Loud Xbox 360

twylight777 · Post by **twylight777** » Sun Dec 04, 2005 7:38 pm

MikeC,

Some recommendations:

Racing - Project Gotham Racing 3 (medium loud during play)
Shooter - Perfect Dark Zero (zOMG loud during play)
Platformer - Kameo (still shrink wrapped personally)

Lots of sports games - i would just Perfect Dark - aim at people and shoot em!

Good luck - its WAY louder during game play.

JimX · Post by **JimX** » Mon Dec 05, 2005 11:52 am

Hi everyone,

I just got my 360 today, played a bit, and started appreciating my PCs and getting things into perspective. Sometimes late at night I got very upset by the (faint) sound of hard disks and Nexus fans! Ha! I'll never complain again... This thing is very loud and as described by Mike, a horrible mix of noise. I hope he has good news soon!

Jim

fahrenheit · Post by **fahrenheit** » Mon Dec 05, 2005 2:44 pm

What seems apparent from the modding scene is that unlike the orginal Xbox, the DVD drives are not interchangable between different units. This means (barring any modification) the DVD drive is married to the console for life.

Totally unacceptable for me and really the only thing that is holding me back from buying one. Fans can be upgraded, but until we see anything other than these Hitachi-LG drives, I won't touch one.

JimX · Post by **JimX** » Thu Dec 22, 2005 11:58 am

No news for so many days could mean either that the mission is aborted as impossible OR that an article is underway!

Mike?

chdude3 · Post by **chdude3** » Thu Dec 22, 2005 12:40 pm

Wow, am I the only one that doesn't mind the (so-called) noise on the 360?

I like my quiet. I've got an undervolted 3000+ with a Nexus 120mm fan, the GeForce6800 has a 5V VF7700Cu, powered with a Seasonic S12-430W all inside an Antec P180. It's the closest thing to silence I've got.

And I don't mind the Xbox. At idle dashboard, I can barely hear it. Pop in a DVD or game, and the music/sound FAR overpower what noise I can hear from the fans.

nici · Post by **nici** » Thu Dec 22, 2005 4:52 pm

I dont personally own one, but i played GUN at my cousins place for a while and overall i would say it sounded pretty smooth and unobstrusive although it was by no means close to silent. But the smooth character of the noise made it easy for my brains to cancel it out.. Sample variance?

kwong121 · Post by **kwong121** » Thu Dec 22, 2005 7:40 pm

Christmas is too busy a time for this so I am going to pick it up from Mike tonight. Hopefully we will try again in the new year.

As Mike said, the sound is not very loud but complex enough to be annoying. It is probably no louder than my PC. But it all comes to circumstances. The primary use of computers are for computation and education tasks. A little noise, smooth or not, can be learned to ignore over time. And I did. In a home theatre (not gaming, which is different), however, sound is an integral part of the experience. It is reproduced, not add, from the original source. Any foreign sound that interfers with it is undesirable. So if the noise of the fan doesn't bother you, great and enjoy the 360. Right now, I found the fans of the 360 very annoying. Yet the sound of the DVD-drive doesn't bother me at all. In fact, I don't recall hearing it. So it all comes down to what each person's tolerance level.

Kaman

JimX · Post by **JimX** » Fri Dec 23, 2005 7:33 am

My problem is that I often play at 1-2 in the morning with the gf sleeping in the house, keeping the amp volume low enough that I can hear the DVD drive scratching and roaring. Maybe my drive is worse than others. When I play from the HD or when I watch a DVD (for testing purposes only!) the noise is almost OK. The air coming out the back is very hot and I'd like to do something about that too. No freezes though!

This is SilentPC(andanythingwithaprocessorandavgaandaharddisk)Review anyway.

Jim

PS.1. I silenced my 3 year old satellite receiver (w. HDD) and now I can't hear it from 1 meter (3 feet) away, and it only made a fraction of the noise of the XBox. And it really made me happy.

PS.2. I have to put my ear 30cm (1 foot) from my 2 PCs to hear anything out of them. The air coming out is barely warm even on high load. And one of them is a Prescott!

PS.3. I love my 50's Westinghouse FrostFree refrigerator but I always keep the kitchen door closed! One day I'll do something about that too!

fahrenheit · Post by **fahrenheit** » Fri Dec 23, 2005 12:57 pm

It would appear that not all of the DVD drives are created equal, some are reportedly noisier than others. Until some more consistantly quiet drives enter the production lines, its going to be a bit hit and miss landing a quiet unit. Many faulty 360's have been sent back to MS for repairs with white trays for their DVD drives, and have returned with grey trays, so that would seem to indicate more than one model.

