HTPC in Xbox (orig.) case

I am building a new HTPC and found an old Xbox case in my basement which got me thinking. Would it be possible to fit an entire HTPC in an original Xbox enclosure? I am an experienced system builder, but have never used a custom case. Has anyone tried this / know someone who has?

I'm planning on using a Zotac ITX motherboard which is 6.7" x 6.7" (smaller than the Xbox motherboard). One thing that concerns me is the power supply. It needs to be very narrow. Has anyone encountered this problem / situation with a PC build?

Thoughts welcome.

If I read the description correctly, one version of those Zotac Ion boards has an external power brick, just like a laptop, that'd be the easiest way to go I think.

edit:
sold out currently but this is the one I was thinking of http://www.newegg.com/Product/Prod [...] 6813500028

Thanks! That site has some great stuff. Now I just need to make sure the processor I use only needs 1 4-pin power plug. The E8400 i was going to use requires 2 I think. But a lower power processor may need just 1.

Here's what I plan to put into it if anyone's interested.

Processor: Intel E7400 2.8 GHz
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Prod [...] 6819115206

Motherboard: ZOTAC GF9300-D-E LGA 775 NVIDIA GeForce 9300 HDMI Mini ITX
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Prod [...] 6813500022

RAM: 2x1GB OCZ platinum

HDD: tbd

Optical: Laptop slimline DVD/CD combo (w/ adapter to standard ATA)

I also plan to connect the front LEDs up to power/hdd activity and use the original power button of course. Haven't decided what to use the eject button for yet.

Can you re-use the stock Xbox optical drive?

There's also the new E6300 that is the same clock speed as the E7400 but has 1mb less L2 cache. It's cheaper.

WTH!....you can do full 1080p on an intel atom...have you done any research at all!...this is going to be a total waste of money if you buy a processor that is several times the power that you actually need....

On Anandtech, there has been several articles about the new Zotac Ion platform. Unfortunately, it has two critical flaws at this time:

#1 It does not support wake-on-USB from S3.
#2 It cannot play Hulu videos smoothly.

Until they work out the kinks with Ion, I would wait.

I never said you should buy an atom just that an 8400 or 7300 are way more than what you need...if you feel like being a moron and wasting cash yeah its your buy and your money

And again i never said the atom platform was a good one or one worth getting...just that it does support full 1080p and its quite a notch down the the 8 and 7 series c2d's....how you people got that i was recommending an atom is quite odd...

He said HTPC...if he plans on doing more he should list that...

You asked for my opinion/thought and im giving that...and someone is bringing up the possibility that you will need extra cpu power..if you think you have what you need all down pat then yippe....usually people try to build cost vs performance htpcs....

Rewind, the whole thing about doing this is for a project. Have you tried to put anything into an old xbox? I dont think you have so, let the man do what he wants, it's a project he's willing to risk going for.

G.L.

External DVD player not a bad idea. Though they're not terribly cheap (>$50). Most are USB powered/connected so that would be a bit funky but do-able.

After a quick browse it seems like I'd have to shell out ~$20 for a slim ATAPI to SATA adaptor card. But I could use my current laptop's drive (which I never use anyways).

Still best case is if I can squeeze a 5.25" drive over the motherboard. I'll have to wait and see. Not sure when I can order the motherboard yet, hopefully within a few days.

....try getting at me with something that actually matters....picking a less powerful or more powerful cpu isn't going to take up more sapce...thats decided by the cpu cooler he will chose troll elsewhere....the suggestions im handing out are very useful but your pointless attempts at criticism are not...

Anyways

i also would recommend using your current laptop drive...there is quite a bit of room between the top of the xbox and its own motherboard i mean they fit an entire drive+brackets there...so you should have more than enough space to set one up....you should look for a low clearance cpu cooler depending on how you seat the motherboard....depending on what you do with the drive i mean you may only use the drive to rip dvds and play everything from your hdd so if the internal one doesn't fit...just run get an external dvd enclosure for the laptop drive and you can run it when you need it....

and yeah you should definitely post some pics on your progress...might entice me to use my spare box

Make sure to keep up the sweet documentation as im definitely interested now...great pictures....make sure to show off the dvd drive bracket modification...

anybody have tried to use Intel Atom N230 for the HTPC?
I like the idea to keep PSU outside of the box very much...and energy efficiency of the Atom... it seems to me that all heavy load of the HTPC is handled not by Atom, but Nvidia graphic processor....
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Prod [...] 6813500028
I would, of course, buy the N330, but it is not yet available as far as i can see...

is not it just a software problem which eventually is going to be solved?
well, i have never used Hulu service myself, so... do not know what I am going to miss....
My Xbox is sitting abandoned since 2003 loaded with Knoppix and Freevo, its PSU fan sounds like a remote highway, I hate it. decTop idea with PSU outside of the box was very nice one... decTop is dead silent.

