UPDATE: Project silent Xbox360, ready with superb results!

Scorpius · Post by **Scorpius** » Thu Jan 21, 2010 1:24 pm

EDIT: Project is now complete, see post 8 for results and tutorial!

Hello and greetings from Finland.

I just bought Xbox360 Elite, jasper version. Sine you can run games from HDD with new dashboard, that noisy dvd drive is not a problem anymore. So now its time to get it seriously silenced. 300$ watercooling is not an option for me, I'd like to do 2 x 80mm fan approach. Original fan/heatsink setup in xbox360 is displayed in image below:

Original fans in xbox 360 are 70mm fans which runs in 5v and move 29 CFM of air together. I have measured the thickness of the case and you can actually fit 80mm fans if you assembly the fans outside the case. Below is list of all mods I plan to do:

- replace 70mm stock fans with 80mm fans, together they should move 30CFM of air
- apply the "cardboard" mod (see the pic above) to improve airflow.
- remove everything in front of fans i.e metal grille and plastic case with holes.

As airflow should be only 30CFM, using 2 x 80mm fans should be piece of cake. The only problem is pressure; Two 80mm fans running on very low RPM does not create enough of static pressure, so I need to find fans with as good static presure as possible? Also I noticed in my tests was that aside the airflow noise, the noise from vibration (and thus waking the whole case to produce noise) was more dominent problem. Am I on the right track?

Few years ago I did a test of ~15 different 80mm fans, with CFM and dB testings, but haven't been on the scene after that so Im a bit lost what is the best sftuff nowadays. Can you guys recommend me good options for fans? Silent, Good handling of static pressure and minimal vibration.. Voltages available for fans are 12V, 7V and 5V.

I will post the tutorial when my project is ready. And will measure before/after results

saitrix · Post by **saitrix** » Sat Jan 23, 2010 8:09 am

I will follow this very closely. Would love to quieten mine down more. Sorry I can't be of any help!

bonestonne · Post by **bonestonne** » Sat Jan 23, 2010 9:30 am

They're older, but Panaflow fans are absolutely incredible at lower voltages (7 and 5).

For me, I actually like to use the fans that ship in Dell and HP computers, made by Delta. Not those monstrous 3 blade fans, but the "regular" ones. I just tweak the voltage they get, and a 2800rpm 120mm fan at 5v might be just as good as a slipstream...only things to watch out for are the weight of the blades, that affect how they rotate at lower RPMs.

Maybe look into Noctual fans, they still make 80mm fans, and they seem to be very good, and almost guaranteed to work at lower voltages because of their L.N.A. and U.L.N.A. which are the Low and Ultra-Low Noise Adapters, which just convert the fans to 7 and 5 volts instead of 12.

cloneman · Post by **cloneman** » Mon Jan 25, 2010 3:59 pm

The nexus "real silent" 80mm fan was just what, "real silent", for me.

I don't know that it moves much air though. It's the only fan that I could not tell if it was on or not at 5volts (although it didnt move any air at that voltage.

It was quiet at 10V. Again, 110% inaudible at 5V, but probably didn't move any air.

Maybe a push/pull layout would work for pressure?

mynameisyoung · Post by **mynameisyoung** » Sun Feb 07, 2010 9:52 pm

I can't comment on which fan to use. But I don't know if this mod is even possible, I mean Xboxes are fragile enough.

But check this out!

http://www.edbott.com/weblog/?p=2537

Crazy expensive. I think it's $699 for the case itself, and probably a pain to assemble.

lodestar · Post by **lodestar** » Mon Feb 08, 2010 1:09 am

I would have thought that a better option might have been the Lian Li XB-01B, as here http://www.quietpc.com/gb-en-gbp/produc ... ianli-case. This uses a 120mm fan so the SPCR reference Nexus would be a candidate.

These are the assembly instructions http://www.lian-li.com/v2/en/microsite6/xb01user01.html.

lodestar · Post by **lodestar** » Mon Feb 08, 2010 4:59 am

If you were in the UK Quiet PC will even do it for you, but even so this page might be useful as a source of ideas http://www.quietpc.com/gb-en-gbp/produc ... ice-charge.

Scorpius · Post by **Scorpius** » Wed May 19, 2010 1:43 am

MUHAHHHAAA, it's finally ready!

~7'C temperature drop and soooooo quiet!

I did some temperature measurements, temps are from 2h of stress (gameplay). Room temp 24.5'C

default fans: CPU 38.9'C, GPU 55.4'C
my mod: CPU 37'C, GPU 48.5'C

The xbox360 is much quieter than with original fans. And what's important, there is no annoying ticking noise anymore. The nature of noise is now more pleasant, silent hum which is not annying at all.

Download tutorial here