Xbox Teardown

Teardown

Teardown

Teardowns provide a look inside a device and should not be used as disassembly instructions.

Featured Guide

Featured Guide

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User-Contributed Guide

User-Contributed Guide

This guide is not managed by iFixit staff.

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The Original Xbox was one of the best selling game consoles of all time, it had amazing graphics compared to the Playstation 2, the Nintendo Gamecube, and the Nintendo 64. Now, lets take a look inside...

Tools
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Add Note Edit Step 1 — Xbox Teardown  ¶ 

  • The Xbox, Not as Pretty as it was when I bought it 7 years ago.

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Add Note Edit Step 2  ¶ 

  • To begin dissasembly, flip the console so it is upside-down.

  • Remove the 4 Rubber Pads with a flathead screwdriver, or a heavy duty spudger. It takes a little force to get them off.

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Add Note Edit Step 3  ¶ 

  • Doing this should reveal 4 T10 Torx Screws, But, there are 2 More hidden by stickers.

  • The other 2 are shown in yellow.

  • Removing the 2 screws hidden by stickers will void your warrenty, even though, I'm sure that your warrenty has already expired.

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Add Note Edit Step 4  ¶ 

  • Removing the 6 T10 Screws.

  • Hmm, where heve we seen these before?

  • My Xbox 360 Teardown, of course!

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Add Note Edit Step 5  ¶ 

  • To remove the top half of the console, flip it upright, and use a flathead screwdriver to seperate the two halves.

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Add Note Edit Step 6  ¶ 

  • Simply lift the top half off.

  • This reveals the drives.

  • From Left To Right: The DVD-ROM Drive, And A Seagate 8GB Parallel ATA Drive

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Add Note Edit Step 7  ¶ 

  • Removing The Drives

  • Start By removing the ATA Cable from both drives. There might be a piece of double sidded tape holding the ribbon cabble in place.

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Add Note Edit Step 8  ¶ 

  • Then Remove the power cables from the drives.

  • The Hard Drive Uses Standard Power Adaptor, but the DVD-ROM drive, uses a proprietary xbox connector similar to that of the xbox 360.

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Add Note Edit Step 9  ¶ 

  • Removing the DVD-ROM Power

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Add Note Edit Step 10  ¶ 

  • Before we can continue, there are 3 T8 Torx screws hidden here that we need to remove.

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Add Note Edit Step 11  ¶ 

  • Lift the hard drive and the plastic attatched to it out, you will need to route the power cable so you can get it out.

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Add Note Edit Step 12  ¶ 

  • Removing the DVD-ROM Drive.

  • Lift the DVD-ROM drive and the plastic attatched to it out. This reveals the logic board.

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Add Note Edit Step 13  ¶ 

  • The Logic Board

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Add Note Edit Step 14  ¶ 

  • Removing the Heatsinks.

  • The Big one to the right, is the CPU, the smaller one to the left is for the GPU.

  • Lift the black tab up on the cpu heatsink. this will release the tension on the chip.

  • Then use a flathead screwdriver to remove the clip. Then Lift the CPU heatsink out (this may take some force)

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Add Note Edit Step 15  ¶ 

  • The CPU

  • So What's Under Door Number One?

  • An Intel Pentium III CPU running at 733Mhz.

  • This is actualy a surprise, because almost every other console out there uses an IBM PowerPC CPU, this makes us wonder, could this console emulate windows?

  • It also raises the question, why did Microsoft Switch to PowerPC, around the same time Apple switched to Intel?

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Add Note Edit Step 16  ¶ 

  • The GPU

  • Push on the tab on the GPU Heatsink, While doing this, use a flathead screwdriver to push on the tab, so when released, it clears the latch

  • Be Careful, if you break any one of these tabs, then, your heatsinks will not be usable, and your console will fry, if you try to run it.

  • Removing the GPU heatsink, revealls a NVIDIA Custon Chip.

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Add Note Edit Step 17  ¶ 

  • The Logic Board Overview:

  • The CPU: An Integrated Intel Pentium III CPU Clocked at 733Mhz with a 100Mhz Front Side Bus

  • The GPU: A Custom NVIDIA Chip. I can't find much info on this chip, but I will try to update this.

  • The Power Supply: Be Carefull When Working on this, you can get shocked by this if you touch it. The power connector is similar to that of an AT Power Supply found in 90's computers

  • The ATA Header: This connects both drives to the Xbox Logic Board.

  • The A/V Ports

  • The Ethernet Port

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