How to open your xbox 360

Opening the Xbox 360

This is a complete and very thorough tutorial on how to open your Xbox 360. We have included personal tips that will allow you to achieve this with minimal effort and time. Approximate time is 5-10 minutes.

What you need

Torx screw drivers in the following sizes: T8 and T10

One small flat head screw driver or small and thin wedge (a glasses screw driver flat head, can get at a gas station or grocery store typically

A pair of pliers (may or may not need them)

You can also use an Xbox 360 Opening Kit if you have one

-Removing the Case-

The first step is to remove the outer plastic shell that conceals the innards of the system. To do this, you must start by removing the face plate. Take a look at the front of the Xbox 360 and insert your thumb into the door that covers the two USB ports on the right of the unit. With your other hand squeezing the upper and lower sides of the face plate, pull out the face plate with your thumb. With not much force, the face plate should pop right off.

After the face plate has been pulled off you will see a silver Microsoft sticker covering a gap; remove this. You will also see four small clips locking the top half of the plastic shell to the bottom half. Do not attempt to wedge the clips out at this point.

With some care, gently bend outwards, the right gray ventilation shield on the right side of the unit so that you can see a bit inside. You will notice that the gray side piece attaches to both the bottom and top white chassis. Now look through the holes on top of the unit to locate the areas where the gray side pieces attaches to the white body. What you need to do is take the glasses screw driver and push down, through the white holes (located on both the top and bottom of the Xbox 360) where the clips of the gray side pieces connect. Slowly pull out the gray pieces away from the unit while unlocking the clips and eventually the gray piece will release itself.

To remove the left gray piece, you must first remove the hard drive unit by pressing the button located on the unit itself. Then apply the same procedure used to remove the right gray ventilation piece -- except when you reach the bottom clip of the piece, you most remove the rubber foot located directly below, to reveal a hole where you can insert the glasses screw driver.

Once you have both side gray pieces removed, you have essentially removed the main locking mechanism that holds the top and bottom shells together. At this point, return to the front of the unit and turn the entire unit upside down. Using a flat head screw driver or wedge, gently pry up the clips holding the top shell to the bottom (If you just insert the object into the hole you should just hear a click. It’s not much of a pry. Once the clips are unlatched, slowly lift up the front of the bottom shell about an inch. While unlatching the clips you should apply pressure as if you were trying to separate the case while doing this so that they don’t go back together and re-clip themselves.

Once complete, you may lift off the bottom shell covering.

Looking inside the unit, you will notice that there are 14 silver screws (6 of which are long) and 8 black screws. Using your torx screw drivers, remove the silver screws using a size T10 screw. Remove the other half of the shell now. You should now be greeted with the internals of the Xbox 360.