 and 14 to it…YOU DO NOT WANT A CONSTANT POWER TO GROUND!!!!!!!…you will fry the psu eventually

Posted at 11:38 pm on Jan 6th, 2006 by pimpmaul69

I’m sorry pimpmail, but you’re wrong.
Shorting the green pin (14) to any ground (13 is closest) will NOT fry the PSU. The ATX specification calls for this pin to be shorted constantly anyways, it’s how the computer you type on stays on. The blue wire is usually for negative 12 volts (-12), it should be connected but I’d check an actual power supply from a 360 first. This wire could also be a vsense wire to check the status of the voltages coming from the supply itself, but I’m willing to be on -12 volts.

Posted at 11:58 pm on Jan 6th, 2006 by Dan

even if that is so about the jumping of the 2 wires…even though a mobo does have resistance between the two and it is safer that way it is irrelavent to how i told him how to test the blue wire…a continuity test will answer if it is for turning on the psu just by pressing the power button on the xbox

Posted at 12:50 am on Jan 7th, 2006 by pimpmaul69

did this hack all worked and powered up but the main system lights all flashed red ???? so still i cant play my xbox360 i used a atx psu 230 volts was this correct??? also my dvd tray wouldnt open is this a power issue ???pls reply to my e mail thxs stacehughes16@hotmail.com

Posted at 10:42 am on Jan 7th, 2006 by stace

Coudln’t you go to radioshack and buy an simple on/off switch, attach the blue wire to the positive, black wire to the negative which would allow you create a circuit in which you could turn the PSU on/off at will. Isn’t this what few of you are suggesting. Cool workaround tho.

Posted at 4:34 am on Jan 8th, 2006 by Aaron

hi there so i did the atx power pack thing great stuff but my xbox360 all the lights when i power it up flash red around the on button??? and it wont open my dvd tray?? is there not enough power going ttrough it ??? im using a 230 volt atx psu ??? pls help i follewed the wireing in the diagram so its all good apart from that ?

Posted at 5:15 am on Jan 8th, 2006 by stace

Posted at 5:16 am on Jan 8th, 2006 by stace

stace – I had the red light thing initially when I didn’t have all the wires connected or when I wasn’t providing enough juice – I tried this on my lab PSU first which didn’t have enough power to run the box and gave the red light thing. Make sure it’s all connected. Also I’m using a 250W PSU – 230 sounds marginal as as far as I know the number quoted is always peak.

Posted at 5:36 pm on Jan 8th, 2006 by Ran Mokady

someone above claimed to have the first water colled 360. when in fact the first water cooled system was sold on ebay. im not trying to be rude in this matter. the system they put out dose look much nicer, they did a great job. but to say your the first when your not, just dosnt seem right to me.

http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=8243459780

Posted at 6:12 pm on Jan 8th, 2006 by generalxsl

so do i need a 250v atx psu for it to power fully ??? pls help

Posted at 12:40 am on Jan 10th, 2006 by stace

Once you fix any bugs you might want to post this info on xbox-scene, manly because I’ve got offers to sell my psu for up to $400. And well a lot of people over there could really use this info.

Posted at 10:14 am on Jan 10th, 2006 by C187

Does anyone have the Pin-out for the power connector on the back of the Xbox 360 itself? I don’t have the original psu to splice the cable with.

Posted at 2:15 am on Jan 11th, 2006 by natexris

Did ur X360 PSU make weird noises? If so, i have a problem…
Because mine makes weird noises all the time…

Posted at 3:14 pm on Jan 11th, 2006 by ltddevil

did anyone get this atx psu to work there xbox360 cos i follewed all the wireing and mine just lights up all red around teh ring so it doesnt even work can anyone verfiy apart from the poster that it works cos mine dont wont even open the dvd try….

Posted at 4:51 am on Jan 14th, 2006 by stace

The red lights thing can be caused by not having your av lead in correctly.
But I doubt the atx supply works as natexris has requested the pinouts and yet they don’t appear. How hard is it to meter a chopped cable!

