Xbox 360 ATX Power Supply

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

144 thoughts on “Xbox 360 ATX Power Supply

  1. 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.

  2. 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.

  3. #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.

  4. 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!

  5. 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

  6. 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

  7. 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

  8. 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

  9. 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 ?

  10. 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!!!

  11. 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.

  12. 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

  13. 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.

  14. 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.

  15. 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

  16. 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

  17. 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.

  18. 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

  19. 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

  20. During a power outage (quite common where I live) I hooked up my generator to put out 220 (to run my well pump). Testing the board, I had 110 on each side, just like it should, but throwing a load against it, it would push 220 to both sides. In the process of figuring out why the lights were so bright, I fried 3 xbox 360 psus, and a handful of other electronics (2 tv psus and a few peices of stereo equipment)

    I replaced the psu in my comp to a 650watt a while back and kept the 250 watt that came in it. Hooking it up purple wire for 5 volts didnt work, looked this up, found out about grounding the green wire, since then, one xbox is back and running. Works flawlessly, as long as you first turn off the power supply before plugging the xbox in.

    Now this leaves 2 other xboxs that need power and no extra atx psus laying around. My one question is, using a 12v car battery hooked on a 15amp charger, I could run all three from a central location. How could I get the 5 volt without using the atx psu? (I believe if I did, I would have to ground the psu and the battery together, which wouldn’t work… would it?)

    Any input or other ideas for xbox 360 psus would be amazing… crunchyjedi@hotmail.com

  21. Hi guys first of all I can’t see the diagram
    can one off you email to me
    I got Xbox 1.0 with 12 pin socket color codes are
    1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12
    ylw-red-red-red-org-purp-blk-blk-blk-blk-grn-gry

    so I vant to use a ATX power supply but I’m not sure which color wire to use for pin#6-11-12 help me out please

  22. ATX PSU’s only have 1x 5V thats why he only used 1 rail.
    The blue xbox pin can not be used without some extra components and work, therefore the PSU has to be manually turned on.
    You should have connected the 3 xbox black pins to 3 different ATX black pins for a better ground.

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