Xbox One X Motherboard Diagram
Mariam Obregon
I'm currently working on a project that makes use of existing components on a wireless Xbox 360 controller. I've disassembled the controller and located several connections including LS, RS, LT, RT, LB, RB which I need to use for my project. My problem is, which I'm sure is a simple solution, I don't know how the 2-axis potentiometer works on the controller. I've attached a picture of one of the two axis of the potentiometer, the second picture is where the leads connect to the PCB on the other side of the board where I've made connections to test.
Did you cut the traces on the circuit board that are associated with the joy stick? If not, you are also connected to the existing components of the x-box controller. Beyond that, your Ohmmeter will tell you how the device operates.
No I kept them in tact. I am powering the board with a power supply and figured power would run through the board to the potentiometer and I could sort of piggy back off of it and read the signal. When I connect it to an Arduino and graph I get values between a certain range but there is so much noise and it doesn't react when I move the potentiometer so I mist have wired it wrong.
So I ripped one of the triggers off and tested it. I found that VCC and ground are interchangeable on the left and right pins, while the center pin is for signal to the analog inputs on the Arduino. My question now is why is there so much noise and inconsistency when the potentiometer is connected to the controller motherboard? Obviously the controller is reading the data and processing it, I'm just confused about what is causing this problem. Let me know if you have any insight, thanks.
michaelberge:
So I ripped one of the triggers off and tested it. I found that VCC and ground are interchangeable on the left and right pins, while the center pin is for signal to the analog inputs on the Arduino. My question now is why is there so much noise and inconsistency when the potentiometer is connected to the controller motherboard? Obviously the controller is reading the data and processing it, I'm just confused about what is causing this problem. Let me know if you have any insight, thanks.
Please don't say that's silly I don't think you understand what I'm looking for. I'm sure there are people who have have worked with Xbox controller circuitry. I'm not an electronics engineer, I'm a software engineer so I have little knowledge on how complex circuitry works. I don't need to know what exactly is the root of the issue, but that something attached to the potentiometer somewhere else is affecting the values, that's all I need to know. If this is happening to me I'm sure someone somewhere else has had the same problem, it doesn't require a diagram it requires experience.
I looked up the circuitry of the old IBM PC game controller. They used the joystick pots to change the frequency of two separate digital oscillators. The pot positions were read by chips that measured the pulse length of each oscillator and determined the pot position from that. You would only know that by reading the documentation that includes the schematic.
Same applies to your controller. Here you are using an Arduino to measure a DC voltage when in fact the POT may or may not have a DC voltage. They may be controlling the discharge time for a capacitor, hence not a DC voltage.
After many hours searching the vastness of the internet, I found some information on xbox-scene.com about adapting a PC ATX power supply for use in an Xbox. The exact thread might go down someday (plus it's a pain to read all that), so I'll duplicate the instructions for building such an interface here (I take absolutely no credit for this):
All of these parts are available from Radio Shack except for the L78L33AC, so here is a diagram (from the same thread) showing how to use an LM317T and a few resistors (which are available at Radio Shack) instead:
Also, note that the diagram is for version 1.0/1.1 Xboxes. Mine happens to be 1.3 (best guess, anyway, since it has a Conexant chip), so I used the following tables (also from the thread) to adapt the pinout appropriately:
I'm feeling good at this point because I have an Xbox capable of thought (in so far as being smart enough to flash orange at me without an A/V cable). My next task was to find a pinout of the A/V port at the back of the motherboard, and as luck would have it, I found exactly that.
I managed to find a description of the Xbox A/V connector on the underside of the motherboard. The Xbox is able to complain about no cable connected because the cable grounds the proper mode select pins, so they need to be grounded along with attaching audio/video cables. I soldered a wire connecting pin 19 and one of the grounding pins so that it would think an NTSC mono cable was attached. Then I was able to get a video signal and the left audio channel.