Posted at 11:16 am on Jan 14th, 2006 by Disbeliever

I did exactly what you did and follow your instructions, and my XBOX 360 is now working perfectly. I got a reasonable price ATX power supply with a 14mm fan and on/off switch at the box, some shrink tube and spent 35 minutes desoldering and solder the new thing on. It is so much better than the old PSU. I put some silicon adhesive stopper at the bottom of the PSU and wa la! Thanks heaps.

Posted at 1:51 am on Jan 15th, 2006 by eyefullofstars

damm what am i doing wrong then ??? im using a 400 watt atx power supply unit all wired good and it just lights up ??? do i need to use a certain output lead from my atx unit or can i use anyone of the hard disk power points or the dvd 4 pin connecters ?? i also have my video lead in and it still doesnt do anything help pls ???

Posted at 9:14 am on Jan 15th, 2006 by stace

To the guy who done this power supply hack…Could you please give me the pin layout of the xbox360 power connections as I need to make my own power supply and need to change the connector too….

Posted at 1:51 pm on Jan 16th, 2006 by Warrior

To the guy who done this power supply hack…Could you please give me the pin layout of the xbox360 power connections as I need to make my own power supply and need to change the connector too….

Posted at 1:55 pm on Jan 16th, 2006 by Warrior

I’ve water cooled an xbox 360 and it’s lovely and silent. I can post pics if you like

Posted at 3:50 am on Jan 17th, 2006 by David

i got jap xbox 360 and just plugged it into the uk mains and it works fine, so no need for all that messing if you asked me,

Posted at 1:59 pm on Jan 17th, 2006 by lee

I have found out the pinouts myself so if anyone else wants to know have a look here….

http://krisbox.free.fr/atxto360.GIF

Posted at 6:40 pm on Jan 18th, 2006 by Warrior

Nice one warrior.

Stace check the amps on your 12V line as atx supplies tend to range from 8a to 17a.
I know 10a aint enough should really be aiming for 17a. Best Ive scrounged is 15a upto yet.
Might try blowing up my 360 again the weekend!

Posted at 1:50 pm on Jan 19th, 2006 by disbeliever

ok thxs prolly what ive done is used the wrong connection point like ive prolly used a 8amp instead of a 17 amp power connection point so ill wire my 300 watt atx power unit again tonight and just try all the connections on it ….is that agood idea cos i know i have done all the wires correct it just wont do anything i get power and dvd try opens but wont close and the rings of light all flash red i had my av cable in and still flashes all red ????? its a brand new xbox from canada and im in the uk i only played on it 2 times how bad is that haha anyone offer any help ???

Posted at 10:09 am on Jan 24th, 2006 by stace

ran hi can you please send me a detailed photo section picture by picture on how and what correct wires to make this work with atx power supply pls send to my e mail thxs buddy

Posted at 8:21 am on Jan 25th, 2006 by stace

WELL I FINALLY GAVE IN AND BOUGHT A NEW XBOX360 CORE SYSTEM FROM EBAY SO IM GONNA TAKE OUT THE POWER PACK AND KEEP FOR MYSELF AND JUST STORE OR SELL THE CONSOLE AND OTHER ITEMS WITH IT ANYONE INTRESTED IN THE CONSOLE DROP ME A LINE ITS BRAND NEW REGION 1 USA/CANADA WITH RECIPT FROM BESTBUY STACEHUGHES16@HOTMAIL.COM ILL BE SELLING IT FOR 150 DOLLERS OR 150 POUND UK

Posted at 3:28 pm on Jan 25th, 2006 by stace

WHOOPS I MEANT 150 UK POUNDS

Posted at 3:30 pm on Jan 25th, 2006 by stace

i know how to copy xbox360 games wahoooo totally by eroor…take the dvd drive and plugs from the main board in the xbox360 and insert the xbox360 dvd tray into a pc with the microsoft leads patch them up and volia it will read the xbox games to you hard drive using a well known program then burn onto dvd-9 dual layer disks complete cloned copy i cant tell program here but pls e mail me ill will tell u

Posted at 8:13 am on Jan 27th, 2006 by stace

Hi, could someone give me the power supply specs of the japanese version of xbox360? my country uses 220v and i would like to know wat stepdown transformer should i get. thanks

Posted at 4:21 am on Feb 5th, 2006 by xp

So anyone have a detailed diagram on how to do this yet because it seems there was some discretion over the first. Thanks.

