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Xbox Teardown

Device	Xbox
Difficulty	Moderate
Time	20 minutes
Steps	17

This guide is by Chris Green on iFixit and is licensed under Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0. ByteRot mirrors it for non-commercial preservation: formatting changed and photos resized for old browsers; full-size photos and the text are on the FTP in /DOCS/REPAIR. Original guide >>

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: 6-in-1 Screwdriver; Heavy-Duty Spudger; Flathead 3/32" or 2.5 mm Screwdriver; T20 Torx Screwdriver Bit; TR8 Torx Security Screwdriver

Step 1

• The Xbox, not as pretty as it was when I bought it 7 years ago.

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 (https://www.ifixit.com/products/heavy-duty-spudger). It takes a little force to get them off.

Step 3

• Doing this should reveal 4 T10 Torx Screws, But, there are 2 more hidden by stickers.
• The hidden screws are shown in yellow.
• CAUTION: Removing the 2 screws hidden by stickers will void your warranty, even though I'm sure that your warranty has already expired.

Step 4

• Remove the 6 T10 Screws.
• Hmm, where heve we seen these before?
• My Xbox 360 Teardown, of course!

Step 5

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

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

Step 7

• Removing the drives
• Start by removing the ATA Cable from both drives. There might be a piece of double sided tape holding the ribbon cable in place.

Step 8

• Next, remove the power cables from the drives.
• The hard drive uses a standard molex connector for power, but the DVD-ROM drive uses a proprietary xbox connector similar to that of the xbox 360.

Step 9

• Remove the DVD-ROM power cable.

Step 10

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

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.

Step 12

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

Step 13

• Here's a view of the logic board.

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

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?

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
• CAUTION: 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, reveals an NVIDIA NV2A.

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: Nvidia NV2A running at 233Mhz
• 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. It can supply 100 watts.
• The ATA Header: This connects both drives to the Xbox Logic Board.
• The A/V Ports
• The Ethernet Port

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