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XBox 360 Lappy?! Yep!

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Post Wed Jan 03, 2007 11:55 am

XBox 360 Lappy?! Yep!

Warning! This is totally Badass!


This is the final result!
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Here's the steps the creator took to make this awesome thing!
But first! Here's the back story!


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Okay, now that that's out of the way, here's the steps you need to take.

After FINALLY snagging the 360 I brought it home and immediately tore

it apart. I didn't even test it out - I mean why bother? I've played quite a
bit of 360 already, I was more interested in the guts of the thing. (I can
always eat rat meat later)
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Using a handy "how-to" on the Internet I had the thing taken apart in
under 10 minutes. Half the time was looking for my lost Torx bits, until I
realized there were some in my precious ratcheting screwdriver.
Anyway, I looked over the motherboard to see what could be "flattened"
to make the thing thinner (Heat sinks didn't count as I was planning to
replace them with water-cooling) The obvious choice were the
numerous large electrolytic caps. (black cylinders in above photo) As
with many systems I've worked on, I de-soldered them all and
reattached them laying flat. In most cases I had to extend their leads to
make this work. Oh well.
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Above you can see the board with the flattened caps. (That's the cool,
hip, geek slang term for capacitor you know) There are also several
wound torrid coils on the board (yellowish things to the lower right of
the tall heat sink) that would be a real pain to move so I left those
standing as "the highest things on the motherboard" Still it's not too
bad, with the exception of the power port on the back nothing is more
than 1/2" above the motherboard now. You might also noticed I've also
removed the front USB and memory card slots at this point. The front
side USB connections will go to the keyboard / extra USB ports while the
rear port will be used with the Wi-Fi module.
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In my tentative system layout the hard drive is moved a good ways from
the original connector. Since the stubby cord inside the Hard Drive
Enclosure is, well, stubby, I had to see if extending the SATA cable was
possible. The least destructive way of doing this was to de-solder the
connector from the motherboard and extended between them, as seen
above. The idea of extending the SATA cable with old parallel IDE cable
was a bit humorous, to me at least. Naturally I didn't copy every
connection, since +5 and Ground are on there 3 times each. Why have
excessive cabling?
I did a test boot and watched one of the videos off the drive (you know a
system is quality when it comes pre-loaded with James Cameron) I
then played games for about an hour. Nothing exploded or melted a hole
through my floor so I think we're good. I now feel OK to extend the DVD
drive's SATA if required - the existing cable is about 3" long, but most
replacement cables are 2' minimum. I was worried when I read SATA
doesn't use TTL, but apparently it doesn't exactly use magic either, so
it's still hackable. In the final version I'll attach the gray ribbon cables
directly to the colored wires coming off the hard drive's connector,
skipping the Microsoft plugs altogether.
This ends Phase 1 of the project. Next step - water cooling! The parts
are on the way, I'm a bit worried about the pump though. It's the
smallest we could find, but it's still big (for a project like this)
Depending on its size I might have to build a new DVD drive loading
system, just to make everything fit. Also in the experimental realm is
the custom radiator I plan to build. The plan is it'll fit in the space at the
rear of the motherboard where the fans were, then external fans pull
air through it. The idea is to put tubing in all available empty space to
increase the volume. Some of the tubing might even be exposed
around the case for decoration and cool backlighting. But will it run cold
(I mean NOT HOT) enough?
One consolation I have for this step is the massive heat given off by
the 'sinks in the standard configuration. Sure they've got that fan that
sort of pulls air past them, but still the GPU especially gets REALLY hot.
Lacking an infrared thermometer I can only compare it to things. Hm...
How about when you microwave a bowl of something and the bowl's so
hot you can only carry it for about 1 second before setting it down?
Yeah, that's about right. (Don't ask me what that is in Celsius) The worst
thing is that's what it's like running open air as shown above, I can only
imagine how hot it gets in that case. Maybe Microsoft could sell a coffee
warmer attachment or something...
My plan for the custom radiator is 20 1/8" pipes that split the main water
tube 4 ways. Thus, each of the 4 paths goes through 5 of the tubes in
the radiator circuit. Also by having an odd number of tubes for each path
it ensures the output is at the opposite end of the input. Finally all of the
tubes are mounted through about 32 thin aluminum fins. The week I
tried this I was unable to get any aluminum CNC machining done so I
could only test the very basic idea, as shown below.
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Surely not the best test but oh well. It could be done with, and I quote
"common household items" There's 4 lines of interconnect brass
tubing with 5 4.5" long links each. This was placed in a tub with ice
water and held down with a glass. Then the 4 lines combine into a 1/4"
tube at both ends to represent what will be coming off the heat sinks.
Finally I put one end in, ahem, a pot of boiling water and sucked on the
other end. The water came out, well, not AS hot so I guess this sort of