Unfortunately, due to temporary funding (or lack thereof) problems, I may not be purchasing parts for another week. To recap, the parts I plan on using are as follows:

ZOTAC GF9300-D-E LGA 775 NVIDIA GeForce 9300 HDMI Mini ITX Intel Motherboard
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Prod [...] 6813500022

Intel Pentium E6300 Wolfdale 2.8GHz 2MB L2 Cache LGA 775 65W Dual-Core Processor
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Prod [...] 6819116091


I plan to use the stock CPU cooler because I (hopefully) dont have a clearance problem with the motherboard and I'm not to worried about overheating.
I will measure the power consumption to be sure it is <100W before I purchase the Pico PSU. I feel fairly confident about this, since the processor is rated at 65W + ~20W for the peripherals.

After those have been confirmed to work properly:

picoPSU-150-XT, 102W Power Kit
http://www.mini-box.com/picoPSU-15 [...] egory=1097

Western Digital Caviar SE16 WD6400AAKS 640GB 7200 RPM 16MB Cache SATA 3.0Gb/s 3.5" Internal Hard Drive
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Prod [...] 6822136218

I will certainly update status of this project when parts arrive.

Nice!

Yeah that is a full inch shorter than the 'box.

I'd thought about a blu-ray drive but don't have the cash for that at this time.

As far as reusing the old LCD screen, that would be cool but very tricky.

would it be possible to reuse the XBOX power supply to power the Zotac 9300 board? Is it powerfull enough? It looks like the pin-out might be fairly simple.

Update: doing some investigation of the xbox power supply and comparing it to an ATX one, the connections are not the same and therefore I don't think it would work.

look at the pictures above, there is no fan tied directly to the XBOX PSU

Thanks

After reading the wikipedia page on ATX, it looks like the Xbox PSU could possibly work. All you'd need to do is rewire it. The 24pin connectors are backwards compatible with the 20pin connectors. As long as there is enough power going to the 12V rails then it would probably work. I've also researched other power supply options since I have internal room for a power supply.

I found all sorts of interesting options.
For example:
http://www.fspgroupusa.com/OPEN_FRAME/ITX/fspofitx.asp

Parts are ORDERED.

I know its been a while, but the parts came in and I am almost finished. Below are some pics I took detailing my grueling journey. Put about 12 hours into this project over the weekend...I have all the parts except for the PSU, which will be in this week.



Here you can see I cut the metal insert out for the side and made a hole in the back for the ports. Used tin snips, that metal is surprisingly tough. I also cut through the plastic in the back with a Dremel...that tool was invaluable to this project.





Here's a side view where you can see what I cut a bit better. You can also see the motherboard mounting bracket, which I made with a piece of Plexiglas. I drilled holes for the standoffs and screwed the whole piece down using 3 of the screw holes that were already in the bottom of the case.





I used the same plastic bracket for the hard drive, just cut off all the extra stuff around it to make it a simple box. The front/left is an origional HDD bracket, the top/right is one I modified. This was convenient because it already has all the right holes to screw in the drive. You can see how much stuff I had to trim off, again the Dremel with a cutting bit was used.





Here's the DVD drive bracket, as you can see I cut the right half of it off because it would be over the motherboard. Left is the one I'm using, right is original. The bracket rests on top of the hard drive casing perfectly, so it is still supported sufficiently. Trimmed the extra supports off the bottom as well.






Motherboard installed with hard drive. I plan on securing the HDD bracket to the bottom of the case with some Velcro.






This is a very important thing to note, it's tough to see, but I drilled into the side of the case slightly (at the bottom) and when I set the motherboard I purposely had it hang partway into the "edge" of the case. This is because the DVD drive would not fit due to the RAM being in the way. Struggled with this for a while but this solution works fine. The top/side of the case does not hit the motherboard because it comes down along the very outside of the edge. (though I did have to trim the inside of the cover there were some vertical braces that had to be cut).





\

Everything in the case (except the PicoPSU, that wont arrive until Wednesday)






Shows some of the wiring I did to use the front buttons and lights. If anyone wants to know the pin outs I will gladly post the info just don't have it in front of me.

I was able to get the power button working great. Also I did end up cracking open my DVD drive and soldering wires to the eject button. Then I plugged that into the front eject button on the case and it works like a charm. I don't recommend this for inexperienced electronics users as it is not a great idea to open up your dvd drive and will certainly void any warranty. Hopefully I didn't damage the drive...







the right green side is the power LED and the left red is HDD activity...I think i messed up the pins because the HDD activity light stays on all the time I will have to fix that. MS did some funky stuff to that PCB...








....and liftoff (though I had tested the motherboard when i got it...) boot successful. All I really have left to do is secure the DVD drive, its gonna be a major pain because i cant get it to line up with the opening exactly as the Xbox one did...I am going to have to glue on the XBOX dvd drive plate and do some funky stuff...but I really want it to look right. Probably work on that Wednesday.

Checked power draw and it didn't go above 60W, and that's at the plug so internal is surely less. Only wished I had tested it while playing 1080p HD video. Still, sure to be <150W which is what the PSU is rated at.

Well that's all for now. Hope this interests some people. If there's any part where you want more description or another picture, let me know I will try to help you out.

Awesome project... I'm jealous xD! you MUST post final build pictures... also what is an HTPC <.<