Xbox Hackintosh Casemod

by mkarvonen

63K12255

Intro: Xbox Hackintosh Casemod

This is a Xbox Hackintosh. I had an old and broken xbox so i decided to put a pc in to it and install hackintosh to it. This is a "guide" which gives you the basic idea how to stuff all in there and what parts to use... This is my first instructables and my main language is not english so this might be a little grumby but here it goes...

STEP 1:


First of all your going to need a Xbox to put the pc into. Just open all of the screws from the bottom of the xbox and pull the top up from the console. Once the top is off, pull out the stuff from the inside including the metal frame.

STEP 2: Power Button


If you want to use the Xbox original on/off button, dvd disk opening button and the leds for the power on and the hdd youl have to modificate the Xbox button circuit. This includes some soldering but nothing too hard. First of all you need some wires for the two leds (each on the othed sides of the circuit.) the power and dvd opening button. The each led in the Xbox have two colors Green and Red. You can choose wich one you like. i decided to use green light for the power and red to the hdd. Just solder wires to the leds and for the power and dvd button. If you don't know how the buttons work use a multimeter to work that out.


Once you have solderd the wires to the circuit youl have to cut the copper from the black side of the circuit to make it work. just follow the red lines in the last picture and make sure that it wont lead between the cuts anymore. if you don't do this the buttons wont work.

STEP 3: The Computer

And now for the computer part. The parts i used in this computer are: 250 Gb Hd from an old laptop, Basic DVD drive, small 150W PSU(you can find much much smallers but this was free so , 2Gb DDR2 memory and most importantly Intel D945GCLF2 Mother board. The reasons why i chose that motherboard are:

1.Its cheap (for about 50 Euros)
2. It has got low power intecrated prosessor: Intel atom 1.6Ghz dual core (which is otherwise a surprisingly effective)
3.it supports DDR2 Ram
4.it has got intecrated Graphic card (64 Mb)
5.its small!!

Now you have two choices. Build the computer straight inside the Xbox or build it on to table or something and play with it a little and install the hackintosh right away. i choose to build it on the table and install OSX right a way.

STEP 4: Installing OSX Leobard - to Snow Leobard

First i installed Kalyways edition of the Leobard to te computer. You can find instructions to it from google. After i installed leopard i upgradet it to snow leopard. Also use google for this. Do not try to update OSX via its own updating or youl have to install the whole thing again.(you could also install windows or linux)

STEP 5: Putting Everything to Its Own Place


Now for the tricy part. Try to get all inside Xbox. First of all you have to choose the order of things inside. i choose to put the motherboard to the right end of the chasis and psu to the left side. On top of psu i put the dvd drive because its just on the same height like the original xbox dvd drive. And put the HD somewhere it fits. Cut to the back of the xbox holes for the psu cord and for the mother board I/0 panel.  Screw the motherboard and psu to the chasis whit small screws and tape or glue or something to get the DVD drive to hold in place. Put the top of the chasis back to its original place and put the screws back.

STEP 6: And Its Ready.


Have fun with it.

38 Comments

Treknology 12 years ago

Best use I've seen for an Xbox yet.

avngrboy 12 years ago

maybe im missing something, but how is this the best use for the xbox? Isnt it gutting out the xbox and putting in a pc to run the mac OS. Have you seen the stuff where you can turn the xbox into a Media Center?

coolwithpie 11 years ago

Yeah My friends uncle is a computer guru and he put media center and LAN networking on the xbox. He also put a bunch of games (THAT HE PAID FOR) on it.

mkarvonen 11 years ago

you dont have to be a guru to do that kind of simple thing. been there done that.

mkarvonen 11 years ago

Yes. also moding that console takes about hour. and for bonus you can run linux on it. so its not a big trick about it. you just have to know what you are doing.

coolwithpie 11 years ago

Sorry Im not trashing on your instructable its really cool i just think the xbox is a good media center device

Treknology 12 years ago

In response to everyone who has replied to my comment (below), I would not do this to an xbox, because I would not want to own one. The only way it would come into my possession would be part of a bulk transfer and even if it worked, I would convert it into ANYTHING else, even a front door step.

80$man 12 years ago

This is good, well done! Spotted the Jack Daniels [Jack Dagniels!] is the background!

mkarvonen 12 years ago

Comming this week: How to make a tablet pc out of old laptop!!!

dude300 12 years ago

Not sure if it had allready been addressed but it is snow leopard, not snow leobard but i can see that in the instructable there are both spellings so i assume you are aware,

i congratulate you on your effort converting the language, and with few spelling mistakes, i know if i was to try typing in finnish i would fail and it would not make sense

sinrockets 12 years ago

my xbox i did a few months all the buttons on the front work and ive done a bit of led work too!:D usb in the 3 and 4 player instead of controller ports, running windows xp.

dgleeson 12 years ago

how well does Mac OSX hold up on those specs? is it fully functional? or are some elements missing?

i notice on your picture you dont have the dock... are all the visual themes working? like windows max/min and all that?

canucksgirl 12 years ago

He may have had the dock hidden, which can be done through system preferences. I have mine setup that way and it expands when you mouse over the area. (I use a lot of apps and don't like seeing them all the time.) ;)

mkarvonen 12 years ago

i have the dock in use but you cant see it in the picture. (light reflection in the screen)

leggomylegoeggo 12 years ago

I'm fairly certain that comments (on this site) don't need bumping.

Kryptonite 12 years ago

You'd be surprised how often amazing comments just disappear!

lyxDeslic 12 years ago

I wasn't saying "bump" in the intention of getting this instructable more hits. In all honestly, I don't fully understand the term and I've only seen it used once.

With that being said, I was trying to say

"I am wondering the same thing that dgleeson mentioned in the previous comment about the specs"

in what I previously thought was the shortest term possible.

Thanks for your kind replies anyway!... :-P
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