works. I plan to use aluminum tubes for the actual unit, and of course
the fins.
On a muggy Friday the once-shrouded-in-mystery "pump" arrived. It
was as large as I feared, granted it might seem small inside a
min-tower computer case, but for my scale of work it's gargantuan.
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Well at least now I could draw it into the computer and arrange things in
the case some more. However the watercooled heatsinks haven't
arrived yet so I've decided to move onto other things, namely the
keyboard and the screen.
The Keyboard
Now I realize a keyboard for the Xbox 360 isn't exactly the most useful
thing in the world. Sure, you can enter your profile name with ease, or
fire off messages to your buddies in the blink of an eye. But other than
that, mostly pointless. (Unless of course they offer mouse and WASD
support...)
Still, this being a laptop a keyboard makes sense, plus there's all that
empty space there when you open up the unit so yeah, why not put a
keyboard in? At the local used computer place I found a cheap Gateway
"multimedia keyboard" which, more importantly, was USB only. It also
had the bonus feature of a hub / 2 extra USB ports, so this not only
"replaced" the USB port used by the keyboard but added one as well.
The other front USB port on the 360 I plan to use as the third USB port,
and the rear USB port will be for the Wi-Fi. You can even plug in extra 360
controllers to a 'hubbed USB port - pretty handy.
I knew the keyboard in its stock form wouldn't work with my plan, but
at the same time I wanted to avoid the sheer horror of manually
rewiring the matrix under the buttons as I did with the Atari 800 laptop.
So I kind of went in-between. Ok, so inside the keyboard is a silicon
mesh containing domes that provide the soft feel...
[img]http://benheck.com/Games/Xbox360/silicon.jpg[\img]
When you push a key, these "domes" smash down on a really cheap 2
layer plastic "matrix" with a slight gap in-between the layers. Pushing a
spot makes the layers touch, and the conductive material registers a
key-press. You can see a scan of this plastic below.
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Of course the circuit board to control the keyboard was above the
portion I needed to remove, specifically the number pad (Which doesn't
seem to work on the 360 anyway) Since I couldn't just slice off and
rewire that part of the plastic matrix, I choose to fold it behind the rest
and attach the board there. The bright side of this was I finally had a use
for all the thousands of phonebooks I get each year...
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As of this writing the phones books of rain-deforestation have been
smashing the bend in the plastic flat for 5 days. A few more and I'll be
satisfied. Then I can take this crap up north next week and use it for 10
complete campfires. Anyway, as seen above I scanned the matrix into
my computer and then laid out the button arrangements over it. I
cross-referenced to actual measurements of the spacing so I'm
confident it'll work. With the time I saved using this cheat I was able to
work on the screen! (Insert ominous music here)
The Screen
I have to hand it to the dude who's commissioned this project - he's
willing to do it right. (Unlike people who ask me to make arcade
machines out of Game Gear screens for $5 and rubbish like that) Pretty
much from the get-go we decided this sucker would have not just a
screen but a high-definition wide screen. My reasoning to him was "this
is already costing you an arm and leg, why not throw in a kidney?" Or
something like that.
I had heard legends and myths that the 360 could output VGA
resolutions but how? Oh of course, by purchasing a cable I'm sure...
yup, $39.99 it looks like. Luckily I had an Xbox "pinout guide" that
revealed how it works...
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Shown above is the soft white underbelly of the Xbox 360's audio video
connector. Connected to it is the standard TV/HDTV connector which, as
we all know, is guaranteed to get switched to HDTV every time you try
and pull it out. Anyway there's 30 or so pins on this connector, and all
sorts of stuff comes out to this plug - RGB, Composite, Sync, even
SCART-style signals. 3 of the pins are used to tell the console what
mode to render/output in. The basic setting are Composite, VGA,
HDTV/Component and RGB Scart - it just depends which of the 3 pins is
tied to ground. Typically this is done via the connector or the switch
inside it. When you're hacking the console you can have your way with it
as you please.
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The hacked VGA on my monitor. (I had to crop the shot so you couldn't
see all the Post-Its with passwords I have laying around) Anyway, note
how all sorts of resolution choices pop up.
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A screen cap of the underwhelming sequel to my favorite N64 game.
Sigh. Anyways, with my 4:3 monitor set to 1280x1024, the game itself is
letterboxed, while Dashboard is full screen. Note how you can see the
4:3 standard sized "safe area" in the middle and the extra widescreen
stuff to the sides.
Originally we were looking for a small, 15" diagonal HDTV set but
realized this was a bit silly. There were a few out there, but nothing that
looked very promising. Then I came across a Westinghouse model
widescreen LCD computer monitor at Best Buy. It was pretty much
perfect - small enough to not enlarge the laptop too much, widescreen,
and with a native resolution almost exactly that of the 360's default
internal render of 1280x720 (720p HDTV) Another bonus is that VGA RGB
is better than the component HDTV signal as it has actual true RGB
signals and not one but TWO syncs - horizontal and vertical. Whereas
component is actually plug 1=Brightness and composite sync, plug
2=Red minus Green and plug 3=Blue minus Green. Still a pretty good
signal, but a little more "mushed" than VGA RGB.
