Hey guuuyysss, I'm Bookshelf. I thought I would share with you my xbox gaming pc mod I've been working on a few months now.
It's a real pain in the ass but I thought maybe sharing it would help motivate me to finish it.
 
Anyways here's the specs im working with:
MSI Z77IA-E53 ITX motherboard with WiFi and Bluetooth and so on
Intel 3570k @ 4ghz with slightly better cooling than stock
8gb G'skill 1600, 8-8-8-24 ram @ 2000mhz
ITX 400w, 32amp 12v rail psu
a sata 3 60gb ssd, and a 1tb 7200rpm hdd also sata 3, **** boots to desktop in about 8 seconds
last but not least, an EVGA GTX 760 2gb video card with the acx cooling =D
 
All parts have been tested and stressed. Surprisingly the psu does hold up. And after a few hours of running 3dmark11 and intel burn test at the same time, the psu was only slightly warm to the touch and did NOT smell like anything was burning/melting. It was a clean warm new electronic smell coming from the exhaust fan. I'm not going to mod the psu so it may be rma'd later if needed.
 
Ok on to some pics... KEEP IN MIND this is my first major pc mod :P
 
so heres like, the general idea/layout.

and the rear

and i prefabbed that xbox bottom with a dremel earlier in the year.

 
I came to the conclusion that i needed a motherboard tray, cause this thing will be heavy.

freakin side panel from an old emachine.

cut to fit.

somethin like that.

i/o shield cut.

i was impressed.

looking legit!

next, psu cutout.

ehh lol, it'll do.

the bottom intake vent for the psu.

that and some more cut outs for the video card and vents.

decided to cut the top off and add mesh in later, as drilling the holes was out of the question.

the video card had to sit on top of something. with room for the cable to run underneath.

mmmmmmmmmm :)

front view with video card in position.

now to mount these damn plates so their solid.

two 40mm fans to force cool air into the psu.


screwed on top.

and bottom.

the plate itself.

then made some mounts to hold the video card in place.



progress!


testing parts.

i needed something to hold the hard drives up in the air, out of the way soooooo.




i had about 1mm to spare on each side, phew.
 
 
More to come!

This is a very cool mod, I love the form factor that you chose.

Very innovative. Looking forward to final pics.

Very nice job on everything, its like what an xbox should be lols.

Holly Mad Scientist Batman, talk about old school!

Great Job!

NICE!

Was thinking about doing something like this before I decided to just buy a normal case lol. Good job though man, can't wait to see more pics.

nice little mod project man, good work on the custom stuff.

awesome case mod!

Awesome Mod. I really like this kind of work. Can't wait to see it finished. Give the man a Blue Ribbon... LOL!

Love the glow! Great re purpose for an xbox that would have been junked. This site is full of creative people jeez

Okay, so here are some updates!
 
Been working on the USB ports!


 
And the wiring... Ports 1 & 2 are usb3.0, and ports 3 & 4 are usb2.0.


 
Green is the power LED, and blue is the hdd LED.

 
Next mounting the cathode tubes...

 
There are two 8" tubes on each side and in the middle, and a 12" tube in the front.



 
Then fitting the top cover and drawing out where the fan vents will be.



 
Cutting and fitting the fan grills.




 
Painted them black.

 
Getting the feet and case screws together.




 
Aanndd for lots more pictures...













 
I still need to attach this, but for now i just set it on there. Im still not sure if i want to cut out the center hole or not.

 
And for some lights at night!










 
And how the lights look in the day.










 
That's all i've got so far. Still need to decide wither to glue the xbox jewel where it is, or take the time to cut out the center hole. It would look cleaner but possibly weaken the top cover more from too many holes.
 
Anyway, thanks for looking. Hope you enjoy!

Very impressive!

The only xbox id game on, Good job!
 

Hey guys, I'm back with more pics!
 
I decided it would look better if I cut out the plastic that was under the clear xbox jewel for a slightly cleaner look..

 
It took 4 attempts of applying hot glue and ripping the jewel back off to get it square... the 5th time i just used pre-measured lines to help line it up.

 
And the end result... no more ugly layer of plastic underneath the jewel.

 
After that I polished all the clear plastic inside and out to get rid of any fine surface scratches and to appear more glass-like.



 
All hooked up to the big screen




 
And that's it! Been gaming on it for a while now. While gaming, I havn't seen cpu temps higher than 62c, and gpu temps no more than 67c. Even after 5 hours of gaming, those were the max temps. For noise, it's no louder than an original ps3 or xbox 360. If you turn on v-sync, it stays relatively quiet. It boots up from power button to steam big picture mode in about 11 seconds. Pressing the PS button on the ps3 controller automatically connects it via bluetooth. No mouse or keyboard is required to boot up the system and play a game. Which is just AWESOME :D Turn on system, turn on controller, and your good to go.
 
So ya, this is pretty much where all of my pc and multiplat games will be played. It runs every game I've thrown at it, maxed out, with some AA @ 1080p. There's only a couple games that I've seen drop below 60fps for a moment. It runs everything else well over 60fps. I am extremely pleased with how this turned out. It pushes like twice the fps of my old gaming rig, which is a 4ghz core2quad q9650, 8gb ddr3, and two evga gtx 560 Ti's in SLI on an evga 790i Ultra.
 
Anyway, thanks for checking out my mod! Let me know what ya think. I may make a video of it in action, if I do, I will post it here.