I present you my silent XBox 360 Cooling Mod The primary goal was to get maximum silence and still keep it cool. I used an old Xenon XBox 360 and I performed the following modding steps: - JTAG - remove DVD drive - replace 20GB HDD with a new 250GB HDD - replace X-Clamps with screws and renew thermalpaste (Arctic Cooling MX3) - rebuild fanducts for back fans - add fanducts for top fans - add fan control, variable from 5V to 12V, accessible by removing the faceplate - add four 80mm fans (Arctic Cooling F8 and F8 Pro) running at 7V now - provide the PSU with passive cooling The result is a now really silent XBox360. The four fans running at 7V provide enough cooling for everything, idle temps are 52°C CPU and 46°C GPU. Idle temps before the mod were 70-80°C for both CPU and GPU. Watch a HD-Video of the XBox360 in action, with before and after comparison: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-SryUclRrB8 Pictures of the modding process: planning in sketchup: bad boy R6T3 had to go: old thermal paste, before and after cleanup: cutting the backhole: fits perfect: adding top fans and fanducts rebuilding the rear fanducts I used 1mm polystyrol sheets, easy to cut and glue: getting 12V power for the fancontrol: the fan control: power connector for the back fans: provide the psu with passive cooling, I used an old CPU heatsink (I didn't have anything smaller ): the passive cooling seems to work fine, after a two hour test session, the heatsink was getting hot, but you could always touch it without problems, I would guess something around 40-50°C Hope you enjoyed it.
No. Didn't think about that to be honest. But it is electrically separated by these yellow plastic sheets you see in the pictures and I only used non-conductive silicone heat paste. So I didn't see any need for that. And I didn't get zapped so far. thx and "over the top" was needed to achieve these temperatures and silence I got that old xbox from a friend and so far I only had a selfbuilt silent PC/HTPC for gaming and movie watching. It was a real shock when I powered up that xbox for the first time. I'm used to silence in my living room and that thing made more noise than a starting jetplane. And that was only runnning idle, gaming was impossible to enjoy. So I had to take drastic actions.
I presently have 2 Xboxes that RROD'd on me. Gonna try to fix one (the other is beyond fried). If i get it right, expect me to do something along the modding lines as well - for the second casing. Got some ideas lined up... Nicely done, albeit i must say it looks a bit "Gonzo". Hiding some cabling and stealthing the fans a bit more would go a long way, methinks...
Awesome mod dude - does it suck up a ton of dust though? Is this still running till today? like the idea of this since my xbox is the loudest thing in the house!
Thx, but I can't tell you that. I finished the mod just one week ago. So I can't give you any long term experience, but that week it was running fine. Dust could maybe become a problem if I would use it very often. But I mainly game on my PC (real 1080 with AA/AF ) and I use the XBox just for some XBox only games. So its not used that much, so dust shouldn't be problem anytime soon. But if I would use it for my daily gaming, I would definitly install some dust filters on the top fans.
Like it a lot! I always hated how loud the 360 is, especially compared to much older tech like my ancient PSX and PS2. It's so loud I would never use it as a DVD player, which the PS2 was for ages, and that's a pretty big qualification. For everyone who doesn't want to mod there's also that Lian-Li XB01, which is a case replacement with room for much bigger and quieter cooling solutions (including replacing the dentist-drill-at-full-RPM disc drive), and it's still colder even with the standard cooling solutions. Yours is a much more reasonable size, though.
small status update of my xbox: After 15 month of more or less regular use (about 1-10 hours a week) it is still working, silent and cool. (Pictures reuploaded, old host was dead.)
I remember seeing this thread last year and thinking "Oh cool!" Should've commented then, doing so now.
Why did you remove ic R6T3 !?! Good work but the overall look its' not so clean... (4 fans outside...)
