How to replace Xbox 360 PSU with ATX PSU

How to replace Xbox 360 PSU with ATX PSU
Follow along for all of the details.



For anyone who is having problems with their Xbox 360 power supply, or who (like me) have managed to end up with a burnt out PSU and can’t get a replacement, here’s how I managed to run the console off a standard ATX computer power supply.

The added advantage for me, living in a 220V country and having bought a 110V console from Japan is that I no longer need a huge stepdown transformer to run my console.

I have been running my console off a 250W computer PSU for a week now with no problems – of course there are no guarantees and if you decide to do what I did I accept no responsibility for what happens, the only thing I know for sure is that it worked for me.

Here’s what I did:

Cut the Cable

If you cut the Xbox power cable (I cut mine near the power supply to leave me with the maximum length of cable) and peel back the grey sleeve, the shielding and the internal black sleeve you will see 10 wires running through the cable. 4 Yellow, 4 Black, Red and Blue cut cable



A quick continuity check showed that all the black wires were connected together as were all the yellow ones. The Xbox PSU says on it it produced 12V and 5V so I decided to be brave and assume that the color coding on the Xbox cable was the same as the one on an ATX (PC) power supply.

Connect It Up

Find an ATX power supply. The one I had was rated at 250W, the Xbox PSU says 203W on it – so I figured it should be ok.

I cut the wires of one of the hard disk type connectors and connected them to the Xbox cable –


* Black to all the black wires from the Xbox cable
* Yellow to all the yellow wires from the Xbox cable
* Red to the red wire from the Xbox cable



Rig ATX Power Supply to Power Up

In order to get an ATX power supply to power up you have to connect pin 14 (the green wire) of the large ATX power connector to ground.

Cut the green wire from pin 14 and the ground (black) wire from pin 13 and connect them together.



Connect Cable to Xbox 360 and go..

Connected the power cable to the Xbox, power the PSU up and then the Xbox and you have a working xbox 360 running off an atx power supply.

How to disassemble and reassemble a xbox 360

I suggest that you find a xbox 360 that you dont care about to take apart so just in case something happens its not a big deal. Also this does void your warranty and iam not at fault if you mess up!

Tools needed
T8
T10
Small thin rod or small "minus head" screw driver
"plus headed" screw driver(If you want to take apart your dvd drive)


1st. Is to take everything off you xbox 360(Cables,wif fi adapter,ect.)

2nd. Take off your xbox 360 face plate 

3rd. Take off the top grills on your xbox 360. To take them off(I start on the top 1st) Bend the front of it just so much then get a small rod or small screw driver and stick it in through the small air holes on the top/bottom xbox 360. Make sure to do it on both sides and both of them. 

There will be 3 of them that you have to push on both sides and on top and bottom to get your gril plates off. Here are where they are.

4th. Do the same thing for the bottom

5th. Flip your xbox 360 up side down.

6th. Get a small "minus" head screw diver and put it under the hook and while pushing down slowly on it push up genitally up so that they can become un hooked.(Do that for all 3 of them)

7th. Push up on your xbox 360 to get all of the front hooks off.

8th. Read this to find out how to open up your xbox 360 really fast.(I suggest that you lay down your xbox 360 upside down to do this)Click me!!!!

9th. So after you do that you xbox 360 should have only the top case on it

10th. Take off the Dvd drive ejector button(just slowly snap it off)

11th. Flip you xbox 360 over and take out these screws.(You dont need to put these screws when you put back your xbox 360 together but you can if you want)In case you wondering if you took off the right screw. To the left of my t8 is how big the screw is that you need to take off the shell.

12th. Now take off the top shell of your xbox 360(To take off the little plastic part over your ROL board simply grab the top part of it and slowly snap it back and do the same for the bottom and its off.

13th. To take the ROL board off get your t8 and un screw the screws on it. Once you have it unscrewed simply grab it and slowly push it towards you to get it off the xbox 360.

14th. Now that you have the ROL board off take out the Dvd drive now. there are 2 cables in under the drive and to get to them simply lift up your xbox 360 and grab 1 cable and slow pull it off.

Here is how to take apart your dvd drive if you need too.
To take apart your dvd drive if you need to to simply flip the drive over and un screw the screws and then carefully pull the top off the bottom part.






15th. After you take off your dvd drive out take off your xbox 360 air wind tunnel

16th. Take off your xbox 360 fans. To take them off 1st unplug the fan from your motherboard. Then bend the top metal part above it and push hard but carefully on both sides. Then when you have it out of the metal part carefully pull it towards you then pull up and its out.

If you want to take the motherboard off look here.
Get your t10 and un screw all the screws on the bottom of the metal case of the xbox 360. Then when you have that done grab the 2 memory card slots and pull up. If you want to take off the x clamps look at scars tut to do so. Click here on how to take them off.


Now to put the xbox 360 back together part

Now this is the easy part you simply just do what you did in reverse. 

1st. Put the top xbox 360 shell on.

2nd. Put the dvd drive button back on.

3rd. Put the bottom xbox 360 shell on.

4th. Press both of the shells together until you hear a click and then double check to make sure they are on.

5th. Put the top grills on the xbox 360 and press down on them until you hear a click.

6th. Then put the face plate back on the xbox 360.

How to Replace/Spoof a Xbox 360 DVD Drive

IntroductionI just recently had a few 360 dvdrom drives that had died and I needed to learn how to spoof the firmware, drive keys etc etc onto the new replacement drives that I had purchased so here's a tutorial i worked on.

For the tutorial i will be replacing a broken Hitachi 0047 drive with a Hitachi 0046 drive and updating the firmware, keys and spoofing it to match the original drive. You can use this tutorial as a base for replacing/spoofing just about any drive. I hope this helps you all out and explains in more detail to help you not brick your drives.

