The front side USB connections will go to the keyboard / extra USB ports while the rear port will be used with the Wi-Fi module.Įxtended hard drive SATA and power connector. You might also noticed I’ve also removed the front USB and memory card slots at this point. (That’s the cool, hip, geek slang term for capacitor you know) There are also several wound torrid coils on the board (yellowish things to the lower right of the tall heat sink) that would be a real pain to move so I left those standing as “the highest things on the motherboard” Still it’s not too bad, with the exception of the power port on the back nothing is more than 1/2″ above the motherboard now. Oh well.Ībove you can see the board with the flattened caps. In most cases I had to extend their leads to make this work. (black cylinders in above photo) As with many systems I’ve worked on, I de-soldered them all and reattached them laying flat. Anyway, I looked over the motherboard to see what could be “flattened” to make the thing thinner (Heat sinks didn’t count as I was planning to replace them with water-cooling) The obvious choice were the numerous large electrolytic caps. Half the time was looking for my lost Torx bits, until I realized there were some in my precious ratcheting screwdriver.
Using a handy “how-to” on the Internet I had the thing taken apart in under 10 minutes.
I didn’t even test it out – I mean why bother? I’ve played quite a bit of 360 already, I was more interested in the guts of the thing. However, this accurately represents the workflow, more so than other articles I’ve written.Īfter FINALLY snagging the 360 I brought it home and immediately tore it apart. Please note, this story was assembled as I worked on the device (as opposed to afterwards like I usually do) so sometimes it will branch off in different directions and have the topic shift rapidly. Now I could get to work! (I hope the CHIP SMASHERS don’t get me) I hightailed it out of there, vowing never to return.
Several years passed by, but I finally had the Xbox 360 free and clear. Sadly, only my side of this conversation is exaggerated. While I won’t mention the game store I stopped at by name, I will recreate the amazing conversation I had with one of their employees… With my first batch of “venture capital” in hand I ran off to the nearby store to get myself an Xbox 360 Super Package, or whatever the $400 version is called. (I say videogame project as I highly doubt I’ll ever manage anything as complex as Port Washington again, though at times this project sucked my will to live about as much) A friend of mine asked back in May “Can you build an Xbox 360 laptop?” And I responded “Sure, can you pay for it?” He agreed, and thus I set forth on what was surely to be my most complex and insanely ridiculous videogame project yet.