(Unfortunate note: The LCD display had a DVI input but the Xbox 360
doesn't seen to support that yet. Nuts. Oh well, I'd be no better off with
the $500 PS3 ;)
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Sadly I was not able to play Project Gotham Racing very long - the
screen HAD to come apart!
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After cracking open the case I saw what you see above. 2 circuit boards
and a bunch of aluminum holding the glass itself. One concern I had
when scoping out and measuring the unit on the store display was the
AC wall power input on the back. I was kind of hoping for an external
adapter and a simply +12 volts into the unit. The reality once inside
wasn't TOO bad, the lamp inverter (leftmost), power supply (right of
that) and main video control board (center green thing) The main
problem was the power supply was on the same circuit board as the
inverter.
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It's a problem because the inverter is the thing that fires up the lamp to
light the screen and it had to be behind the screen, along with the
control board. But I certainly didn't want the power supply behind the
screen, mostly because (unlike the inverter and control circuitry) it's
much too much and secondly, you'd need a second wall power plug
going into it.
I tried running +12 volts into the board cold-turkey, but couldn't get it to
work. So I took a long bike ride (which for me, when it comes to
activities that help with figuring out problems, is right up there with
driving, taking a dump or scribbling on bar napkins) and decided to build
a combo 360 / screen external power supply (the 360 supply was going
to be external from the get-go) and run the required +5 and +12 signals
along with the 360's main power into the back of the unit. If you look at
the photo above, you can sort of see how the circuit is in different
sections. All I had to do was figure out which section was PSU, which
was inverter...
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...and split the sucker in two. As shown above. On the left is the thicker
power supply, which I will merge with the external Xbox 360 power
supply, and on the right is the lamp inverter, which will go behind the
screen. The key in this was discovering that all connecting these two
parts were 2 fuses - one for the +12 volts and one for +5 and of course
ground.
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I tested the unit by running (3) 6 foot wires off the power supply (upper
right) to the display (the inverter and control board mounted behind it)
As I expected it still works, so I think I've licked the problems of the
screen. The long wires I bought are a bit too thick, I'll probably replace
them with lower gauge for the final unit, but for the test I wanted "to be
sure"
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Above you can see the control and inverter boards for the screen. I
have "flattened" them through de-soldering to reduce their overall
height. The biggest parts on these boards are usually the electrolytic
capacitors, the blue things that I've laid flat, but I also changed some
plugs to insert at right-angles instead of top-down. The goal here is to
keep the screen portion of the laptop as thin as possible, at least an
inch or less, possible down to 3/4". We'll see....
Now... on the Final Potential Project Wrecker - the water-cooling tests! If
I can get this part working it's smooth sailing. (If not, well I'm screwed)
The original plan I had for the radiator has been thrown out the window.
Well, not how to make it but what size. The thing is, the size of the
screen I bought increases the overall size of the case, thus, I have more
room for things. The obvious benefit is a bigger radiator using larger
tubing.
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I am definitely one of those "why buy it when you can build it for twice
the price?" kind of people, although with the exorbitant pricing of
anything water-cooling related this custom radiator was probably a
bargain. OK in the case I have an area of about 2.5" x 1.5" x 5.5" in which
to put the radiator. Basically in the area in which the original fans sat, but
twice as deep. After looking for some radiators online I realized nothing
would fit that area as I pleased so I immediately jumped - much to the
chagrin of the client - to the idea of making my own radiator.
The controversial part of my design was the lack of bends in the copper
tubing. These would take up space and increase the size of the unit, or
I'd be limited to few runs of pipe. I had my heart set on 8 pipes, so the
fluid has plenty of time to cool off, so the way to do this was by having
hollow end sections cut from aluminum that would channel the fluid as
needed to make the circuit.
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42 (of course) copper fins were slid down the pipes to pull off the heat
and the aluminum ends were assembled and attached to the pipes.
Don't throw stones at me, but it was actually just JB Welded together!
It's good to 500 degrees, and if the XBox gets THAT hot I've got other
problems!
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The parts were routed so accurately that everything fit very tight
already and we just needed a waterproofing. During the gluing and
hammering smoke was blown through the thing to find any air holes
and plug them before it all dried (Remember kids - don't smoke while
making your own custom radiators for Xbox 360 laptops - it's not good
for you)
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I used red food coloring for the 24 hour "leak test" because if it failed I
wanted it to gush like a gaping wound! Well, and leave visible marks on
the paper. In the background there you can sort of see the Gamecube
power supply I'm using to power the pump with 12 volts - when it fires
up it consumes something like 3 amps. It then settles down to a still
