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Xbox One X Laptop

Xbox One X case mod

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Note: customized DIY kits are available for purchase. Please contact me here for more details.

I have recently completed an Xbox One X laptop mod. Ever since I saw the original Ben Heck Xbox laptop (over 12 year ago), I have wanted to build one of my own. Now that I have finished school and have a little more time and money, I decided to finally undertake this project. I spent a lot of time looking at other designs and decided that I wanted mine to stand out in several ways. 

1.  It needed to be thinner than the original xbox case
2. It needed to all look professionally made. This included very clean edges (no dremel cutting) and a nice surface finish.
3. It need to be designed in CAD and use readily available parts so that it could be easily reproducible. 


Most of my time in the project was spent with CAD work. The most important part was getting all of the stock Xbox components modeled accurately. Once this was completed, it was easy to design a case and test fit all of the pieces. I was able to verify my design before I ever made a piece.

The screen was constructed by sandwiching several plates together. 

The beauty of CAD design is that you do all of the work in the computer, so when the parts arrive, it is trivial to assembly.  Assembly of the case took under 5 minutes.

Another major struggle turned out to be soldering. Since the Xbox motherboard has several very large, internal power and ground planes, it can be difficult to reflow the solder with a hobbyist grade iron. I found that it required a 150W iron to get the solder to flow correctly. 

Once everything was assembled internally, the final result looked like this:

As you can see from the photo, I have removed the casing from the power supply and extended the hard drive cables. Additionally, I had to rewire the connections for one of the wireless board so that I could place it underneath. Everything is bolted into place. 

The scariest part was the first boot. Thankfully, this went smoothly.

  • 1 × Xbox One X Console
  • 1 × LCD Screen
  • 2 × 4 watt speakers
  • 1 × Audio amplifier board
  • 1 × Power adapter plug

View all 12 components

View all 4 project logs

  • 1
    Xbox One X Teardown

    Follow the excellent instructions provided by ifixit
    https://www.ifixit.com/Teardown/Xbox+One+X+Teardown/99609

  • 2
    Case Fabrication

    Use the stl files provided to machine the aluminum panels. Use your favorite CAD software to export them as DXF files. I would recommend finding a local machine shop that can work with you. If you are more adventurous, you can also purchase a desktop router like the Shapeoko or X-Carve to do the job.

  • 3
    Test components

    Do a "dry" assembly of the parts on your work bench. Using an appropriate power supply, turn everything on and verify that the screen actually displays the Xbox HDMI output. It's a lot easier to fix at this stage than once everything is assembled. 

View all 6 instructions

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marauder116 wrote 11/04/2020 at 22:53 point

Hello Jomega, 

Nice project your work is really sharp and nice.

Can you please provide the design files? 

Regards,

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Josh C. wrote 11/28/2018 at 16:54 point

What did you use for the corners of the aluminum panels? they look smooth.

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jomega wrote 11/28/2018 at 17:23 point

custom metal edge pieces

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Josh C. wrote 11/28/2018 at 18:04 point

they look good, someone should produce them as an extrusion.

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Mike Szczys wrote 11/26/2018 at 16:50 point

Wow, that did come out looking great! I'd love to see some pictures of the internals, especially how you mounted everything!

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jomega wrote 11/27/2018 at 05:42 point

I have updated the project accordingly.

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Mike Szczys wrote 11/27/2018 at 17:54 point

Ooooh! That looks fantastic. Considering how little space there is in that enclosure I think you did a great job with routing the power supply connections. I didn't realize it was an aluminum case... this is great!

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