Required Items
- Original/Broken 360 DVD Drive -OR- Firmware backup (Hitachi)
- Replacement 360 DVD Drive (Hitachi or Samsung)
- Slax (Hitachi 78 and above only)
- Firmware Toolbox 4.5

Let's get started

1. Original/Broken 360 DVD Drive:

Please Note:
If you already have a backup of the original/broken Xbox 360 Drive firmware please proceed to Step 2.

1.1. Connect the "Original/Broken Hitachi DVD drive" to your pc via SATA connection.

1.2. Place the dvdrom drive into MODE B with SLAX or the CrossWire Trick (Hitachi 78 and above only support SLAX Method).

Please Note:
Once you have the drive in MODE B you will notice it will take 3 presses on the eject buton to close the drive.

1.3. With the Original/Broken drive now in MODE B restart your PC and make sure that the new drive has been identified by Windows. Once the new hardware has been found and installed it will be shown in the my computer/explorer area on your pc as a additional dvd-rom drive.

1.4. Insert a DVD Movie or an XBOX/XBOX 360 game into the "Original/Broken Hitachi DVD drive". Even if the laser is nearly dead it may read a dvd-r movie just fine so try it.

1.5. Open Firmware Toolbox 4.5

1.6. Choose 'Tools -> Direct Drive Dump (GDR ONLY)

1.7 On the next screen choose 'RAW DUMP' and save the file as "original.bin". If you have problems with 'RAW DUMP' try 'CLASSIC DUMP'.

eg. c:/xbox360/hitachi0047/606HG324277-may2006/original.bin

Make sure you can identify the backup firmware in future by placing it in a directory that matches the serial number which is located on the sticker of the dvdrom drive. This will make it much easier to identify in the future.

2. Replacement Xbox 360 DVD Drive

2.1. Connect the "Replacement Hitachi DVD drive" to your pc via SATA connection.

2.2. Place the dvdrom drive into MODE B with SLAX or the CrossWire Trick (Hitachi 78 and above only support SLAX Method).

Please Note:
Once you have the drive in MODE B you will notice it will take 3 presses on the eject buton to close the drive.

2.3. With the replacement drive now in MODE B restart your PC and make sure that the new drive has been identified by Windows. Once the new hardware has been found and installed it will be shown in the my computer/explorer area on your pc as a additional dvd-rom drive.

2.4. Insert a DVD Movie or an XBOX/XBOX 360 game into the "Replacement Hitachi DVD drive".

2.5. Open Firmware Toolbox 4.5

2.6. Choose 'Tools -> Direct Drive Dump (GDR ONLY)

2.7 On the next screen choose 'RAW DUMP' and save the file as "original.bin". If you have problems with 'RAW DUMP' try 'CLASSIC DUMP'.

eg. c:/xbox360/hitachi0046/606HG324240-may2006/original.bin

Make sure you can identify the backup firmware in future by placing it in a directory that matches the serial number which is located on the sticker of the dvdrom drive. This will make it much easier to identify in the future.

2.8 When the firmware is backed up it will ask you if you want to open it. Choose "yes".

2.9. Now select "Tools->Spoof Firmware" from the Firmware Toolbox 4.5 menus.

2.10. Choose the version that you would like the fw to report back as. Leave all other options as they are.

Please note:
- Spoofing a drive as itself has the effect of UNSPOOFING it

2.11. Now Click "APPLY SPOOF"

2.12. Choose "Tools->Smart Hack Patcher", a window warning will appear, choose OK.

2.13. Choose the output file name, we suggest calling it "final.bin" and save it at the same location as the original. The ruleset option should be automatically selected for you so leave it alone.

eg. c:/xbox360/hitachi0046/606HG324240-may2006/final.bin

2.14 Push the "Generate File" button, if everything goes fine the file will be generated almost instantly

2.15 Once the file has been generated it will ask you if you want to open it. Choose "Yes".

2.16 The Main Window will show the generated file (final.bin). You will notice that the spoofed information is shown in bold.

3. Original/Broken Firmware Key
3.1. Open the old original/broken dvd drive firmware which you backed up in step 1. Choose the Browse for file button "..." to load the original/broken dvdrive firmware.

3.2 With the old broken dvd drive firmware now loaded you will notice the "Key Information @" area in the center of the 360 Firmware Toolbox application.

3.3 Highlight the entire key and copy it by right clicking your mouse and selecting copy or press Ctrl + C so we can paste it into our new replacement drive.

3.4. Open the replacement dvd drive firmware named "final.bin" which you created in step 2. Choose the Browse for file button "..." to load the firmware.

3.5 Paste the Key into the "Key Information

3.6. Click on "Replace Key" and it will update the firmware with the new key you have just pasted.

4. Check Firmware Differences
4.1. Before flashing the drive i always suggest re-opening the old firmware from step 1. Then open the final.bin firmware you just created in step 3 and make sure keys and other information match just to be safe.

If your happy that your keys etc match then move onto flashing the drive.

5. Flashing the Replacement Drive
5.1. Choose "Tools->Direct Drive Flash->Differential Flash Patch".

5.2. Make sure the Hitachi drive you want to flash is selected

5.3. Click the "Read Drive and Detect Differences" button, after a few seconds the sectors list below the button should be populated.

5.4. It will now ask you if you would like to keep the keys from the drive.. Choose 'No'.

5.5. Click the "Start Flashing" button and choose the flash mode.. I suggest using the 0047 flasher for 47 drives etc etc..

5.6. After a few seconds the flashing is complete.