kind of high 1.2, which I hope I can either steal off the Xbox or monitor's
power supply. We'll see...
It's the eleventh hour, 7th guest, bottom of the 9th. Running out of time
as usual, I've got half a day to attach and test the water-cooling on the
Xbox 360.
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Late the night before I ripped off the original heat sinks. (This was my
last chance to find the fabled "chip smashers" and lo and behold they
weren't there - maybe Santa Claus stole them with help from Bigfoot)
Above you can see the GPU (left) and CPU (opposite of left) exposed.
They had a thick covering of heat sink paste which I spent a good hour
removing with rubbing alcohol. Once I had them to a mirror finish I
rubbed on Arctic Silver heat transfer compound and attached the
Koolance water blocks.
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With a mere 45 minutes left before I had to leave for a trip the Xbox was
water-cooled. Granted these aren't the final tubing lengths and setups,
but I had to see if it at least worked. I tested it for about 30 minutes,
which is certainly long enough to bring the 'Box to a full boil. The
radiator indeed got hot, although I was only using the stock Xbox fans to
cool it. (Note there is no reservoir yet) As you can see I also attached
some small heat sinks (that were included with water blocks) to the RAM.
After getting back from my trip I was able to test the Xbox longer. The
radiator gets quite warm, but not as warm as say the original GPU heat
sink which got so hot you wonder "is this OK?" and "maybe I could set
my coffee here!" Still, in the final unit it will be bolted to the bottom of
the aluminum case, draining some heat, and will also have a cover so
the fans blow directly across the fins. On the flip side of that coin and
enclosed case will trap more heat, so the fans will have their work cut
out for them.
he design is coming into its final stages. I have also decided to build a
small reservoir to increase the total amount of water in the system.
Granted there's not much free space left, but I believe I can add a tank
that will increase the total amount of water in the system by 33%. This
will also allow me to put in a easy "top off port" so the water level can
be maintained if need be. (much like a car)
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Above you can see my layout for the main guts of the unit (the bottom
half of the case) Things are a bit tight in places, not so bad in others, but
it should all work out in the end. There's not much left to do now but
finalize the case design and get the drawings ready to be cut. This is
probably my most "hybrid" case ever as it will use carbide bit routed
aluminum and laser cut plastic parts. Then of course there's the
troubleshoot, but, bleh, let's get the case done first.
Now it's time for the real meat and potatoes of the project - a case. We
all know that's what makes it really special. For this device, I decided to
make my first all-aluminum casing, both to sink heat and to support the
weight of the water, DVD drives and large screen. I created the case by
routing parts out of .080" aluminum and having it welded together, as
shown below:
[img]http://benheck.com/Games/Xbox360/routing.jpg[img]
The Sabre 408 routing the first parts of the case. Yes, it is quite the
mess.
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The assembled case pieces laid atop each other.
All this aluminum work was done at Jim Greeley Signs and Awnings, so
if you're in the Wisconsin area of the Midwest and need some hi-tech
signage or something, why not look them up? Tell 'em Ben sent ya!
After the case was assembled I then painted it with several layers of
enamel and let it dry a good solid week before doing anything else.
Troubleshooting. And then more troubleshooting. After that, yes,
troubleshooting. With the case finished I have been able to install
components and try out the system.
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Above you can see the basic watercooling circuit of the system. It
involves the pump, motherboard, radiator and reservoir.
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This is the wiring on the rear breakout AV panel. Plugs from the Xbox
360 motherboard insert into these headers, along with plugs from the
monitor. It's kind of the Grand Central Station of video/audio signals in
the unit.
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This is the first photo of the unit in the casing and running. However, I
kept finding bugs (mostly with the water-cooling but also with other
things) so the last few days have been a vicious cycle of:
1)test system
2)find problem
3) tear it all apart
4) fix problem
5) put it back together
6) find new problem.
7) get discouraged and drink beer
8) go at it again
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Here I am late the night of August 4th, playing Oblivion on the system.
No speakers yet, just headphones (they plug into the right side of the
monitor) The goal here is to play until a problem crops up - note the
sponge at the ready. Bits of sponge are also packed inside the system
in case of mishap. I start saying to myself - "Oh water-cooling, what a
BRILLIANT idea Ben!"
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Ah, game testing always goes better with a delicious hunk of fresh,
uncooked Rat Meat. I have to say, playing the games in high-definition is
a marked improvement over regular TV's. The menus are shaper,
edges are cleaner and well, it just plain looks better. Plus the
widescreen is cool too.
We'll fast-forward now to the end of August. Testing continues,
profanities fly and the reservoir goes through 5, yes, FIVE revisions
before I finally build one the way I should have all along. In the end I use
a piece of square aluminum tubing with top and bottom caps and
threaded-in hose barbs. A month of my life, gone forever. Sigh. At least

