Xenon (Motherboard)

The Xenon motherboard is the first motherboard and is used in the Original Xbox 360 series. The motherboard has a unique board layout compared to the later boards, especially noticeable with the capacitors around the CPU heatsink, and use of the ANA chip.

Notes

• At some point in 2006, at least one of the manufacturers of the Xenon started applying glue around the CPU and GPU, likely as an attempt to reduce the failure rate
• Some consoles use small yellow 820uF capacitors, while other consoles use silver 820uF solid capacitors
• Some capacitors used for voltage regulation positioned around the CPU heatsink are defective and prone to failure (see Capacitor Plague for details)
• At some point in 2006, the extended GPU heatsink started being used instead of the low profile GPU heatsink

Specifications

• 90nm IBM Waternoose2 CPU
• 90nm ATi Y1 GPU with integrated 90nm eDRAM
• 512MB DDR3 RAM
  • 8x64MB Infineon HYB18H1G321AF-14
  • 8x64MB Samsung K4J52324QC-BC14
• XSB Southbridge
• ANA
• 16MB Hynix HY27US08281A Nand
• Boardcom or ICS Ethernet PHY
• Cypress Clock Generator

Elpis

The Elpis motherboard is made out of a Xenon, with exception to the GPU, and the software. Elpis motherboards were used for refurbishing defective Xenons up until 2011.

Various part numbers have been spotted on stickers placed on the top edge of Elpis boards. They include:

• X803413
• X805954
• X807381

Notable Differences

• The 90nm Y1 GPU has been replaced with the 80nm Elpis GPU
• The board uses the 7xxx series CB bootloader instead of the 1xxx series used on Xenon
  • The reason for this is unknown as the 1xxx series bootloaders work just fine with Elpis

Specifications

• 90nm IBM Waternoose2 CPU
• 80nm ATi Elpis GPU with integrated 80nm eDRAM
• 512MB DDR3 RAM
  • 8x64MB Infineon HYB18H1G321AF-14
  • 8x64MB Samsung K4J52324QC-BC14
• XSB Southbridge
• ANA
• 16MB Hynix HY27US08281A Nand
• Boardcom or ICS Ethernet PHY
• Cypress Clock Generator