Attempting custom cooling for Xbox 360 Fat

Hi all,

I have an ancient 360 fat that's still kicking, but the fan noise annoys me. It has that annoying Eeeeeeeeeee sound to it. The fans are clearly the cheapest crap they could find. I tried a replacement 'Whisper Fan 3000' or something, sounds exactly the same. I could just buy a slim / E, but where's the fun in that. So, here's my idea:

I bought two 60mm fans and hooked them up to my bench power supply. Tuned it to the same voltage I measured on the 360's fan molex connector (5.25V at idle). Subjectively, very similar airflow at like 1/10 of the perceived noise, great. I can just get another molex connector and wire it all up. Should have the same airflow with much less noise.

Now, the only problem is that the 360 fans are actually a little larger than standard 60mm fans and have a special housing that meets with the air guide directing the airflow over the CPU and GPU heatsinks. The fans are also exhaust fans. Now since my two fans won't form a tight seal with the air guide they might not be as effective in sucking air across the heatsinks. My idea was to switch the fans to intake fans, blow outside air through the air guide over the heatsinks and have it exhaust from the vents at the top of the case.

What do you think? ;-)

 

hi AN1 , if you turn the exhaust fans to intake fans i would monitor the temps to see if it is doing a good job at cooling your 360. Also i have done the below , one is just fans running at 5V and the top fan is not on. The other is fans running at 12V and the top fan on , check the temp differences. Btw if i disable the top fan the temp rises about 8-10 degrees Celsius

 

Hm, I don't have a modded 360, so I can't really check the internal temperature sensors. At best I have a multimeter with a temperature probe. I could mount the fans as exhaust, but I'm a bit worried that the bad seal between the air guide and the fans will mean little airflow over the heatsinks. Guess I could duct tape it shut ;-)

How does the 360 do fan RPM control? Does it simply bump the voltage under load?

 

i'm hoping other guys chime in with some fan/cooling knowledge as i'm definitely not a pro. Also you may want to think about dust getting into the console , you can see on my top fan there's a filter.

There's a 360 app called DashLaunch , you can set the percentage you want the fans to run at.

 

I don't have a modded 360, how does the stock 360 do fan control?

 

i don't know actually , but it must not be very effective if you think of RROD 360's. I have bought a handful of Jasper 360's (stock unopened) and i test them for about 2 hours and the console is quite hot to touch so i custom cool my 360's.

 

Mine doesn't really get warm, I just find the noise terrible. The fans move barely any air, yet they make a very annoying & loud noise. I really wish the people designing consoles would give some thoughts to cooling and not just use unreliable, noisy parts like these.

 

I know that sound!! It is the 'rubbing' or vibration from the seating of the fan to where it (fan) sits on the board. I preferred (discontinued) 'base cooling fan' - this was 10x better than the 'Pelican' - which was terrible because it was 3rd party and only meant to function as a fan & NOT an integral unit of the XBox. (i.e. - it was not configured to ensure the mobo would deliver sufficient & non-surging power.) I know this sounds strange, but I had about 36 games, purchased in about 10 months time, and I would burn music CDs & play them as I played any title. I noticed there was this 'spin-up' or sudden surge that came. It wouldn't be as noticeable, in an apartment or house, but I was using an RV for temporary housing while I waited for my house to be finalized (paperwork, keys, utilites, etc). It was actually pretty hilarious.
I think, if I may, you might be taking the wrong direction, but the STEP is totally on point. It seems you're liking the Clear Case and I've seen some rather interesting fabricated designs. I wanted a custom (Arkham Asylum) Batmobile. You know. Make small 20mm fans, with the 'wheels' functioning as the base, at these 4 points and another for the rear-exhaust. It's a totally flawless concept, but it'd likely take about 200 hand-craft hours and numerous (used) trials. Anything is possible with soldering - adding a small extension of cable - Power Supply - and making this 'On/Off' button a depress action of the cabin. Something insane.

Likely the fan just surged and you'll need to replace the motor. They're cheap but don't buy 1 only, maybe 3-4 in case this happens again ??

 

I actually tried swapping the cooling system. I didn't want to tap into the 12V optical drive power and didn't want a clunky external PSU. The 5.3V from the fan header seems to be too small for the fans I selected. I put in a small DC/DC step up converter. It's neat as it allows me to adjust the fan RPM as required. Unfortunately the seal I got with the air guard doesn't seem tight enough and despite moving more air with the new fans the console ran too hot. This entire exhaust fan design just seems stupid. I'll try with intake fans. Don't want to spend 200h ;-)

 

s8n, that fan with no grill is totally terrifying. The possibly of injury is really high there =/