Upgraded to a 360... What to do with the old box?

[leorest]

Just bought an Xbox 360 as a present. This will displace an original Xbox.
Can anyone suggest a useful application for the old box? (I don't mind a technical challenge!)
One idea was media streaming but the box is a bit noisy to be in the living room.
I could modify the cooling to a quiet method (bigger slower fan in pref to water cooling!)
but without testing I don't know if the HDD is just as noisy.

Simply hacking it to run Linux doesn't interest me that much unless it opens up some interesting functionality. If I wanted to experiment with Linux I think an Eee is probably the way to go.

Anyway that's enough of my rambling so ideas please...

[scorp]

Get it chipped (it can be very simple compared to other consoles), and install XBMC on it.

[leorest]

scorp said:

Get it chipped (it can be very simple compared to other consoles), and install XBMC on it.

What will that do for me then?

"XBMC" humm... tries to think of some British automobile related quip There's got to be something about poor build quality, rust and/or letting water in.

thanks and I'm off to Google XMBC then.
Later

EDIT to add...
Found it http://www.xboxmediacenter.com/info_project.htm

Any other options?
Plus can you "Chip" an XBOX DIY or to you have to take it to someone and hand over beer tokens?

Edited by leorest on Monday 10th December 14:17

[Skittle]

You do not even have to get it chipped now

you can softmod it withou openeing up your xbox

http://www.productwiki.com/microsoft-xbox/article/...

[scorp]

Skittle said:

You do not even have to get it chipped now

you can softmod it withou openeing up your xbox

http://www.productwiki.com/microsoft-xbox/article/...

I didnt chip mine actually, what i did do was replace the CD drive and shorted a jumper to enable reflashing of the bios, then loaded a CDR with a new bios image.

[Andeh]

I gave mine to a friend so he and his kids can get some enjoyment out of it. I don't think his wife was too happy about it though!

[sjg]

XBMC as said. One of the settings is for auto fan control - you can set a target temperature (up to 68C iirc), as long as it stays below that the fans will barely run. If you're streaming off the network it can spin down the hard disk too, making it virtually silent.