Games, like movies, have dynamic soundtracks which means very low lows that expose any environmental noises that are not part of the soundtrack. The advice being dished out on other forums like "just turn the volume up" smacks of ignorance. Yes, sustained noise at set frequency and volume can be tuned out and ignored to a degree, but a device like a DVD drive will constantly make its presence known by spinning up then down.

nici · Post by **nici** » Fri Dec 23, 2005 3:02 pm

Maybe i should have been clearer, i didnt mind the noise while gaming but i would probably be annoyed if i watched movies with it. I think Mike described the noise as something like a crappy fan and a old ball bearing HDD in poor shape, however the one i used sounded very smooth in character. Not being arrogant or anything, but i know when something sounds smooth and when not. So maybe there really is different versions of the drive.

fahrenheit wrote:Many faulty 360's have been sent back to MS for repairs with white trays for their DVD drives, and have returned with grey trays, so that would seem to indicate more than one model.

As far as i can remember, the tray on my cousins 360 was grey.

Anyway, i wouldnt use it as a "media center". Theres better equipment for that, and i prefer PC over console for gaming too and have no plans on purchasing a 360.

JimX · Post by **JimX** » Fri Dec 23, 2005 3:15 pm

Mine is grey too, but noisy, so color does not matter, unfortunately.

Only size...

nici · Post by **nici** » Fri Dec 23, 2005 4:21 pm

JimX wrote:Mine is grey too, but noisy, so color does not matter, unfortunately.

Only size...

And how you use it

joshd2012 · Post by **joshd2012** » Sat Dec 24, 2005 7:21 am

http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?Vi ... 8243459780

Looks like someone has already tried a watercooled version. Though, I'm not sure why they did it, but they left the original stuff in there and put the watercooling on top of the original heatsink. Sounds kind of stupid to me. Maybe their next effort will be a full watercooling replacement.

autoboy · Post by **autoboy** » Sat Dec 24, 2005 9:39 am

OMG that is the funniest thing I have ever seen. It looks like he glued the heatsink to the plexiglass, used some old watercooling stuff he had lying around, and is trying to sell it for a grand. Note he said the stock cooling setup was still there so there would be no heat problems. Well duh. If he never touched the stock cooling there would be no problems. At least he is not as dumb as the sap that buys it.

qviri · Post by **qviri** » Sat Dec 24, 2005 9:42 am

That system, and selling it for $1000, is a joke. Not only are they cooling only the heatsink, the GPU isn't touched at all, and the stock fans are still in place and operating. Not to mention they're using a whoppingly large 12x12cm radiator...

autoboy · Post by **autoboy** » Sat Dec 24, 2005 10:00 am

I'm sure someone will build an actual waterblock for the xbox360. If not someone can lend me their xbox for a few months and I will build one for them!

rader · Post by **rader** » Tue Dec 27, 2005 4:36 pm

I plan on quieting my 360 some time soon. The plan I have right now is to replace the two rear fans (Delta's?) with Panaflo L1A 60mm fans from Driectron. They will probably need to be dremeled and epoxyed together to fit in the stock fan slot. I will try to figure out a way to soft mount them. Either sorbothane or 3m foam double sided tape.
I was thinking of replacing the stock thermal compound with Ceramique, but since I have not had any overheating problems I may leave it for now.
The DVD drive is the difficult part since it cannot be swapped out. It seems to resonate when the drive is spun up. I am planning to cover the outside and inside of the metal DVD case with adhesive damping sheets from mcmaster-carr.com (pg 3274). Hopefully that will damp out some resonance. I would also like to find a way to seal off the DVD tray so less noise is emitted. Maybe small strips of adhesive foam strategically placed inside the drive would help keep the noise from escaping? Maybe sound absorbsion inside the faceplate would help quiet things down.
Another thought I have had is to mount the drive with sorbothane or grommets of some sort. This part is difficult because the drive needs to line up perfectly for the tray to open. Mounting with elastic would be nearly impossible.
Let me know if you guys have other ideas. I still need to crack the case open on this thing but I am hesitant to do it before the warranty expires.

joshd2012 · Post by **joshd2012** » Fri Dec 30, 2005 1:01 pm

http://newsroom.eworldwire.com/wr/122905/13373.htm

CALGARY, Alberta/EWORLDWIRE/Dec. 29, 2005 --- CoolIT Systems Inc. today announced that it is showcasing the world's first truly liquid-cooled Xbox 360 in Las Vegas at the Consumer Electronics Show from Jan. 4 - 8, 2006.

The retrofitted Xbox 360 will be on display at the CoolIT Systems booth 70556 in The Sands Expo Center throughout the duration of the CES Show. The display will feature a side-by-side comparison of the CoolIT MTEC liquid-chilled Xbox 360 to the standard Xbox 360 to demonstrate superiority for temperature, noise level and ultimate performance.

"Whether it's a PC or gaming console, the avid gamer is constantly raising the bar for performance," said Geoff Lyon, CEO of CoolIT. "It's now obvious that only the most technologically advanced cooling system will be capable of keeping up with the heat production of today's CPUs and GPUs. The exclusive MTEC technology allows us to provide enormous cooling power in a very compact form factor suitable for maintaining stable temperatures and ensuring optimum performance."

The Microsoft Xbox 360 has been the topic of much discussion since its release on Nov. 22, 2005. Aside from its limited supply through Christmas and fantastic gaming abilities, many headlines have been about problems related to the excessive thermal output of Microsoft's latest gaming console product.