Posted at 7:02 pm on Feb 5th, 2006 by bklyncyclones

Hi i have the same issue flashing red light and im using a 600 watt power supply, any help?

Posted at 5:32 am on Feb 21st, 2006 by Gaurav

Ran, if you’re from Israel please contact me: nissanp@zahav.net.il
Thanx in advance, Nissan

Posted at 8:56 am on Feb 25th, 2006 by Nissan patael

this is great! i fried my psu couple weeks ago because my wifey inputted to a 220v .. was about to buy the psu from ebay but tried ran’s blog. tx a many!

Posted at 6:29 pm on Mar 4th, 2006 by bluespice

I have done this twice now. Once for mine and once for a friend. Both were Japanese models. This Rocks. You should really be using 250w as minimum.
As for the blue cable. It is not for sleep mode. As mine goes into sleep mode and I can turn it back on with the remote control. Who knows what the blue wire is for send an email to Billy G :).

Posted at 12:47 am on Mar 8th, 2006 by jasinister

i have tried 4 different ATX power supplys and all make my 360 flash red i now put a 550 watt new fancy power pack on all wired and joined blue to 12v- and all is working spot on ???
can someone with more knowledge confirm the blue wire please..

Posted at 11:28 am on Mar 9th, 2006 by tecelecs

ok as my post # 75.. too early to say… my powersupply of 350watt atx just died on me…

Posted at 11:11 am on Mar 11th, 2006 by bluespice

O dude this is a great hack man and it works i tried it just cause i got a little too bored anyways man thanks for the help

Posted at 12:59 am on Mar 12th, 2006 by sgteversmann

i recently purchased a xbox 360 from US and went back to India to use it, I screwed up by using a cheap 230 to 110 v converter, it burnt up, Lucky for me – I had not connected the xbox while attempting this,

I decided to open this unit and found a come some components burnt within.- may be capicitors-

Here I am stuck, and checked with this blog, I am going to try this out.. atleast there is an alternative-

Thx

Posted at 6:11 pm on Mar 24th, 2006 by RAMESH

Hi All,

I finally fixed my microsoft psu, I had to replace a few compnoents which were burnt up, and it works cool, will give the exact details of components replaced.

Posted at 10:57 pm on Mar 29th, 2006 by RAMESH

My PSU is fails because something mistake from 220V convert to 110V. Now i use this solution ATX PSU but the xbox show three flashlight.
I not sure about the problem.

Pls tell me for it. (I use ATX2 PSU)

Posted at 7:50 am on Apr 3rd, 2006 by ariyatape

Good on ya keep up the mods…

This kinda stuff is great for the ppl who get imported consoles that have different PSU’s (lol like me being too pov to buy a 360 here so i got a jap one)

Damn imports are cheap lol

Posted at 6:48 am on Apr 13th, 2006 by jimmy

Hi Everyone.
I bought a Jap XBOX 360 and i think i blew the psu. I live in India and had to use a voltage converter, which i think blew my psu.
Has anyone tried opening the psu and tried to fix it? If so can you please let me know.
Would really appreciate any reply.

Posted at 2:31 am on Apr 24th, 2006 by Kiran

Posted at 2:48 am on Apr 24th, 2006 by Kiran

Posted at 3:01 am on Apr 24th, 2006 by Kiran

Posted at 3:17 am on Apr 24th, 2006 by Kiran

Unfortunatly my bro connected the 110v psu directly without convertor to our commecial 220v power, and since then the xbox never powered on of course.

