Xbox 360S Trinity
RGH3
July 28, 2022
I think that it is amazing that aging systems like the Xbox 360 and the OG Xbox still have active online communities. New ideas and explorations of these older systems are happening almost every day and it's fascinating to watch. Late last year members of the community published the latest advancement in Xbox 360 hacking, the RGH 3 hack. xXBeefyDjXx has posted an amazing guide for the process on the Se7enSins site here.
Although the Xbox was never part of my youth and I don't have the same nostalgia for it as I do for say the Atari 2600 or Commodore 64, I have come to appreciate tinkering with them. I decided to see if I could make my way through the RGH3 process on an Xbox 360S Trinity that I had on the shel
The first step was to prepare something that could be used as a NAND reader, and I has come across some buzz about a new option, the PicoFlasher by balika011 which can be found on GitHub. Having just picked up a Raspberry Pi Pico it seemed like a good opportunity to put the hardware to good use.
Uploading the code to the Pico was as easy as dragging and dropping the necessary file. Then after soldering in some pin headers I decided to use Dupont wires with a 90 degree bend in the wire at one end for attaching to the Xbox. I figured this would result in a reusable solution that should be easy to solder. Following the guide mentioned earlier I was able to get the points soldered to the board.
A closer shot of the Dupont wires soldered to the board.
With the programmer in place it was time to do some work on the bottom of the board to run two wires with an appropriate resistor in place. This was probably the smallest soldering I have had to do, but with some patience and the right kind of wire it turned out pretty well. The shrink tube I had for the job was a little large so the resistor pack is a bit chunky, but it will be hidden under the board so I'm not concerned.
With the wiring done it was time to write the NAND using the Pico Flasher. This process seemed to go as planned, and when it was complete I removed the wiring for the Pico Flasher and booted the Xbox.
The Xbox 360S started up properly on the first try, and I was able to load the Aurora dashboard and a few helper applications. I'm impressed with the simplicity of the mod, and my hat is off to those involved in all of the work that went into putting it all together. The community really is amazing!
