Xbox ITX

Darryl_1983

Darryl_1983

Darryl_1983

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I've been toying with the idea of getting a Mini ITX system for a couple of weeks now, as i no longer use my pc for anything offer than internet usage and watching movies.
So the plan is to get a zotac 9300 MB, 2x2GB Ram, Blu ray reader and an E5200.

But wasn't sure on which case and psu to go with. Been looking for a while, i do quite like the SG05, but came across an xbox that had a similar system in it. And fancied doing that instead, or at least giving it a go anyway

So after searching i found a faulty xbox for £6.50 + P&P, now awaiting delivery.

Now my problem is fitting everything in, so i'm going to order the MB first so that i can measure up around it. May have to go for a 2.5" HDD, and a slimline Drive, in which case it'll be a DVD drive to save cost for now. My main concern though is fitting a psu in there with everything else and the heat that generates. I think i can fit a shuttle psu in there, but even those are pretty large in conparison to everything else.

Would a picoPSU-120 12V DC-DC ATX PSU with a 110 Watt adaptor be adequate to power this, i've check on one of them power calculators, and it gave around 140W, but i read these can be as much as 100% out?
 
The dimensions of everything is available online, don't need to buy parts first. Mini itx is 17cm square, with the height varying by board. I've seen few which even come close to the 3" the atx specification allows for, many don't rise any higher than the 1.25" I/O panel at the rear.

You can get 150W pico psu's I believe, at almost the same price as the 90W ones. Main difficulty is going to be getting the button on the the front to open the dvd drive, and managing to fit that where the current one is.

360 or xbox btw? The two are different sizes :)
 
The pico-PSU's are pretty impressive. I'm currently using one in my file server with 2x1tb WD greens and a small embedded board (rated at about 40watts) designed for kiosks etc thats running a gig of mem and a 1.6 pentium M. Granted my setup is all relativly low power but as far as I know the Zotac will consume anything upto about 70watts at full load which the 120watt picoPSU should be able to handle with no problem even after you add some HDD's etc.

As you've found, the online calcs are pretty useless lol
 
It's the original xbox that i've gone for. I've already got a 360, hence i no longer use my pc for gaming, i did actually have a faulty 360 a couple of months ago but sold it on. Went for the original as there slightly bigger and cheaper, should allow more room for a hsf.

I've done a bit of playing around in cad with hardware in the box from dims i got from the internet, and there does seem to be plenty of room. But want to double check everything once the board is in place (height of board and lining up the optical drive to open through the original hole may be tight I've not manage to get dimension of its position). If i can get hold of a 150 watt pico psu then my only really concern is with the optical drive at this point. didn't consider the open button to be honest, so glad you mentioned it.

Probably going to mod the case abit to help air flow too, but try to keep it as original looking as possible.
 
not sure if this applies to the 150watt picoPSU but i know witht eh 120 andbelow theres usually warnings NOT to connect a full sized cd/dvd drive to it because they draw too much power. a thinline/laptop style or slotloading drive will be fine though
 
I'll have to look into that then, wouldn't be a major problem if that is the case, just would mean going for a dvd drive instead of the blu ray drive.

I'd be surprised if the 150 watt psu would struggle with that though, i've just been on google searching for psu's and came across a mini itx system on here with a 150 watt psu, that even had a low powered 9600 GT.
 
Darryl_1983 said:
I'll have to look into that then, wouldn't be a major problem if that is the case, just would mean going for a dvd drive instead of the blu ray drive.

I'd be surprised if the 150 watt psu would struggle with that though, i've just been on google searching for psu's and came across a mini itx system on here with a 150 watt psu, that even had a low powered 9600 GT.
Click to expand...

Thats my system and i dont have the 9600gt as of yet, still waiting for it to reach the suppliers, i do have the Zotac board and i can say its uses an absoloute maximum of 81w using a plug in energy meter.
 
Well i've now ordered the board, e5200, and 4gb ram.

Still awaiting the xbox, hoping it'll be here before the weekend, but looking at the dims on the net, i may be able to squeeze a micro atx psu in next to the mb, the outer dimension of the xbox is 320, if the internal cage is around 300, then it should fit, the board being 170, psu being 125.

Going to try and fit my 1tb green wd hdd in there, then measure up vothe optical drive.

Looking forward to doing this now.
 
yeah there pretty much identical in size to the shuttle psu's i've been looking at. It just depends really on the position of the drive bay, I may be able to place a slimline drive over the top of a 1U psu. A Micro ATX PSU would be able to fit behind the slimline drive, leaving me plenty of room underneath for the HDD.

I would like to be able to manage to squeeze a standard form blu ray drive in there, but i think i'd need to go down the pico/external brick route for that, still undecided on a plan of action.

Once the console gets here i can install what i've got and figure out what room i've got left, that should determine which route i go.
 
You could always get a slim-line blu-ray drive, I believe OCUK sell them, they are much more expensive though, depends how far the budget can stretch :S.

Hawker
 
Bah, I've never seen a project like this before, so I decided to put a media pc into an old xbox a couple of months ago, still WIP.

It's such a tight fit in there it's unbelievable. The mini-ITX boards fit in and JUST leave enough room for other components. Cooling is the biggest issue because theres not much room for any intake fans, there are plenty of places for air to get out though.

Also, you lose a bit of room towards the front of the case where the controller ports are. Depending on your modding skills you may be able to fix this problem however.

The biggest issue I have is the TV card. Better off making your own mount for DVD and HDD though, as they are mounted next to each other in standard console, which isn't very space efficient.

Good luck to you though.
 
Little update, after realising my xbox wasn't going to be here for the weekend, i ordered a SG05 for saturday delivery. Just because i really wanted to get on with putting this together, and i liked the SG05 case anyway.

It's now all up and running, currently running at 3.0 ghz with the original intel cooler, but i've only played with this a little and haven't done any serious over clocking yet. It's a suprisingly really cool running system though, given how small the case is. Wire length need sorting out and managing.

Anyway the xbox came in the post today, and i'm still planning on using it to build this pc in. but may convert to using the SG05 on a permanent basis, time will tell though. I may perfer the xbox.
 
Schnoob said:
Bah, I've never seen a project like this before, so I decided to put a media pc into an old xbox a couple of months ago, still WIP.

It's such a tight fit in there it's unbelievable. The mini-ITX boards fit in and JUST leave enough room for other components. Cooling is the biggest issue because theres not much room for any intake fans, there are plenty of places for air to get out though.

Also, you lose a bit of room towards the front of the case where the controller ports are. Depending on your modding skills you may be able to fix this problem however.

The biggest issue I have is the TV card. Better off making your own mount for DVD and HDD though, as they are mounted next to each other in standard console, which isn't very space efficient.

Good luck to you though.
Click to expand...

I've no plans on fitting a tv card into this system. But the plan always was to make my own mounting points for the HDD/DVD drive.

As for cooling, i'm hoping to increase the venting hole around the case, but i've not yet looked at possible ways to achieve this, Was hoping to just dremel between the blocked venting to the sides on the x shape on the top of the console. as for fans and placement, it really depends how much room is available inside and how i can manipulate it to achieve a good flow of air around the system.
 
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