What to do now? there are no psu avilable here?

Posted at 12:13 pm on Apr 27th, 2006 by Range06

I actually did the 220 gig connection myself, I kind of feel like an ideot, question is did the screw up the xbox what does the exp say ?

Posted at 1:32 pm on May 5th, 2006 by Zeev Glozman

Stationed in Europe but I have a 110 Xbox. A friend plugged it in to 220 and fried it. Would it be safe to say all I need is a new power supply in the Xbox and all should be fine? The power surge wouldn’t have touched the board and the mod chip, would it? Just checking before I buy a new power supply. If I need more, I want to buy all at one time. Thanks… Patrick.Quenga@us.army.mil please send comments there…easier to get them…cya!

Posted at 1:58 pm on Jun 21st, 2006 by Patrick

HOW I PLACE A SOURCE ATX IN MY XBOX 360? THE TUTORIAL ONE OF THE SITE IS MISSED? IT APPEARS 3 RED LIGHTS WITH INSTALLED SOURCE ATX

Posted at 1:11 pm on Jun 23rd, 2006 by alexandre from brazil

i used a power converter for my 360 that went from 110 to 220 . the converter blew up after 1/2 hour but nothing happened to my brick . are ther any good converters that i can use so it feels like im playing on a 110 outlet so it dosnt switch off? swantonbomber@gmail.com

Posted at 7:47 pm on Jun 27th, 2006 by kunaal j

I used the transformer that i used for the original xbox and it blew up after 20 minutes,the best one that i could find{as i live in pakistan}was the X-b360 by PantherLord,it gives you 2 hours of play and then it heats up,just let it cool down for 30 minutes or so and play again.

any suggestions for transformers that can take the load of the 360 and play atleast for 5-7 horus without heating up

Posted at 3:21 am on Jun 30th, 2006 by frak

i did all this staff, but i have my xbox360 flashing red light.
i don’t know what’s wrong on it. Although all the connection is right.
notice that i used 400w

Posted at 4:17 pm on Jul 10th, 2006 by demon

I have bought a Japanese xbox 360 and live in Australia(240V). I was wondering are all xbox 360s internally the same with just the power supply box being different or are the 110V models different to the 240V models.

Posted at 1:38 am on Jul 13th, 2006 by James

Ok, my power supply went out YESTERDAY, so I rolled the dice and tried to do this and, IT WORKS!!! I mean I have the thing up and running and looks pretty much exactly like how you have it in the picture there. Here’s my question though:

Is this safe? I mean do I really not have anything to worry about in terms of the power supply overheating, 360 being ruined in some way, or of course the worst case scenario, starting an electrical fire because of the psu being modified?

I tend to think that since it’s done, and it works, it should be ok. I’m really not worried about it, one reason why I’m really not worried is because I’m not a hardcore 5 hour straight type player. I play for an hour or 2 at most consecutively so I really don’t think overheating should be an issue.

I just wanted to write though and see what everyone thinks about the “safety” factor in doing this. I feel really good about the fact that it’s actually up and running, I guess I just need a little reassurance in the safety part of it. Thanks for any input!

Posted at 7:37 pm on Jul 19th, 2006 by MATT

great hack…but what about heating issues ??

Posted at 2:37 am on Jul 20th, 2006 by kratosh

I tried the hack but i cant seem to get it to work…

now the xbox is lighting up but im gettin 3 red lights all the time i have tried all the various things mentioned in the posts

any help ?

Posted at 12:25 pm on Jul 25th, 2006 by nikhil

do u connect to one black from the molex or both ?

Posted at 2:04 pm on Jul 25th, 2006 by nikhil

great mod, risky,but if it works i dont question it. anyone know how to take the psu apart for the 360 cause then you could try to replace the psu with the atx inside the 360 psu case

Posted at 5:50 pm on Aug 8th, 2006 by Chris

my power supply is not fully work when i press my computer on switch then its show the yellow light what can i do

Posted at 11:21 am on Aug 13th, 2006 by liaqat

What if your XBOX360 power brick did NOT come with the NOTCHED AC power cord? Can you mod a standard 3-prong PC power cable & put a notch in it, or ?? Any help appreciated.

