Running The Xbox Series S On A USB Powerbank

February 17, 2023 by Lewin Day 9 Comments

Home consoles were never intended to be made portable, though enterprising hackers have always pushed the boundaries with various tricks and innovative builds. [Robotanv] hasn’t built a fully handheld Xbox Series S, but he has demonstrated one neat trick: making one run on a USB powerbank.

The project starts with an Anker USB-C powerbank, chosen for its ability to deliver a mighty 140 watts. It’s hooked up to a ZY12PDN USB-C trigger board, which enables the powerbank and tells it which voltage to output. It’s set up to run at 20 volts, which is too much for the Xbox, which prefers 12 volts. The reason for this is that the only way to get the full power out of the powerbank is to run at its maximum voltage. A buck converter is used to step down the voltage to 12 volts.

As for the console itself, a lot of disassembly is required, but minimal modifications. Just two wires connect the power supply to the Xbox’s motherboard. Subbing in your own 12 volt supply here is enough to run the console without any problems.

Running the Xbox off the powerbank, along with an external screen, [Robotanv] is able to play Cyberpunk 2077 for an about hour before the juice runs out. While we’d love to see the whole setup duct-taped together into a ersatz Xbox portable, it would probably be a little messy. [Robotanv] has big plans for the future of the project, though, and we can’t wait to see what those are. Continue reading “Running The Xbox Series S On A USB Powerbank” →

A Look Back At The Xbox 360’s Hard Drive Security

February 11, 2023 by Tom Nardi 31 Comments

Anyone who’s owned a game console from the last couple of generations will tell you that the machines are becoming increasingly like set-top computers — equipped with USB ports, Bluetooth, removable hard drives, and their own online software repositories. But while this overlap theoretically offers considerable benefits, such as the ability to use your own USB controller rather than being stuck with the system’s default, the manufacturers haven’t always been so accommodating.

Take for example the removable hard drive of the Xbox 360. It was a bog standard 2.5″ SATA drive inside a fancy enclosure, but as explained by [Eaton], Microsoft went to considerable lengths to prevent the user from upgrading it themselves. Which wouldn’t have been such a big deal, if the Redmond giant wasn’t putting a huge markup on the things; even in 2005, $99 USD for 20 GBs was highway robbery. Continue reading “A Look Back At The Xbox 360’s Hard Drive Security” →

Rescue That Dead Xbox With An External PSU

December 1, 2022 by Jenny List 13 Comments

There is nothing worse than that sinking feeling as a computer or other device fails just after its warranty has expired. [Robotanv] had it with his Xbox Series S whose power supply failed, and was faced with either an online sourced PSU of uncertain provenance, or a hefty bill from Microsoft for a repair. He chose to do neither, opening up his console and replacing the broken PSU with a generic external model. See the video below the break.

The Xbox appears surprisingly well designed as a modular unit, so accessing and unplugging its PSU was quite easy. To his surprise he found that the connections were simply two wires, positive and negative lines for 12 V. The solution was to find a suitably beefy 12 V supply and wire it up, before continuing gaming.

Beyond that simple description lies a bit more. The original was a 160 W unit so he’s taken a gamble with a 120 W external brick. He’s monitoring its temperature carefully to make sure, but with his gaming it has not been a problem. Then there’s the board wiring, which he appears to have soldered to pads on the PCB. We might have tried to find something that fit the original spade connectors instead, but yet again it hasn’t caused him any problems. We’d be curious to see what has failed in the original PSU. Meanwhile we’re glad to see this Xbox ride again, it’s more than can be said for one belonging to a Hackaday colleague.

Continue reading “Rescue That Dead Xbox With An External PSU” →

Billet Machining A Special Xbox

September 15, 2022 by Jenny List 12 Comments

The world of console modding has delivered us some amazing projects over the years, usually rendering an original into a completely different form factor. [Modified] has done a special bit of console modding on an Xbox Series X, with the unusual result of keeping exactly the same form factor. What makes it special? His Series X has been given a new case, almost identical to the original, but instead of molded plastic it’s machined entirely from a single billet of aluminium stock.

From one perspective it’s a slightly crazy endeavor — pushing the limits of his mill to remove 90% of the stock. But from another it’s an interesting tale of how to approach such a project, of the challenges in reaching further into a workpiece than the tooling is designed for, and also of the cooling for the Xbox itself. Sure he could have made it from aluminium plate and screwed it together, but in doing so he’d have denied us the chance to follow a machining adventure.

