Aweirdguy's XboxChopShop - 360 Hardware

The Red Ring of Death: A Full Circle Explanation

nospam@example.com (Aweirdguy) — Mon, 01 Oct 2007 22:13:00 -0600

While I admit that the phenomenon commonly known as the "Red Ring of Death" is hardly a news flash, it's a subject I've recently had to deal with. It is also referred to as the "3 Red Leds of Death", and can be shortened to RROD or 3RLOD. There have been some successful repairs out for a while now, but I finally got motivated to fix mine. It has been sitting there sulking on the shelf with those three red lights, blinking steadily, mocking me. It broke a couple months ago, but now that Halo3 and BioShock are out it couldn't wait any longer.

Now that I've gone though the process of breaking and repairing my blinkin' 360, I've decided to take some time away from my two new favorite games long enough to explain clearly what is going wrong with all these fried 360s and how it gets fixed properly.

Looking for an explanation in simple English? Keep reading...
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Another Ben Heckendorn Mod: A 360 Duke Controller

nospam@example.com (Aweirdguy) — Fri, 21 Sep 2007 17:20:29 -0600

Well it seems Ben is up to his usual mayhem again, and has modded something interesting indeed. This time, it's an Xbox360 wireless controller stuffed into an old Xbox Duke (also referred to as a "fatty") controller. After receiving several requests, he got one of those wild hairs like he does every so often and decided it might be fun. As always, he makes this stuff look easy.

Keep reading to see his story, with nice large clear photos and a movie clip of him using it to play Stranglehold...
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GPU Heatpipe Added to Repair Overheating 360s

nospam@example.com (Aweirdguy) — Tue, 12 Jun 2007 14:47:18 -0600

It looks like Microsoft has finally noticed that some of their 360 consoles seem to have a problem with overheating. Hmm, it's about time... the rest of us had that figured out over a year ago. It has been common knowledge on the internet that the consoles can run very hot, causing the gpu to warp away from the board. This is the main cause for a 360 to get the "3 red lights of death", which is a sight that can give a gamer nightmares and even cause mental trauma requiring weeks of psychological counseling (usually until the console gets back from repairs).

There are now a couple of reports from customers that sent their 360 in for repair, and have gotten it back with a new heatpipe attached to the gpu heatsink:

This should allow the gpu to run slightly cooler, hopefully preventing the console from overheating (again).

So what exactly is a heatpipe, how does it help to cool things off, and what does this new beast look like?
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User Poll: Does your 360 need tilt control?

nospam@example.com (Aweirdguy) — Thu, 10 May 2007 08:46:40 -0600

Well it seems that Microsoft is the only company that decided not to use motion controls in their console this round. Was that a mistake? It's hard to say, but everyone else seems to think thats the right direction to go. The PS3 has tilt sensitivity in the Six-axis controller, and the Wii-mote takes motion control to new extremes... should the 360 controllers support tilt control too?

Spare a couple clicks for me here, and lets see how many 360 gamers want to tilt:

Well, we'll see how the poll goes, but right now there are plenty of people betting you want tilt control so badly that you'd hack your beloved 360 controller apart to get it. Apparently this is a popular thought, because now there are three different aftermarket hacks coming to stores soon.

Let's have a look at the choices, should you want to tilt:

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How will the Xbox360 Elite effect the modding/hacking community?

nospam@example.com (Aweirdguy) — Mon, 23 Apr 2007 09:19:00 -0600

I would guess it's safe to say that everyone has seen something about the new Xbox360 Elite. It was a wild rumor for several months, but now it is heading toward shelves in your neighborhood soon. Actually, if you're lucky some stores seem to be selling them ahead of schedule....

The Xbox360 Elite:

So, what's new with the Elite? Well, you can find the Microsoft version here and it boils down to:

- HDMI port (with HDMI cable included)

- 120gig hard drive

- It's all sexy black instead of white

- It's $480 ($80 more than the Premium)

Ok, but what will these features offer the hackers and modders?

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XILT - 360 Controller Mod

nospam@example.com (Aweirdguy) — Fri, 20 Apr 2007 09:44:27 -0600

There is a new problem for the exclusive features of the PS3... because the 360 is getting tilt control soon. HDMI, check. Large HDD, check. Tilt control, almost there. I'm not sure what will be left for PS3 fanboys to gloat about, except possibly a free online service that isn't worth what you pay for it. Ok, so the tilt control isn't a Microsoft feature, but whatever.

There havn't been many details released on this mod yet. The official website here just has a release date of "End of April" and these two screenshots of what appears to be a pc-based configuration app.

The guys over at xbox-scene received some additional information from the inventor "GreenGiant", who is the same guy that put out the XIR mod for the original xbox.

New generation of Tilt Mod.

There will be two versions, Xilt Advanced and Xilt Lite.

Written from the ground up to allow for the maximum user configuration, flexible for virtually any game type.

Features:

- Works with Wired and Wireless controllers

- Only 7 wires needed

- Install in 10-15 minutes

- Easily Enable/Disable tilt mod without an ugly switch

- Easily change tilt threshold in all four axis

- USB Configurator for changing any settings

- FW is upgradable (not end user)

- Xilt Advanced: Full configuration of Tilt angle to Controller Axis direction

Expected availability, last week of April.

Educated guesses: Well, the screenshots show buttons for "Read from Xilt" and "Write to Xilt" and they claim it installs with 7 wires. I'm going to assume that this is a small programmable chip that installs inside the controller, and it will some type of unobtrusive plug to hook the controller to your pc. Since they claim it has no ugly switch, they probably have it set up to enable/disable with a button combo like Back+Start.

So... who's up for some tilt control on your 360? Any suggestions on which games would be more fun with this mod? Maybe some driving or flying action?

Official XILT Website

Check out the full size photos after the jump.
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Another Ben Heckendorn 360 Laptop!

nospam@example.com (Aweirdguy) — Thu, 19 Apr 2007 17:43:18 -0600

There are many modders in the world, doing all kinds of awesome projects. However, nobody even seems to come close to the next generation of awesomeness that consistently comes out of Ben's workshop. Now, just in case any of you happened to be under a rock last September, this is the guy that stuffed a 360 into a custom fabricated laptop case complete with HD monitor. It turned out like this:

Ok, now either he must have gotten really bored or someone offered him a boatload of cash because he made another 360 laptop and it's even more awesome than the last one. He hasn't released many details on it yet, because Engadget will be doing a 3 part "How-to" on it soon and they want to get as much attention as possible. Anyway, what did get released is a handful of external photos and a hillarious video of Ben with the laptop.

I've got all of the photos and the video posted after the jump.

Engadget's post on the laptop

Ben's website(Warning: much awesomeness to be found here.)
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