Welcome to Valhalla: Inside the New 250GB Xbox 360 Slim
by Anand Lal Shimpi on June 18, 2010 1:59 AM ESTThe DVD Drive & Motherboard
I pulled all 12 screws out but left the four heatsink screws in place since I wanted access to the motherboard. With all four removed I could pull off the bottom cover leaving me with this:
The DVD drive lifts right out and you can disconnect the power and SATA cables from the unit easily just like on the older models.
This is a newer version of the Lite-On drive found in the newer Jasper Xbox 360s. They use the DG-16D2S while the Valhalla uses the new DG16-D4S.
Microsoft also outfitted the drive with a strip of rubber to help dampen vibration:
You can also remove the CGPU heatsink fan shroud at this point, it is a snug fit but it should lift straight off:
The piece of aluminum shielding in the lower left of the picture above lifts straight out, you can remove that if you want to pull out the motherboard.
The black piece of plastic in the upper right hand corner of the picture above is the HDD carrier. It’s actually mounted on a flexible mount to allow for some vibration dampening and shock resistance. There’s a single large T8 screw holding it in place, remove this screw.
The drive tray isn’t completely free yet, there’s one more T8 screw at the back of the Xbox 360 that has to be removed. It was hidden by the casing but with that off you can now access it. Remove that screw and the drive tray is free:
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Visual - Friday, June 18, 2010 - link
does the wifi module work on a PC?does another type of wifi module that was ment for PCs work with the xbox?
are you able to open the hdd case and replace the hdd inside?
Ganesh_balan - Friday, June 18, 2010 - link
Anand,Could you please give us an insight into the fan details? Is that a Coolermaster make as it came out in the initial batch of leaked pics from the Chinese website? What size/rpm?
jigglywiggly - Friday, June 18, 2010 - link
Uhm, I am going to be the first to say this...It's hardly any smaller! (Not that the 360 is big)
Also it looks like a normal 360 and someone got a heatgun on the faceplate and it bent inwards.
michal1980 - Friday, June 18, 2010 - link
You need a special port for this add on?biohazard75 - Friday, June 18, 2010 - link
Yes and no. The Kinect connects to the 360 via a USB port, however it also requires more power than can be supplied by the USB port.So the 'new' Kinect port on the new 360 allows the Kinect to be connected via a single wire.
Connecting the Kinect to an old 360 requires an additional power lead (probably a power injected USB connector will be supplied).
(I never want to type Kinect/Connect again...)
can - Friday, June 18, 2010 - link
With both chips being proprietary items (ATI and PowerPC) Who integrated them on one die? I guess I find it hard to believe that each company would give up it's design specs so that someone could engineer it for a single chip.piroroadkill - Friday, June 18, 2010 - link
We need that heatspread off.bill4 - Friday, June 18, 2010 - link
From what I know it's unlikely the EDRAM was integrated. That's another reason it'd be nice to see the heatspreader off.But as for who would do it, Microsoft?
The deal for X360 was such that MS owned the CPU and GPU IP, to a point anyway, so they can go fab it wherever. That was a big difference to the original Xbox, where Ms was forced to pay Intel and Nvidia whatever they wanted.
can - Friday, June 18, 2010 - link
I wasn't aware of that, thank you. Makes me wonder how much info (specs, design) was given to whom and by whom? Still leaves me with questions, but it's a useful answer.xboxknow - Saturday, June 19, 2010 - link
IBM did the design and IBM and Chartered build the CGPU chips, mostly IBM at this point. It's indeed 45nmThere are 2 chips underneath, a large die containing the CPU /
GPU function and a smaller EDRAM, procured elsewhere