My Xbox 360 is so D**n Noisy

:rant on

I've had the Xbox 360 for almost 2 years now or something like that, and it's a wonderful console to play games on. Last year I configured it as a media extender and hooked it to my Vista Ultimate box sitting in my office with a Tv-tuner so that I can watch live TV and recorded TV shows on the Xbox.

Everything would be all and well if it wasn't for the amazingly loud noise the 360 gives off. I know about the noisy fans and the DVD drive, and people say they DVD-drive is the worst, but I'm not so sure. The noise from the spinning DVD drive doesn't bother me that much, becasue when me and my son play games, we crank up the volume on the surround system anyway :)

The sound from the Xbox when watching a DVD movie isn't too bad either, because the DVD revs down and the fans too it seems like.

No, what bothers me is the annoyingly loud noise from the machine when using it as a media extender. As soon as I press that green button on the remote and the media center program starts, the fans in the Xbox revs up to a maximum and it sure must be louder than 60 decibel. It almost sounds like a hair dryer for crying out loud. Watching TV late at night with the volume turned down is impossible, you won't hear what they say on the show.

I've been peeking at various Xbox modding articles about how to replace the fans, the DVD drive, adding sound dampeners and what not, but I'm not so sure it helps. Some people say it doesn't help a bit. The only thing that seems to work is to rip out the fans completely and replace with water cooling or bigger external fans. Also, some rumours say Microsoft will detect a modded fan and ban you from Xbox Live, but I think that's an urban legend.

There's also talk about the lates versions of the Xbox 360 console being more quiet than the earlier versions, but how quiet is that?

No, the wife acceptance factor and my own patience will probably have me go back to using a standard cable tv receiver with a recordable disc in it. I was happy to get rid of all the extra equipment from the living room and only have a TV, the Xbox and the surround system but as I said - the noise from the console is just too much.

Any good ideas for what I can do before I dust off and reconnect my old equipment?

:rant off

4 Comments

  • Newer consoles (Elite for example) are a LOT quieter - but yes cost more.

    Mine truly roars but am used to it now.

    Sigh!

    Maybe the next console iteration will be "just right" like Vista was supposed to be!

  • So did you replace the fan and find out if the urban legend was true? Just curious.

  • Lol, no I did not. I thought I was going to buy an Elite anyway because the Xbox was starting to go RROD (whole screen froze up with graphic glitches, red lights on the power button...) on me and as it is more than 2 years old I would have to pay for the repair. But the Swedish Xbox support had problems with their support system (!) and couldn't handle my repair request for 3 days so I got mad, dropped the Xbox from a height of 5 cm or so, and it works like a charm after that. Who said violence doesn't solve problems? (j/k)

    I actually think it even runs a bit more quiet now, but I can't prove it :p Maybe it's afraid of being thrown out the window...

  • Don't bother upgrading in my opinion - I have an Elite and it's hideously noisy, can't watch TV from Vista desktop as the fan noise builds to a crescendo in about 10 minutes as the console heats and oblitorates all but the loudest of volume settings.

    I resorted to watching media via an old softmodded xbox running XBMC (can't get full 1080P though) - seems a bit daft that the older device is more useable...

Comments have been disabled for this content.