360, what you can and cannot do?

[Gothch1ck]

Ok I didn't see a sticky for this, so hopefully we can get some good information, and make a sticky for new 360 users like me.


Basically I want to know what you can, and cannot do, that will void the Warranty (probably anything that cuts the seal, and possibly painting including) but also the option of joining Xbox Live.

I play through Live on my PC with Fallout 3 and such, and I like the achievement trophies and such, they add more to the gameplay to compete with your buddies.

So I really want to be able to mod up an 360 or do the following (without losing Live):
Better cooling (liquid perhaps)
Fix RROD
Fix CD Rom
Upgrade Harddrive

So please, give some input.

 

[nosbusch2005]

Of that list I would think upgrading the hard drive is the only thing that could be done without voiding the warranty. The rest all involve opening up the Xbox. I don't think doing any of those things would prevent you from being able to play on live though. I think the only reason you would have to worry about that is if you were modding it to play pirated games or something along those lines.

 

[Gothch1ck]

Well my goal is not to have anything pirated in life, pirates suck yo!, so that's not the case here, just wanted to fix RROD and stuff and not have it happen again.


Could care less about the Microsoft warranty, from all the stories I read they over charge for temporary solutions, then you have to pay shipping on top of it, and then wait generally 3 weeks. Not my cup of tea, especially when I have done more complicated things then replace a X bracket and run a heat gun over (which I own a heat gun )

It would be nice to have a list of Harddrives, and places to buy them, as well as the CD rom, Ebay has a ton of gutted systems out there, 4 look promising to me, but may be missing Harddrives, CD roms, or controllers. (which is fine) One is Arcade series (no HDD to speak of) but if it is possible to Add a drive for cheap, it would be worth it.

 

[NightSurge]

You can fix the RRoD using X-clamp or water cooling. I think water cooling may need some other special tricks or an external power supply to work well. Both of these void the warranty.

You can replace the DVD drive, but again, voids warranty. You can upgrade the hard drive to a 120GB using a certain model, while flashing the firmware of the hard drive, and other steps. I am not sure this is detected when using LIVE, but it does void the warranty since it involves opening the original hard drive casing.

The only thing I could think as possibly detectable via Xbox Live would be the hard drive upgrade if you don't use the official MS one. Painting the Xbox 360 faceplate or actual console will not void the warranty unless you actually remove the case to do the painting. Removing the faceplate to paint is perfectly fine.

EDIT: If your system got the RRoD it still has a 3 year warranty to cover it. The repair work for any warranty period is free including free shipping to and from. So unless your 360's warranty was already voided, or you no longer qualify for the 3 year RRoD warranty, I would contact MS.

 

[Gothch1ck]

I don't actually own a 360 yet, I am looking for a cheap- dead- system to play frankanstein with to return to the living.

economy here is blown, I don't really have money to buy an elite system or I would, then promptly play until RROD and use the warranty for all it's worth. Then when it's warranty died I'd open it up and mess with it more.

Plan to buy a 360 on Ebay- non gutted (HDD, power brick, CD included, wiht HDMI port [I have my own cable]could care less for controller) and fix her up to working condition.


Can you give the version/type of CD rom/ HDD (120GB) for upgrading? or a link that knows it... or a link that tells how to flash it and the consequences of doing so?

(still trying to gather the info- then resubmit the thread as a handy sticky guide)

 

[NightSurge]

For the 120GB hard drive upgrade:
Upgrade Your Xbox 360's Hard Drive on the Cheap - PC World

Other than that I do not know the type of DVD drive needed or how to do any of the other cooling related mods.

 

[CalcProgrammer1]

OK, first there is a BIG difference between voiding your warranty and getting banned from Live. You can open your 360 up, smash the case into tiny pieces, replace the fans, reflow it in an oven, put screws in the heatsinks, and plug your DVD drive in with gold plated cords if you really wanted to, although this voids the warranty it is still an ordinary 360 to Xbox Live and will not be banned. However, if you use a DVD drive hacked firmware (often to allow playing of "backups" or pirated games burned to DVD+R discs) they can detect this software mod and ban your console.

You will not be banned from Live for opening your console. However, when you remove your DVD drive to get the motherboard out, do not connect to Live while your drive is not plugged in (they may detect that your console is missing a DVD drive and ban it, so always plug in your DVD drive when you are on Live...basically, don't plug in your Ethernet cable until you put it all back together and you will be fine). You can, however, turn on the 360 without the DVD drive if it is not connected to Live (you can run just the 360's motherboard by itself if you really wanted to).

As for cooling mods, I don't really think it's necessary. Do the X-Clamp replacement fix that I linked to in the previous thread. In my console I did it a bit differently. Instead of putting the screws through the metal case, I just put screws from the bottom of the motherboard, through washers, into heatsink. It lets you tighten it more without stressing the board.

Also, for the hard drive, you really don't need 120GB. The 20GB drive that it comes with is plenty unless you plan to go download crazy and buy all kinds of stuff online. All you really need is a 20GB hard drive, power supply, and HDMI console (if you already have an HDMI cord). Also beware that you'll have to use the HDMI cable for audio AND video, if you need optical audio for a surround sound receiver you have to get a special Microsoft cable that provides an optical audio output while you use HDMI for video.

Finally, if you plan on a total Franken360, you'll be in for some trouble. Microsoft pairs each DVD-ROM drive with a specific motherboard. Each motherboard has its own unique "key" that the firmware on the matching DVD-ROM drive also has. If you want to switch DVD drives, you must first find what your motherboard's key is and edit your new drive's firmware to match. This is a huge pain so most people recommend replacing damaged drives by buying another drive of the same type and swapping the circuit boards (just using the new drive's mechanism with your old drive's board). However, if your drive's circuit board is damaged you are stuck with the firmware hacks.

As for the HDD mod, it involves a Western Digital 120GB BEVS drive (Newegg.com - Western Digital Scorpio WD1200BEVS 120GB 5400 RPM 8MB Cache SATA 1.5Gb/s Notebook Hard Drive - Laptop Hard Drives), a program called hddhackr, and I think a firmware binary from an official 360 hard drive (may have to be the 120GB's firmware, not sure). I haven't tried this mod so I don't know a whole lot about it, but if I ever need more room I have an extra 20GB HDD that I can mod.

 

[Gothch1ck]

Well we review a lot of our footage on 360 and take snapshots of wicked sick stuff, like a rocket literally 1 inch from your face or stopping a warthog with a hammer and it literally stops RIGHT in front of you, nearly touching. Close calls and brutal stuff really.

I take it since it transfers to a HDD inside the Xbox, it should be able to transfer to a PC? maybe? My friends only holds 50 snapshots.. which seems very low.

 

[NightSurge]

If you want to capture footage or video from your 360, use a capture card through your PC or camcorder.

 

[Gothch1ck]

Well what I mean is after we have a good match, we go back and view the movie it makes on Halo 3, then we take snapshots to the hard drive in the 360.


Is there a way to transfer the snapshots to a PC or external device, like a USB Jump Drive?