Reminiscent of [Ben Heck]’s portable and laptop console mods, [Bandit5317] over at Xbox-Scene managed to fit the guts of an original Xbox into a custom-built slim case that measures just 2.5 centimeters thick. In his post, he describes some of the difficulties of cutting down a behemoth Xbox to a third of its original size, such as rewiring a custom IDE cable to avoid the extra 1/16-inch it would take to fold a standard one. The case is hand-crafted, (no laser cutter!) no-frills box made of painted polycarbonate, and man is it sexy. It is built off of a v1.4 motherboard running a third-party BIOS and with a 320GB laptop hard drive. Load up XBMC Media Center and you’ve got the slimmest home theater PC on the block.
[thanks FranklyCrafty]
I wonder how cool it runs. X-BOX’s are notoriously hot, but I personally believe most of the problem was Microsoft’ inability to built a proper case, which this guy has replaced.
Very attractive, and good use of existing hardware. However for the “slimmest home theater PC on the block.” one could throw aesthetics out the window and rip the screen off a laptop.
inch-thick package eh? my package is bigger. anyways… cool xbox
hahaha that was awesome
thermal design, anyone…?
making a smaller case, in general, is going to make thermal performance worse, not better. good thermal management is much harder than you’d think
Reminds me of my Popcorn Hour NMT, looks like its cousin. Amazing work, I would also like to add that the original xbox is hands down your best STV Media Center choice by far when considering cost vs performance. $35 for what it can do is unreal.
I recently traded a softmodded xbox with xbmc+loaded with emus and roms (strictly legal ones :) ) for a xbox360 = thats how stoked people are on it.
@zERO
I often suggest this to owners of older laptops with broken screens. It just isn’t cost effective to replace the screen most times.
Omg that looks like sex.
Beautiful work. I’m partial to the blue LED style, and the vents look properly sized where needed. Any info on running temps while playing movies? I’ll check the link when I get to a network that doesn’t block that website.
too bad the xbox XBMC is useless for 720p or even standard def h264 vids.
@na:
h264 plays fine, as long as it isn’t above 640×480. my old xbox is what i would watch all my anime on, way back when, since i only had a p2 laptop at the time.
“Predictably, it doesn’t exactly run cool. The CPU idles at 100*F and the GPU at 120*F, even with the GPU heatsink fan running at 12v. In games the CPU runs around 130*F and the GPU hits 140*F.”
@na
Xbmc is capable of playing some 720p material flawlessly, I don’t remember it exactly, but the videos needs to be formatted a certain way. I remember finding videos in this format. I watched some planet earth 720p.
I don’t see how you could make it any smaller. using an aluminum case as a heat sink would be interesting.
Holy crap! I though Xbox modding was dead, but man that makes me wanna try it.
@na
@36chambers
xbmc is capable of playing practically anything you can throw at it. the issue is not the software, but the hardware. the original xbox is severely limited in what it can play.
Countdown to the RROD begins….
We’re sorry we cant honor your warranty as the system has been tampered with or modified.
@evilincarnate: Lawl, RROD jokes! You have any about lolcats or portal?
@evilincarnate
Umm, Xbox. Not Xbox 360…
As in the older – truly arse-huge XBox.
Uh… “I just didn’t have the room to fold the cable to make the 90* turn. It may have only added 1/16″, but that was too much, so I rewired it with a 90* turn.”
Timing issues with HDD transfers, anyone?
I think slimmest home theater PC still has to go to the popcorn hour… albeit it can’t play games it does full 1080p video, streaming, surfing, and supports a bazillion formats.
@ngth – seeing as you can get IDE cables of varying lengths, I can’t see it being an issue.
I was {search|hunt|look}ing for something {similar to|like} this {the other da|yesterda|recentl}y.
Wow! Just wondering how much that would cost me? Really interested in buying. Maybe with Red LEDs? Let me know. Thanks.
Anyone know how this ‘box is powered? I can see a coaxial jack in the top right of the image, but how is this converted and regulated to the voltages required by an xBox?