Quietening the X-box

Talisman

Has anyone swapped out the fans in the console to make it less noisy? I got a second hand console last week and when I turned it on, it sounded like a jet engine. Maybe it's because it's sitting beside a virtually silent Shuttle XPC box that makes it seem so noisy.

This weekend I intend to fit the console with the Xecuter 2.6 CE modchip and a 250GB drive. I figured that seeing as I'll have the box open I may as well have a go at silencing it somewhat.

Has anyone done this before? If so what size fans are inside? I presome they're 80mm at most.

lphchild

I had the same issue with a version 1.0 box.

Elmer fitted a quiet fan for me, (with a bit of hack saw magic), however I must be noise sensitive as the pitch from the gfx fan on it was driving me bonkers, so he replaced it with a heat sink from a more recent box. Only noisy bit left is the cd drive, which I don't use anymore, so now have near silence :-)

There's a guide on xbox scene to replacing the fan, which is pretty accurate..

lph

elmer

it's a 70mm fan - an 80 will fit like in lphchild's one but you'll need to take away a chunk of the hdd tray plastic, break the clips that held the fan and take off some of the dvd mounting plastic around that area and also not put a screw in the back centre as the fan obstructs it.

if you get a decent fan it can be virtually silent

a hack saw is handy

Nige

Talisman

Been looking for a 70mm fan but they're all noisy buggers: 28~38DBA. I've got a 14DBA SilenX fan in my Shuttle so I think I'll order another one for the console.

Found the Vantec Stealth Case Fan Upgrade tutorial on Xbox-Scene.

Thanks for the info, I'll let you know how I get on when the fan arrives.

po0k

Get a silent 80mm and hack with a hacksaw. You'll need to take the bottom two corners off the can itself too. perhaps cutting at the metal grille at the back too may help reduce noise generated by turbulance.
If you do it right you can have your airflow going over the cpu, gpu and underside of the hard-drive in the tray.

Mounting the hdd (I assume you've got a quiet hdd?) on rubber grommets or washers should help too.

lphchild

I used one of these, as I couldn't wait for delivery, is pretty quiet...

http://www.peats.com/cgi-bin/shop/db.cgi?view=1&id=6675&type=6&path=14x122x308


lph

(Thanks again to Elmer for fitting it!)

Talisman

The hard drive is a Samsung SpinPoint so it will be virtually silent.

po0k

I have one, the SP2541N, noisey enough when seeking.

Talisman

Is it a clicking sound? I have the SATA version (2540C??) in the Shuttle box and sometimes I hear it go click, click, click when the drive spins to do a seek. It doesn't bother me as it's barely noticeable and if there's an external maxtor drive running then it isn't noticeable at all because the Maxtor is much louder.

Talisman

lphchild wrote:

I used one of these, as I couldn't wait for delivery, is pretty quiet...

http://www.peats.com/cgi-bin/shop/db.cgi?view=1&id=6675&type=6&path=14x122x308

Thanks for that, I'll pop in on Thursday night and pick one up. I presume you had to get a 3 pin to 4 pin adapter as well.

elmer

Talisman wrote:

Thanks for that, I'll pop in on Thursday night and pick one up. I presume you had to get a 3 pin to 4 pin adapter as well.

use the 3 pin that's vacated by the old fan

Talisman

elmer wrote:

use the 3 pin that's vacated by the old fan

Would that not cause the fan to be under volted? Normally the 80mm fans feed off of the 12v (4-pin) line, but can feed off of the 5v (3-pin) line - the difference being they don't spin as fast on the 5v line and so don't make as much noise but also don't shift as much air.

Just trying to be sure - I'm just a bit afraid that I'm going to be shortening the life of the console by not giving the fan the required power for it to do the job required.

elmer

the one lphchild linked to came with a 3 pin. afaik the 3 pin on the xbox is 12v but the standard fan is limited to 7v - there's info about it on xbox-scene

it'll definately give you enough cooling power - and definately more than before

Talisman

I bought the fan in Peats but haven't got around to cutting up the Xbox to install it yet. I was around at a friends house over the weekend and the fan in his Crystal Xbox sounds like a jumbo jet, mine now seems to purr like a kitten by comparison.

po0k

The standard fan is a 60 or 70mm 12V fan. There is a thermally-controlled PWM regulating the voltage to the fan and hence the fan-speed. You can also pre-set the fan to a given speed using the BIOS or something like a recent build of XBMC.
When you replace the standard fan with an 80mm model, it's still going to be running off the same voltage supply (PWM or fixed) it'll just be eating up a bit more current. The pay-off is that you can spin it slower (less voltage => less noise) and it'll still cool the xbox.
If you want to get fancy, get out your hacksaw and slap a second fan on the left-side for intake, you could route the airflow over the gpu/nb and cpu quite easily, with the fan connected to the spots for the old V1.0 GPU/NB 3-pin fan header.