DIY OG Xbox HDMI Fix: Making Hyperkin’s Panorama Cable Work Right
Introduction
Reviving my old Xbox was part of a nostalgic and educational journey into Xbox and Xbox 360 hacking. However, I immediately ran into the problem of how you even get it to display on a modern television or monitor. There were cheap HDMI cables which were universally poorly reviewed. Then there were specialty devices – Xbox2HDMI, OSSC boxes, or XboxHDMI boards (which you had to install) – which were all significantly more expensive, not even including the flat rate US shipping. The only middle option appeared to be the Hyperkin Panorama HDMI cable. It was apparently “Officially Licensed by Xbox”, fairly priced, distributed by Amazon, and fairly well reviewed. The only problem was that still many users reported graphical problems. I decided to try it anyway – at least those problems seemed to be fixable.
Sure enough, the cable was unusable out of the box – it had issues with persistent purple waviness and frequent cutting out. However, these problems are not actually with the cable, but with the source of power coming from the Xbox – likely due to aging capacitors. There are two solutions I was able to find documented online. You could either replace the faulty capacitors in the Xbox, or you could provide an external power source to the Panorama cable. The former was going to require a lot more effort: at the very least you would have to replace the Xbox power supply’s electrolytic capacitors, but you may have to replace some on the motherboard itself (see here and here). At that point, you might as well plan to completely replace the capacitors, meaning a not insignificant further financial and time investment into the console.
Providing an external power source to the Panorama cable however is significantly simpler. It only requires a 5V USB cable and some basic soldering. This was the obvious place to start with, and it ended up solving all of the graphical issues I had with the console – the purple waviness and the cutting out.
The rest of this post will document the process I performed, step-by-step, to fix the cable. It is based on this Amazon review by Mike Tunstall, to whom I give ultimate credit for finding and documenting this method.
What You Need
- A 5V USB charging cable
- Soldering equipment
- Soldering iron (I used a Pinecil)
- Solder wire
- Flux
- Isopropyl alcohol
- Copper wick (in case of mistakes)
- Optional: Helping hands (will make the process significantly less finicky)
- Wire cutters
- Wire stripper
- Phillips head screwdriver
Guide
Step 1
We’ll start by disassembling the cable’s box, which is as simple as unscrewing the four Phillips head screws on the bottom of the box.
Step 2
Flipping the board over, we find the GND and 5V pins, which we will solder the appropriate wires from the USB cable to. This will allow us to remotely power the board over USB rather than via the Xbox.
Step 3
Referring to the image in Step 2, identify the cable on the flip side of the board connected to the red highlighted 5V pin. In my case this is the purple cable. Use your wire cutters to cut it - we no longer want power coming from the Xbox. (Please note that the brown cable to GND should not be cut.)
Step 4
Now we’ll prepare the USB cable. Cut off one head of the cable, leaving the USB end that will be used to provide power to the cable. In my case, I used wire cutters to remove the micro-USB head.
Step 5
Strip the outer jacket and shield from a length of the USB cable. I removed about two inches. At this point, you should just have the four internal USB wires exposed.
Step 6
Strip back the insulation of black (GND) and red (5V) wires. The other two are for data and can be cut back – we do not need them.
Step 7
It’s time to solder these wires to their appropriate pins. You can refer to Step 3 for the colours – black goes to GND, red goes to 5V. As with any soldering: first clean the points with isopropyl alcohol, then flux and tin the pins and wires, and then solder them in. (My soldering is admittedly not that great on these points, but they hold and it works perfectly.) Finally, clean the board with isopropyl alcohol.
Step 8
Now you can test. Once the USB, HDMI, and Xbox cables are plugged in, the green LED should come on, indicating the board has power. When you turn the Xbox on, the graphics distortions should be gone.
Step 9
If all is working, reassemble the box. To accommodate the new cable, you can create a hole in the side of it. Alternatively, you could just electrical tape it all together, which is what I did.