Posted at 3:49 pm on Aug 14th, 2006 by Ferraci Corse

I need your help / comments / suggestions. I live in India and got my X-Box 360 last week from the US.

So I plug it in to my 220v suppy and the x-box dosnt come on. I come to my senses and now use a step-down transformer. It still dosnt work. Too late ? Did i goof up the x-box or just the adapter? Will appreciate any inputs / experiences/ next steps.

Thanks – I want to play Call of Duty 2 ASAP.

Posted at 4:54 pm on Aug 14th, 2006 by aNGRYBOY

#102 answer : me again & i’ll answer my own question. while waiting for M$ to get back with me on why a notched cable was missing from my 360, i took a dremel to a standard AC power cable, notched it, plugged it in and everything worked perfect.

Posted at 3:11 pm on Aug 15th, 2006 by ferraci corse

Went out and bought another 360 since mine was out of warranty, so I didn’t have anything to lose. Ripped up the old power supply and followed the steps, but it didn’t work on the damaged system, but neither did a new Microsoft power supply. It did work on the new system, and I will use it as my power supply from now on.

A few comments:

I took the advice of the guy who said not to use the single set of hard drive wires (rails) for the entire connector cable. Instead, I clipped the whole motherboard cable and spliced color-for-color (black to black, yellow to yellow, red to red) on the Xbox cable, except for Pins 13 and 14, which I followed the directions on.

It works great. I even managed to hook up a couple of ATX case fans to the power supply, which are behind the 360 blowing out all of the heat. It’s cool as a cucumber!

Posted at 12:39 pm on Aug 16th, 2006 by Jimmygobble

great thing
my problem is that i dont have any original cable or power suply
can you say me to which pin the colourse go at the xbox?

sorry 4 my bad english

Posted at 2:00 pm on Aug 16th, 2006 by LillC

great thing
my problem is that i dont have any original cable or power suply
can you say me to which pin the colourse go at the xbox?

sorry 4 my bad english

Posted at 2:00 pm on Aug 16th, 2006 by LillC

i did the same thing using the pc power box to run a xbox 360 – my 360 power supply blew and it will cost 130 bucks for a new one – so i just got a friend to do the wiring and it works – its louder but at lease it plays all good

Posted at 4:38 pm on Feb 24th, 2007 by Russ

i backtraced the blue wire in a Dragon 360 PSU
http://dragonslayer.myftp.org/images/xbox360/PSU/Dragon/bluewire_Dragon_PSU.gif
the blue wire is Labeled “PWR-EN” on PCB and the same in my shematic

Posted at 10:33 am on Feb 28th, 2007 by DragonSlayer

Excellent hack .. my brick got burnt and i couldnt get it anywhere .. only difference in the steps was .. i connected all 4 yellow wires to 4 seperate wires on smps and 4 blacks on 4 seperate wires on smps .. before when i tried connecting all 4 yellow wires onto a single hdd connectors yellow wire .. xbox was showing red light .. now all well and working.. great hack thanks

Posted at 1:49 am on Apr 4th, 2007 by Sree

04-19-2007 (1 and 1/4 plus years after the first post)
So way more than a year since your post about adapting an ATX power supply to replace the woefully inept xbox 360 power supply, your post verifies my untried solution to this problem.
My son owns the xbox 360. My expertise started 30 years ago with Digital Equipment Corp. supporting refrigerator-sized analog to digital data acquisition computers. Thank GOD someone can still read a schematic, owns a pair of Dykes, and knows how to use a soldering iron!
The power supply I’m sending him is appreciably larger than the 250-watt supply you used, but I have it in stock.
I APPLAUDE YOU:
- For having the knowledge to try this
- For having the nads to try this
- And for using readily available parts to make it work

I find it somewhat incredulous that Microsoft has not addressed this problem, knowing their vast knowledge of hardware design and manufacturing.
I guess this is the hardware equivalent to every X.0 version of operating system or application software Microsoft has made us suffer through.

