[I Bought an Unused Alpha Tower II Devkit Case]

5 hours ago, Syclopse said:

Nice find, its also a standard ATX case so you could build a current PC. It's a shame it didn't stay in the box it shipped in as so many of these cases are beat up. This one is in good shape compared to others I've seen. The shipping label on my boxed unit has the date 4-19-2001 and the new case inside was dated the same as yours, 4-18-01. Which is a late date for an Alpha tower and probably why it wasn't assembled as the BETA 1C units were currently shipping.

 

 

Oh wow that's amazing to see one new in box! I wonder how many more bare cases there are.

[I Bought an Unused Alpha Tower II Devkit Case]

Album: https://imgur.com/a/ptzp4Vl

 

Saw this pop up for sale locally and made the trip to pick it up. He said his father-in-law was an IT contractor, and apparently he originally got the case empty.

I got back home and opened it up to find the original case hardware kit sealed in its cardboard box, taped inside the drive bay next to a power cable in a bag. A silica gel pack was taped to the floor of the case. The IO connectors were zip tied together, tucked away in a corner. I am extra certain this case was never used, because the metal plate covering the DVD drive bay was not punched out.

My assumption is that Microsoft ordered cases from a supplier (says Yeou Chih on the inside) and hand-assembled all 50 units themselves in Redmond. I'm guessing that this case was one that either arrived damaged, or just never got used. If there were rumored to be 50 units, then I suppose this is unit 51. The date code on the back is 4-18-01.

I'm not entirely sure what to do with it. The inside is perfect, but the outside is a bit rough from kicking around in a basement. Ideally, I'd like to purchase the parts to remake the Alpha tower like N64 Freak did, but considering how difficult it is to find the Intel motherboard at a reasonable price I'm not sure how likely that is to happen. Maybe another 820 chipset board would work instead? I'm seeing a few similar candidates that are half the price of the Intel board. Another option I'm considering is building a similarly-specced PC inside and installing Windows 2000 for some Halo action.

All I've done so far is clean it up. Thoughts?

[Slim XBox Build Log]

17 minutes ago, neighbor said:

looks cool.

how will you connect the 2.5" sata HDD, will you cut the IDE ribbon somehow, and what IDE2SATA converter will you use?

I'll probably just buy a correctly sized IDE cable. I'm using this generic converter and it works fine, though the clearance is a bit tight. Right now the plan is to stack the Ryzee 360 board and the gutted 360 receiver on top of the hard drive itself.

https://www.ebay.com/itm/New-Pata-IDE-to-Serial-ATA-SATA-3-5-HDD-Hard-Drive-DVD-Converter-Adapter-Card/141951989539
 

 

[Slim XBox Build Log]

I'm starting a slim xbox project in my spare time. Updates may be infrequent. The idea is hopefully to keep the entire box under 50mm thickness. I want to try and cram in a 2TB 2.5" HDD with SATA adaptor, a picoPSU, and Ryzee's wireless 360 controller board. The motherboard is a 1.0 that I've TSOP flashed and upgraded with 128MB RAM. It's going to be a very tight squeeze for sure.

I've modeled a case for it that needs to be 3D printed--though the expense from Shapeways is a bit much for me right now, and it's too big for the local printers! The edge of the case will be sanded and wrapped with a brushed metallic vinyl. The top acrylic will be attached using press-in brass inserts and machine screws.

The bottom of the case will be a frosted LED diffusing acrylic. Hopefully, I will have room to put some LEDs underneath for a nice soft glow.

Today I started by attaching the cooling solution. I'm using a Dynatron A48G that I've drilled and tapped so I can attach it from the bottom. Two nylon washers were used to ensure proper mounting pressure without bending the motherboard PCB. I was planning on using a 120mm slim fan (only 15mm thick!) as my active cooling, but if I'm low on space and can't fit something I may have to use a 92mm instead. Right now with the 120mm fan it runs at 46c CPU, 40c M/B which is sufficient.

[Faster Way of Transferring Files?]

27 minutes ago, stylax said:

i know it's been said, but your best bet is honestly using FTP. - as the OGXB has IDE interface on the hard drive, you're not going to see much more speed than  30/40mb/s anyways.

I think most people (including myself) are using SATA drives with SATA to IDE adapters, so plugging it into a PC directly would be considerably faster.

[Faster Way of Transferring Files?]

38 minutes ago, Dixie Normous said:

Go to the stock xbox dashboard and make sure the auto shutoff option isn't enabled. 

xplorer360 should see your extended partitions and allow you to transfer data to your drive. 

I'm on a TSOP flashed xbox and didn't have an MS dash installed. I installed 5960 and looks like it was enabled. I turned it off, we'll see if it fixes it. Thanks!

Xplorer360 sees 6 partitions:

Partition 0: X drive
Partition 1: Empty (I'm going to assume Y drive)
Partition 2: Z drive
Partition 3: C drive
Partition 4: E drive
Partition 5: Empty

[Faster Way of Transferring Files?]

After several hours transferring in UnleashX the Xbox will shut off. Any ideas on why this is happening? The dashboard settings show the auto shutdown setting at 0. I set it to 9999 with no difference.

[Faster Way of Transferring Files?]

Ugh, I was really hoping there would be a way to directly transfer them over SATA. Oh well, thanks anyway.

[Faster Way of Transferring Files?]

So I have about 1.5TB worth of files I need to transfer from my PC to my Xbox and it would take 35 hours, assuming the Xbox hits the full 100Mbit/s transfer speed. Is there a faster way to transfer files? Xplorer360 is the only tool that seems to see my drive, but of course it doesn't see the extended partitions that will be holding my files.

 

It's been like 13 years since I last touched xbox modding and I'm having a lot of fun!