To provide gaming consumers with a high performance option, CoolIT Systems has designed a retrofit product that will transform the stock forced air cooling system with a state-of-the-art liquid-chilled system that employs the exclusive MTEC technology pioneered by CoolIT Systems.

The CoolIT Booth will also showcase several newly- released retail products including the Freezone CPU Cooler compatible with both AMD and Intel processors and the USB Beverage Chiller.

Well, this should be interesting. I wonder how much they will charge for the kit.

Slaugh · Post by **Slaugh** » Sun Jan 01, 2006 10:18 pm

joshd2012 wrote:Well, this should be interesting. I wonder how much they will charge for the kit.

It's very expensive! According to P2PNet, this kit costs $400, which is the price of the XBox 360 itself! It's really not a cheap solution! Sure, it helps to cool down the CPU and the GPU to get rid of some noises, but it does nothing against the DVD seek noise...

P2PNet wrote:Chillin' out the XBox 360

Canada's CoolIT Systems in Alberta, the next province over from p2pnet, say they have the world's first truly liquid cooled Xbox 360. And that they're going to prove it in Las Vegas at the Consumer Electronics Show from January 4 – 8, 2006.

[...]

Meanwhile, it isn't cheap. It's $400, pretty much the same price as a higher end XBox 360.

For those who are wondering, here's a picture of that kit:

joshd2012 · Post by **joshd2012** » Mon Jan 02, 2006 6:55 am

That is way too much. I guess they aren't looking to sell too many.

Gojira-X · Post by **Gojira-X** » Mon Jan 02, 2006 8:40 am

andywww wrote:I don't know, cacheing games to hd seems like such a good idea, but also like one that would be disabled to prevent possible really easy nocd hacks, you know? Yet another way in which DRM makes our lives a little less pleasant.

The back catalogue games that you are/will be able to dl from xbox live platinum.

if you just play them....no dvd noise!

joshd2012 · Post by **joshd2012** » Fri Jan 06, 2006 10:04 pm

HardOCP watercooled an Xbox with some excellent results. Check it out for the step-by-step instructions and final product:

http://www.hardocp.com/article.html?art=OTM5

Edwood · Post by **Edwood** » Sat Feb 11, 2006 9:00 pm

Microsoft's iron grip on the licensing of their components pretty much eliminates any possibility of swapping out the DVD drive for a quieter one.

Only way to quiet it down is to put it inside a "muffling" box or some other enclosure.

Otherwise, unless all you play is the XBox Live Arade and demos, what's the point of quieting the fans, when the DVD drive completely drowns them out anyways?

Oh, and you can thank the 'Tard pack for the fact that basically NO games will use the hard drive as a buffer, so the DVD drive will spin at 12x all the time.

Oh, and using the Seasonic Power Angel/ KillaWatt, I measure around 240watts power use in the Dashboard, and around 290watts when playing a full on game from the disc. Yowsers!

-Ed

twylight777 · Post by **twylight777** » Mon Apr 03, 2006 10:23 pm

sadly i dont play mine much - its just too loud - drives me nuts - good thing everyone here should understand that...

Its the dvd drive - everything else is tolerable. Microsoft is begging us to put this in the living room...but its just too damn loud. no digg.

If someone can quiet the dvd i could live with it.

rei · Post by **rei** » Wed Apr 05, 2006 9:56 pm

in any all seriousness, did anyone else notice that the xbox360 just looks like a recoloured dell optiplex workstation on its side? we have a ton of those at work in black.

rei · Post by **rei** » Wed Apr 05, 2006 9:57 pm

http://img.dell.com/images/global/produ ... 50x110.jpg

Edwood · Post by **Edwood** » Sat Apr 08, 2006 12:50 am

twylight777 wrote:sadly i dont play mine much - its just too loud - drives me nuts - good thing everyone here should understand that...

Its the dvd drive - everything else is tolerable. Microsoft is begging us to put this in the living room...but its just too damn loud. no digg.

If someone can quiet the dvd i could live with it.

Yeah, the only way to quiet it is to put it inside a "muffling" cabinet or box.

Or another room, and use the wireless controller.

Man, it's so freakin loud, it's ridiculous.

Loudest console to date, by a huge margain.

Oh, and the hottest and most power hungry. Around 240 watts doing nothing in the Dashboard, and almost 290 watts playing a DVD based game.

-Ed

jaganath · Post by **jaganath** » Sat Apr 08, 2006 1:09 am

Around 240 watts doing nothing

My PC uses 10 times less than that in idle!!!

halcyon · Post by **halcyon** » Tue Apr 11, 2006 5:56 am

290W doing nothing?

Sorry to be the doubting thomas, but is that correct?

That's a huge powerdraw! It can't use much more under full load, can it?

walla walla · Post by **walla walla** » Sat Apr 15, 2006 12:24 pm

The original is fine, but it certainly isn't quiet as say the Gamecube or Dreamcast

Quiet?? My Gamecube is VERY loud.