Soldering some CAT5 wire (very carefully) to the right pins (including the mode select one) and RCA connectors to the cable gave me a way to see the Xbox flubber as it booted! Picture of poorly-constructed cable below:
At this point, I've managed to get the Xbox to boot up and talk to me. Unfortunately, I couldn't tell it anything, since I didn't have a controller. I could've found a way to do this for free, but that would've taken way too much time, I'm sure. So I broke down and bought a cheap third-party controller. (I got it to turn on and work, so it's worth a couple of bucks at this point.)
Once I got that out of the way, I hooked up an old 10GB hard drive and a broken (meaning it can't burn) DVD burner via IDE cable and the ATX power supply. After that, the error code changed to one meaning the hard drive was unlocked. What's this? Hard drive unlocked?
After a whole lot more reading, I discovered that the hard drive which comes with the Xbox is "locked" to that particular Xbox. Since I have no idea where this motherboard came from, I have to figure out a way to "lock" my own drive so that my Xbox will like it. Unfortunately, the Xbox generates the lock/unlock key from information in its EEPROM, and without a modchip, there is no way to get at this information or boot the Xbox...almost.
I found a schematic to build a PC serial cable to extract the contents of the EEPROM. Yay! I soldered wires directly to the EEPROM and read off the information (pictured below for the coolness factor):
What came next was a real mess. I had to use a program called xboxhd to use my PC to lock the hard drive. I also found out that the hard drive I was trying to use couldn't be locked. So after going insane trying every hard drive I owned and every PC I had to get this frigging thing to lock, I finally found a 13.6GB drive and a frustratingly-crappy PC which worked.
Now it just needs something to boot. I downloaded the Evolution-X dashboard from "the usual places" and went through a rather scary hotswapping process to get it on the hard drive. (I had to do this because the PC I used to lock it stubbornly wouldn't unlock it back. It's a real mess and the fault of my stupid PCs more than the project, so I'm not going into much detail.)
After that, it booted Evolution-X quite happily! I *cough* acquired *cough* some games and tried them from within Evolution-X (the first being Burnout 3: Takedown), but they didn't seem to work. Evolution-X kept saying the DVD drive tray was open, even though it wasn't. What? What's this?
I scratched my head trying to figure out what in the world was happening, but I finally realized that I was neglecting to use the DVD power connector near the back of the motherboard. This isn't just a power connector like I thought; it also has signals for knowing when to eject the tray, whether it is closed/open/ready, etc. Since I had no real Xbox DVD cable to splice, I had to find the pinout for this connector and supply the correct voltages directly. The pinout I found for this is below:
Anyway, once I got that out of my system, I made some minor improvements, like switching to a micro-ATX power supply, replaced a dead hard drive, the official yellow DVD power cable, the official Samsung DVD drive, modchip, official controller, and other things. Some of those changes are shown in the pictures below:
All that's left is to put it in a real case. It obviously can't fit since it uses a micro-ATX power supply among other things, so I intend to build a case. When that's done, pictures will go up and this project will be officially complete.
Guide to RGH3 Xbox 360 Trinity Motherboard Consoles!
Required supplies:
- A way to read/write the nand. (Nand-X, JR Programmer, Matrix SPI Flasher, Squirt Slave Programmer, X-Flasher 360, Super Nand Flasher, PicoFlasher, or even a homemade LPT cable!)
- A 3K Ohm resistor (Consider the RGH3 QSB which comes with the resistor)
- Some 28 or 30 gauge AWG wire (I like this ribbon cable made of 28AWG wire that can be separated and cut to length)
- T8 and a T10 Torx screwdriver for all the screws in the console.
- Standard Soldering supplies: A variable temperature soldering iron, some solder (I like 60/40 rosin core Kester), fiberglass scratch pen, some flux paste and a very sharp set of tweezers or an exacto knife too.
Optional Supplies:
- You might want an X-Clamp removal tool to make opening the console easier.
