Presented in this mod is the OS Xbox Pro which uses the shell of an old Xbox to house new hardware. A variety of operating systems can be made to work in this Xbox by using the EFi-X dongle shown in the images below. This device is capable of booting a wide range of operating systems including OSX by plugging into compatible motherboards.

The concept on building this project is detailed and illustrated in the videos below. It will take around 2 months to complete this superb result.

Deciding on a look for the case is the first step to be done and the original Xbox would make the perfect starting point for this system as shown below. Selecting components with the minimum system requirements of at least the entry level $2500 Mac Pro was the plan for hardware side. The motherboard was fitted in the Xbox as shown below while being compatible with the EFi-X dongle. It has all the features including being LGA775 with DDR3.

The design was limted to a 300W TFX micro power supply because of the size and more importantly the space needed for all the connections on the back panel as shown in the below images. The slightly more expensive 65W version of the Intel Core2 Q9550 was invested because the power supply is under the 400W minimum requirement by the GeForce 9800 GT which matches the GeForce GT 120 that cam standard in the Mac Pro.

The motherboard tray was cut and bent from a sheet of aluminum and the small PSU would have to be positioned above the north bridge and sacrifice one of the PCI-e x1 slots. A second aluminum tray supported by standoffs from 4 of the motherboard mounting holes would have to be built to support the weight. A stack of four 2.5” hard drives will be on one side of the PSU just above the CPU cooler. As shown below, it will include two 7200RPM 500GB drives Raid0 through a high point raid card for Final Cut editing, a 5200RPM 160GB for OSX, and an identical drive for a Windows 7 installation in an attempt to make this a proper computer.

The front panel USB, SATA, and Firewire ports were created by retaining and repurposing the ports of the Xbox controller. They were cut down, flipped upside down, and re-attached on the opposite side to keep the natural curve of the front panels since they were too low and the headers would be blocked by components on the motherboard. Since there was no room for an optical drive in this build, a small panel from the CDROM drive had to be detached and connected via Bondo onto the front panel.

To fit around the new motherboard tray, the back face was cut away and the same style mesh on a Mac pro in the place of the ribbing that was on the Xbox was used. The sanding and the base creation are shown in the below images.

The final product of the OS Xbox Pro is shown below with different operating systems running with a close look on the viewer with and without the cover.