Hi everyone, I have a new Project I am about to start and the whole idea of the project is for it to be a massive overkill The inspiration comes from ozzylow's xbox 360 slim rehoused in the Lian Li PC - Q08B. The case is I am going to use is the BitFenix Prodigy Mini-ITX case. http://www.bitfenix.com/global/en/products/chassis/prodigy/ i have opted for the black colour The case is 250 x 404 x 359mm so slightly taller than the original Xbox Slim case and wider. The width will allow me to fit in the LC and extra fans. I have ordered 3 x Fractal Design 120mm Silent Series R2 Case Fans and a Corsair CWCH80 Hydro Series H80 High Performance Liquid CPU Cooler The fans are only 15.0dBA @ 1200 rpm. I want the case to be as quiet as possible when its on but as cool as possible. The liquid cooling should be a challenge to mount to the mobo - I want to use the stock Xbox X-clamp underneath.. maybe I will be able to modify the stock mount to gain a few mm. The XSPC Xbox slim waterblacks are 67 x 67mm so I figure i only need to drill slightly. The Xbox is currently in the process of being RGH'ed. Ive just bought a Panel Mounted Toggle Safety Switch to switch between the NAND's which I will mount somewhere on the case. For the record I buy ALL of my games, I just use JTAG/RGH to play custom content on Skyrim etc. I have had a look into Slot Loading the DVD tray. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eU0ijmtCbsU Its a lot of fiddling/ trial & error and I need to figure out if its going to be worth it! It would be super cool to have a slot loader on the front of the case.
I took the side panels off the case and removed some of the internal stuff... pulled out the HDD cage etc... the PSU cage was riveted in. In order to remove it it had to be drilled out. The cage is made of the same metal as the case so I will use that to make a backplate to fill the PSU gap. I mounted the Fractal silent fans using the rubber mounts. One as an exhaust in the roof, another as an exhaust at the back and an intake blowing through the LC radiator at the front. I am wondering if it will be a problem having only one intake? Especially as the intake would blow through the warm LC radiator? the back needs quite some filling to cover the space for the motherboard PSU. PSU filled ... I used the PSU filter provided with the case as a grill to cover the motherboard port hole The case is prepped ready for the motherboard. Cant wait to for the xbox to finish RGH process to get started properly on this. Should be sometime this week.
The box has finally finished the RGH process and some real progress can be made now. Stripped the Xbox Slim down, it will be mounted like a PC motherboard, I think I'm going to make a custom mount and then mount that to the PC Case. The standard Xbox metal case will be taken off so it will look much better. This is the position I am going to mount the motherboard.
Removed the ugly Xbox cage from the motherboard. Heatsink removed RGH using Xecuter CoolRunner v3 Lite CR3, I have ordered the Slim Xecuter DemoN and corona adaptor so that I can dual boot NAND's and still use Xbox live and the RGH on the same machine. Removed the thermal paste Im going to start with the LC first. I have the option of using the INTEL mounting brackets (which use 4 screws) or the AMD ones (which use 2 screws) both come with the Corsair H80. I decide to go for the AMD - it will make mounting the block much easier. Just getting an idea of how I am going to do this. The sizes are quite different. Without standoff's, I think it will be hard to keep a good amount of pressure on the Xclamp without crushing the CPU chip. I want to ensure the LC is as efficient as possible.
After much umming And ahhing, I decide that the best way to mount the block at a 45° angle. In order to get the X-clamp to give as much pressure as possible, I use two screws to hold down the redundant X-clamp feet and then mount the block onto the other two. I use a nut tightened to the front of the mobo to take some of the added pressure off the CPU - effectively acting as the CPU standoff's would do. X-clamp has good pressure on the underneath Close for comfort The block is in reality quite large for the Xbox Mobo - but this is in keeping with the whole idea of this project - to be an overkill I guess.
Overkill... Maybe, maybe not. Love the idea, will be nice to see it finished.... Shame about the uglyness of the xbox board though. Looking forward to more.
Thanks for the nice messages! Im not sure yet, I will see how much free time I have after this project. Got to work hooking the LC up. Everything connected, its time for a test run. I dont have a dashboard to tell me the temps yet, but I will post as soon as I know them! The Xecuter DemoN board has arrived. Very nice packaging!
I ordered a xbox 360 slim motherboard jig off ebay. I will mount this to the case and then the motherboard will be mounted to the jig.
The Motherboard has been mounted in the case. I Cut ports for power and HDMI so I could give the set up a test. I will cut the rest of the ports later. Running custom dashboard. Temps are quite low, although I haven't got the roof exhaust fan in and the second LC fan. Its quite possible that the finished product will get lower temps. Skyrim LED's on - they are running at 12V at the moment. They will all run at 5V for the finished product to give a softer intensity The next challenge will be mounting the DVD drive and getting the buttons on the case connected. The Xbox DVD drive is longer than standard drives and could pose a problem for space with the roof fan. I plan to use the BitFenix optical drive bezel that comes with the case for the front of the optical drive to give things a nice finish.