It's been suggested to me that the X-clamp remover should be in the "required" supplies. For sure the X-Clamp can be removed without them, but the risk of damaging your board is very high if you're not very careful. You might want to check out this video clip of using the X-Clamp removal tool properly to see what you are up against.
- Strongly reccommend replacing the thermal paste with good stuff. Beware fake/low quality thermal paste!
My current (Feb 2022) suggestions:
- PicoFlasher (Raspberry Pi Pico cost just $4, then load Picoflasher firmware as described here)
- RGH3 QSB (has the 3K Ohm Resistor built in)
No need for a repack any longer. Just get the latest Jrunner build as it supports RGH3 just fine.
My go-to Jrunner source is Josh's build which he kindly hosts at Octals Console Shop:
Jrunner with Extras
But there is an alternative branch that sometimes gets out of sync feature-wise and is on Github under X360Tools like PicoFlasher:
Jrunner Pro
RGH3 Trinity Process:
1. Have a Trinity motherboard Xbox 360.
Trinity motherboards can be confidently identified visually without opening the console. First, It must be an "S" style slim Xbox 360. Second, check the MFR date on the sticker on the back of the console - Trinities will have a MFR date of 07/2011 and before. Third, and least reliably - look at the power consumption sticker on the back; Trinity consoles will say 10.83A though I've seen consoles close to the cut-over manufacture date have the wrong power label.
2. Open up your console and break it down all the way to the motherboard. (Lots of guides on youtube for opening your console.)
You need a T8 and a T10 Torx screwdriver for all the screws in the console. You will end up removing the heatsink and fan, which means removing the X-clamp on the back. You might want an X-Clamp removal tool, and some replacement thermal paste. The stuff on the console will be old and dried up so I strongly recommend putting fresh thermal paste.
3. Solder in a Nand reading/writing programmer.
There are myriad options for programmers: Nand-X, JR Programmer, Matrix SPI Flasher, Squirt Slave Programmer, X-Flasher 360, Super Nand Flasher, PicoFlasher, or even a homemade LPT cable!
If you're only going to do this one mod, my favorite device right now is the Raspberry Pi Pico set up as a PicoFlasher, you can snag the Pico off Amazon for just $8, but the best deal is at a MicroCenter or other major electronics reseller where they are just $4!
No matter what device you decide on to read/write your nand they are likely to use the color coding in the diagram below as it's essentially a standard now, shared by the Nand-X, JR-Programmer, X-Flasher. All the programmers will use the same point even if they don't respect the color coding.
4. Dump (read) the nand twice and ensure both copies you took match.
Do this using Jrunner software. Get that from this RealModScene thread
5. Install the DB2G3 -> 3K Ohm Resistor -> CPU_PLL_BYPASS connection as shown in the image above.
You might find the RGH3 QSB useful there, but it is NOT required - you can direct wire install. Do not skip the 3K Ohm resistor for safety as you can damage your console without it!
6. Install the POST_BUS_1 -> R3R19 connection as shown in the image above.
No resistor is required between POST and R3R19 - just direct wire it, or use the RGH3 QSB
7. Write the RGH3 precompiled ECC file and boot Xell to get your CPU key
I believe both Jrunner with Extras and Jrunner Pro support RGH3 just fine these days. Flash the ECC Files -> Trinity -> RGH3_Trinity.bin file to the console. Then boot up your console and be amazed how quickly it boots Xell. Note down the CPU key.
8. Enter your CPU key into Jrunner, build a full RGH3 nand image, write that newly created nand image (updflash.bin) to the console.
When you plug your CPU key into Jrunner, the "KV Info" sub tab on the right should populate with all the decrypted nand data like your consoles serial number. Make sure you have the right options selected for RGH3 when you 'create xebuild image'.
9. Boot up and enjoy your RGH'd Console!
Now you can install XexMenu, FreeStyle Dash, Aurora Dash, a bunch of different emulators - and yes, even the football revamped game.
Video of RGH3 Install on a Trinity:
Additional Resources: Larvs#9526 has a great guide on RGH3 that can be found here: -3-guide/