Most importantly, thank you for your adaptive expertise!

Sincerely,

Steve

Posted at 2:55 am on Apr 19th, 2007 by Steve

Ok, I have a problem…

I’m living in a VERY SMALL town in North Eastern Thailand so it’s hard to come by parts here….. I purchased a 450w ATX PS and cut every cable on the thing… I jumped the green cable with a black one and the ps powers up every time, no problems. I connected each of the wires from the XBOX 360 to the ATX PS seperately….all 4 black to 4 black, 4 yellow to 4 yellow, 1 red to 1 red, and the shield to another black….turned it on and works for a few minutes then the PS turns off…

I plug the PS in to power but not the XBOX and it powers on fine, then plug it in to the XBOX and the PS turns off…..voltages are all the same now as before….I let it sit overnight so I’ll test it again…one note though, one of the heatsinks inside the PS got VERY hot very fast….not sure if the PS is shutting down due to heat, any ideas?

Please send any suggestions to my email….john.lara1(at)gmail.com

Posted at 9:19 am on Apr 22nd, 2007 by John

I tried this hack and worked fine for 30 minutes then after i turned off the xbox360 and while unplugging the power cable from the xbox360, a frying smell came out of the xbox.
And each time i connect it, a frying smell comes out.
And i am sure all the connections are correct.
Can anyone help me ?

Posted at 5:56 pm on May 6th, 2007 by Shiko

There are two black wires on the molex connector and four on the 360 power cord. How do I connect them? Please help!

Posted at 6:06 pm on May 14th, 2007 by Ramy

i need to see the pics help me ??? will not come up on the web page it is 06-4-07 at 1:00 am

Posted at 1:01 am on Jun 4th, 2007 by carmen volpe

Does anyone have any ideas/thoughts on rigging a computer PSU straight to the XBOX360 w/o even using the power cable from a dead power brick??

Posted at 11:23 pm on Jun 23rd, 2007 by Alton Vandiver

I make an ATX connector, and here is a semi-tutorial.

http://forums.xbox-scene.com/index.php?showtopic=616981

Posted at 2:49 am on Aug 12th, 2007 by Jinto

Can someone please email this to me in a word document or something as my browser wont load any of the pictures so its harder to understand, cheers

Posted at 10:50 am on Sep 23rd, 2007 by Ben

pls could someone send me the diagram. mine couldn’t open. my e-mail: nonso123@yahoo.co.uk

Posted at 8:15 am on Oct 11th, 2007 by Nonso

Hey did you use only one Molex connector or did you distributed it along several. Also did you soldered the cables?

Plz be more specific: A lot of detail.

Thx

Posted at 6:04 pm on Oct 12th, 2007 by calcinator

Wow thanks for the idea on this. I am in Nigeria and zapped my PSU first thing when I plugged it in here. It is very hard to get a Xbox PSU here, and to have one shipped would take several weeks if not longer, so i decided to give the ATX power supply a shot… works perfect!!!! only I did it with a pair of scissors and some finger nail clippers!!! I count myself lucky i was able to find a power an atx power supply here!

Thanks for the instructions!!!

Posted at 11:48 am on Oct 17th, 2007 by FlybyTex

I tried this great hack ! Used a spare 400w rated atx supply I had and it works a treat ! thanks :)

Posted at 1:11 pm on Dec 12th, 2007 by redplunger

stace, do not worry about correction, as it made sence in the previous message

over here they also use the word pound as well as pounds, (slang really but understandable all the same)

Posted at 9:59 pm on Dec 12th, 2007 by supermorph

if its atx that wouldnt work aaron, good idea but it would need to be a switch that returns to form,

as if u bought that switch u mensioned, think of the case of a pc with atx psu, if u press the button for 4 seconds the system turns off,
(this would be the same theory)
but good idea.

