I have recently bought one - not for games actually, my PC does fine for that, but to use the fantastic Xbox Media Centre for playing movies in my living room (over the network from my main PC). It's a simple, cheap solution for this BTW, as it will play just about any media. The only limitation is that it won't record TV.
Of course the first thing I did was take it apart, thereby invalidating its warranty the same day I bought it!!
I installed a modchip to get XBMC working, and immediately started looking at ways of modding it to make it quieter, and seeing if I can improve the airflow at all.The Xbox is ideal for silencing, as it only has 1 fan in the entire system (modern versions don't have the GPU fan as in the image below) so only has two sources of constant noise, the fan and HDD. But mine runs pretty hot (high 60s C in the warm Sydney summer) and I want to mod it for optimum airflow too.
I've looked at all the tutorials/forums over at Xbox Scene and have come up with a list of things I want to do. I'm wondering if anyone else has tried them or has any further comments/suggestions/experiences they can add to my own:
- Replace the stock thermal paste on CPU and GPU with Arctic Silver. I've just done this, and it has dropped temps by several degrees, well worth it.
- Replace the stock noisy 70mm fan with an 80mm Panaflo. Probably the most important mod as the stock one sounds like a buzz saw. Xbox Scene has plenty of tutorials on that, but I want to soft mount mine with EAR fan mounts. Will this be possible or are the clearances too tight (given the extra thickness the fan mounts will create)? Anyone tried this? I will probably attempt this in the next week or two, and report back here on my experiences.
Update 22/2: Done, see post below. One thing to note: space is so tight for an 80mm fan I can't see a way of decoupling with EAR mounts, as this would move the fan 1-2mm further into the case, interfering with the mobo. It is also in contact with the HDD & DVD trays on either side, so it would still not be decoupled. - Decouple Hard Drive. The stock 10GB Seagate is pretty quiet, but it's hard mounted to a plastic tray which will surely resonate quite a bit (I won't really be able to tell until I've done the fan mod first!). I might also upgrade to a larger (and maybe noisier/hotter) HDD in the future.
- Optimise airflow to run over the hottest components most efficiently. Probably the hardest and most contentious issue, and being a closed system you might think Microsoft have already done this. They have to a certain extent, but I think it can be improved on, although there is a risk of creating hot spots within the case.
- Looking at the below image (bottom of pic is rear of case) you can see the exhaust fan sucks air in from the sides and the front, but most of the hot components are on the left of the picture, so I might try partially blocking the vent holes on the right. I'll have a look at measuring the temps of those 3 large capacitors on the top right first, and maybe leaving an intake gap near them.
- The HDD sits in its tray over the top of the CPU/PSU on the left of the pic (the DVD on the right), which itself affects airflow a lot. The tray even has a vertical baffle underneath it to direct air towards the CPU. But not much air flows over the HDD itself, so I have thought of hacking the tray a bit to improve things. Has anyone else tried this?
- Create some additional ducting with cardboard/plastic to direct air more. Haven't even though much about this yet, but I've done it successfully in my PC and I don't see why it shouldn't help here.
The better I can get the airflow, the more I can turn the fan down (XBMC has a manual override setting) and keep it quiet and temperatures cool, which is my overall aim!
- Intake filtering. Err.... forget it!
That's the sum of my experiences/ideas, the floor is now open to anyone else. Now, Bluefront, do you have an Xbox?.......
Edited 22/2: Updated with Panaflo mod
I think it's safe at these temps though, as Xboxes do run quite hot normally.
