Five things to do with your new cheap Xbox 360

As both Nick at Gizmodo and Logan at Kotaku reported this morning, Microsoft has dropped the Australian price of the Xbox 360, making the cheapest model $349. Those price cuts might well tempt you to add the Xbox 360 to your technology arsenal, but remember that the machine isn’t just a console and media player. Check after the jump for five mods you can make to your new discounted Xbox to render it more useful and more efficient.

Build your own WiFi adapter or use a notebook. An official Wi-Fi
adapter is available from Microsoft, but even after shopping around,
that’ll likely set you back $150 or more. Check our guide to
building your own and save some money. If that seems too fiddly and you
only want occasional wireless access, you can use an existing laptop PC
to provide wireless access.


Stream DivX video to your Xbox 360. The addition of DivX support made
the Xbox 360 much more appealing as a media player. Follow these steps
to stream your Divx video collection straight to the Xbox.
Set up your PC media centre. The Xbox makes an excellent client for a
PC media centre, but you need to set up the PC first. Find out how with
our detailed guide.
Replace the fan. This might void your warranty, but it could save your
hearing. Follow this procedure to replace the noisy Xbox 360 fan with a
quieter model.

Switch it off when you’re not using it. OK, that’s not really a mod,
but research shows that consoles are indeed
greedy when it comes to power consumption. Do the right thing and power
it down when the gaming and media viewing is over.