Posted at 10:03 pm on Dec 12th, 2007 by supermorph

Cool hack it’s perfectly working

i bring Xbox 360 from USA to Czech republic only with 112V power supply. With thise i have european xbox :).. Thank’s a lot

etc: in my power suply cable (between xbox and power) i have 1 red, 1 blue, 3 black, 3 yellow.

if samebody looking for atx schema is there
http://pinouts.ru/Power/atxpower_pinout.shtml

Posted at 3:23 pm on Dec 19th, 2007 by honza

hey i know im going to sound like a retard but wat is a psu cable if its just the power cord for the computer then i should be good but i tried to fix my power brick and i did first the fan went out then i just took the plastic casing off and put a fan pointed at it then the coil resister in side it got loose and i fixed that then the last time i tryied to solder it it got fried so if u could help me its been a whole 3 months since ive played halo 3 or assassins creed and i must play them and if u could tell me wat a psu is and kinda go into definintion about it so i can be sure i dont want to ruin my 360

Posted at 11:02 pm on Dec 31st, 2007 by chris engle

ohhh and wats a atx i must know

Posted at 11:03 pm on Dec 31st, 2007 by chris engle

I am an american trapped in North Africa for two months. I brought my xbox 360 and all my games with me to keep me company. What do I have to do to run it down here, powerwise? Everything runs on 220V two prong, south europe/north africa power. Any idea’s? I’m desperate.

Posted at 5:39 pm on Mar 14th, 2008 by James Rodd

btw it actually works with an 100w atx powersupply

Posted at 10:11 am on Mar 20th, 2008 by Chris

Thank you for the info on how to do this. A friend smoked a 360 power supply by plugging it into 220v. We took the advice of soldering individual wires together instead of grouping them & it works fine. We did not try the blue wire wire for the power on signal, we were happy with flipping the switch on the power supply. Thanks again for taking the plunge on this & sharing the experience.

Posted at 11:03 am on Mar 25th, 2008 by blipside

#128 – Buy an adapter? You should be able to get one from an electronics store.

Or like anywhere, department stores and the like, look around.

Posted at 10:09 pm on Mar 29th, 2008 by Tinoski

well, i think it is a decent idea, in iraq i bought an xbox with the 110v rating and it never turnd on, it would be easier just to open it and replace the fuse in the psu then put it on a stepdown converter, because like where ever you are, im too am in a 220w world, and it sucks

Posted at 11:06 am on Apr 19th, 2008 by john

im gonna give this a try since im not paying $100 for a 3rd party power cord that will break, i have a voltage tester that i can use to test the voltage of all the pins before i hook the xbox to it, so im gona risk it

Posted at 4:14 pm on Jul 3rd, 2008 by NTComputer86

yo! I tried this nice little hack and it works perfectly, but wolden’t it make more sense to add like a tyoe of cut off source to the ATX instead of connecting the black and green wire together so you dont waste as much power.

Posted at 11:00 pm on Aug 30th, 2008 by Erik

i am not able to see the picture. can anyone mail me at rohitsood12@yahoo.com

Posted at 10:09 am on Nov 11th, 2008 by sood

hey i bought an american xbox 360 and i’m trying to use it in ireland. i plugged it in using a converter but it tripped the whole room and the psu is definetly fried.

but is my xbox??? i don’t want to mess about with the wires.. can i just buy a psu that’ll work with an irish socket? any suggestions??
thanks!
Irelandsgirl1157@yahoo.com

Posted at 9:23 am on Nov 17th, 2008 by Katie

oh my god this hack is a life saver thank you very much for the tutorial… im running on a 230 watt supply with a max out put of 120 watts… working just fine so far but the output watts 203 on my original brick and now the power is reduced… taking small steps to reduce energy haha

Posted at 11:43 am on Jul 19th, 2009 by brax

Xbox 360 ATX power supply

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