next time I know what NOT to do.
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The inside of the Xbox 360 laptop case, with labels:
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{Without Labels}
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With the troubleshooting out of the way it's time to install the final components and finish up the unit! It's about f**king time, I say!

With that being said, look at the top for the resulting image.
oh, and you may have noticed i didnt include breaks between large gaps of time.... sry
lol
Here is a link to the site i got this from!
http://benheck.com/Games/Xbox360/x360_page_1.htm
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monkeymaximus

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Post Wed Jan 10, 2007 5:56 am

that is really really fricking sweet.... i wish i was that capable ;)
[img]https://brewology.com/images/mm/monkeymaximus.jpg[/img]
http://img522.imageshack.us/img522/8907/monkeymaximus2ph.jpg
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.Vault

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Post Wed Jan 10, 2007 2:27 pm

i saw this in a magazine of mine, i forget which one it was... but either way i want one soo badly... haha... it would be the sickest thing ever to have one of them
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DarkPacMan77

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Post Sun Feb 25, 2007 9:11 am

I contacted Ben Heckendorn about making a custom portable sega genesis but he said it would run me about $550 - 600 so I kindly denied and never spoke to him again lol. His 360 laptop is possibly the best mod of a system I've ever seen. You guys should look into more of his stuff, he's done some amazing work.

-DarkPacMan77-
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D3ViLsAdvocate wrote:Try shaking the salt harder onto your tongue.
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FireFoxx

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Post Sun Feb 25, 2007 5:00 pm

wow that guy is my hero i went to his site and he made a portable of almost every system including a wii.
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que13x

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Post Sat Dec 01, 2007 11:25 pm

Awesome mod!

I wonder what the total price of materials was.
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AdventWolf

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Post Sun Dec 02, 2007 6:56 am

The comic brought some laughs to me. The final result looks bada**! This guy is awesome.
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/>s/>

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Post Sun Feb 03, 2008 10:25 am

Wow that is badass! How much would it cost if you sold it to someone...just sayin.
|_][_][_][_][_][_][_][_][_][_][_][_][_][_][_][_][_][_][_||
|_][_][_][_][_][_]MY PSP ISBRICKED[_][_][_][_][_][_][_|

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HD_ReMiiX

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Post Wed Apr 21, 2010 2:55 pm

That Thing looks AWESOME!
How much would you sell one for :?: Jus wonderin. :P
PSN:iiItZEdGeii

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