The result is an Xbox that’s nominally the same as when it left the factory, but which looks so much cooler. Oddly the aluminum doesn’t act as a heatsink because the console is air-cooled, but particularly on the bottom there are more holes than were found in the original. On the front is an engraving of Master Chief from Halo 2‘s cover art which really puts the finishing touch on the build — though we wonder whether it might benefit from a little resin to make it stand out a bit.

Hungry for more Series X case mods? They don’t come bigger than this one!

Continue reading “Billet Machining A Special Xbox” →

Giant Xbox Series X Works Like A Real One

June 25, 2022 by Lewin Day 10 Comments

Like most home consoles, the Xbox Series X was specifically designed to fit neatly in the average home theater unit. [Michael Pick] thought that wasn’t quite big enough, and set out to build the world’s largest working Xbox Series X himself.

The build was in part inspired by a Microsoft creation: a large fridge in the shape of an Xbox Series X. However, [Michael] wanted to go further, maintaining the gaming functionality and more faithfully recreating details like the divot on the top of the console.

Carefully positioned servos press the Xbox’s buttons

The first step was to build a big wooden frame, with wooden panels screwed on to create the basic form of the console. Creating the lovely curved and perforated top was done by 3D printing a series of pieces that were all glued together to emulate the feature on the real console itself. The back was also given fake giant ports that look just like the real thing.

The real hack is inside, though. The Xbox hardware itself just sits inside the frame on a little shelf. There’s a handful of servo motors set up to press the real console’s buttons when the corresponding buttons are pressed on the giant Xbox itself. It goes a long way to making the build feel “real” to the user.

The final build measures over 2 meters (6.5 feet) tall and 1 meter wide, weighing in at a total of 113 kg (250 lbs). It was good enough to win [Michael] a Guinness World Record for his trouble. The build was later donated to a local youth center in Georgia.

We’ve seen [Michael]’s giant builds before, too; his 300%-sized Nerf Gun was a particular highlight. Video after the break.

Continue reading “Giant Xbox Series X Works Like A Real One” →

Picture of the modification as it's being performed, with an extra chip stacked on top of the original, extra magnet wire connection going to the chip select line pin

Original XBox V1.6 RAM Upgrade Stacks TQFP Chips

June 6, 2022 by Arya Voronova 9 Comments

RAM upgrades for the original XBox have been a popular mod — you could relatively easily bump your RAM from 64MB to 128MB. While it wouldn’t give you any benefit in most games written to expect 64MB, it does help with emulators, game development, and running alternative OSes like Linux. The XBox PCB always had footprints for extra RAM chips, so RAM upgrades were simple – just get some new RAM ICs and solder them onto the board. However, in the hardware revision 1.6, these footprints were removed, and RAM upgrades on v1.6 were always considered impossible.

[Prehistoricman] brings a mod that makes RAM upgrades on v1.6 possible using an old trick from the early days of home computers. He’s stacking new RAM chips on top of the old ones and soldering them on in parallel. The overwhelming majority of the RAM lines are shared between chips, which is what makes this mod possible – all you need to connect to the extra chips is magnet wire for extra RAM chip select lines, which are, thankfully, still available on the board. He shares a tutorial with plenty of illustrations, so it should be easier for you to perform this mod, in case you’re stuck with a newer console that doesn’t have the RAM chip footprints left onboard.

We just covered an original XBox softmodding tutorial, so this is as timely as ever! If you’re looking to read about the 128MB mod, this is a good place to start.

We thank [DjBiohazard] for sharing this with us!

Softmod An Xbox, And Run Your Own Software

June 5, 2022 by Donald Papp 17 Comments

The original Xbox might be old hardware, but that doesn’t mean it’s not worth messing with. Wonder what it takes to softmod an original Xbox? Modding is essentially jailbreaking, and softmodding is doing it using an entirely software-driven process, with no need to crack open the case or mess with electronics.

Don’t let that fool you into thinking the process requires nothing more than pressing a button; it’s actually quite involved, but more accessible now that [ezContents] has published a comprehensive walkthrough for softmodding an original Xbox, complete with loads of screenshots and photos.

The process uses a softmodding tool but that’s only the first step. Making the magic happen comes from installing a carefully crafted save file to the console, booting with an exploited game disk, and then installing software that the manufacturer doesn’t want on the hardware, via a process that the manufacturer doesn’t want to happen. Considering that, it’s expected to have to jump through a few hoops.

Now that your original Xbox is freed from its shackles without having to crack open the case, maybe crack it open anyway and check it for leaking caps and internal RTC batteries before it dies a corrosive death.