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Operation Silent(ish) xbox 360. *w/pics*

16620 Views 18 Replies 9 Participants Last post by  ELmo1989, 
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*56k warning*

Ok well, I bought a refurbed Falcon 360 for $159 off ebay with free shipping a few days ago.

When it first arrived I was appalled by the decibels that were being emitted from the back of my system. The delta fans were stuck on full blown HIGH. Obviously Microsoft when they refurbed decided it was clever to stick the fans on high 24/7 to ensure there was no overheating LOL. Got my xbox opening tool today and opened it up
Which got me to thinking.

First off, why did they put the largest air opening on the bottom (if put vertically)? If you put it on a rug or a floor it is basically completely covered rendering it useless. Now, left to suck in cool air are the 4 small vents and the small top vent. If you currently have your 360 vertical, put it horizontally and stick your hand near the right side (bottom vertically)... Feel that? That's quite some airflow being sucked into the unit even though only two small vents are blocked on the bottom now. To me, that's a major design flaw. So how can one fix this issue? Sure you can buy a vertical stand with active cooling built in but most don't perform that well...

Now.. I had a few reasons for opening up my 360 today.
1. Find out why and how M$ made the fans stay on high.
2. Find out what model drive I had for experimenting...
3. Find out if I had the 3pin fan connection so I can mod and add two more fans into the mix.
4. Clean the sucker out and check for dust.


Well it turns out Micro$oft or someone used a cable that bypassed the mobo's 3pin fan cycling and just had it hard wired to the dvd drive's power cable. First thing I did was removed that cable.


Ok so now the fan is hooked up the way it should be. Next I completely cleaned everything with a q-tip and vacuumed the loose dust out. Found out I have the BenQ drive.

I then put everything back together and powered her up. Whisper quiet, finally. But how long will it last? Now onto reliability:

I carefully plotted "Operation Silent(ish) 360"
I say Silent-ish because it's not going to be completely silent and wont be watercooled. What I'm going to do is add a couple 60mm internal fans to the mix.


I've decided to keep the stock Delta fans, as they are great fans and will last a long time. I'm going to do a cost effective custom version of the XCM Core cooler V2.

I ordered a few parts for this build from ebay:
1. 2x 3 PIN FAN POWER Y-ADAPTER CABLE
2. XCM Core cooler fan V1
3.12'' 3 pin male to 3 pin female connector
4. Top Motor DF1206BA 60mm x10mm THIN PROFILE 12v double ball bearing fan @24.4 cfm.
5. Zalman FAN MATE 2 Fan Speed Controller

Now, here's where things get different. The XCM Core Cooler gets powered from the DVD's power cable and is not readily controllable or the best way to power a fan. So I've decided to take a different approach and have the two fans running off the single 3pin splitter which I soldered to the xbox mobo itself. I'm going to connect the Fan Mate 2 controller to whatever fan I decided to use on the core cooler mount so I can turn the fan to the highest inaudible level that I see fit.

I have not yet decided on the exact location of the third fan, as the XCM will go infront of the heat sink. I also may change the fan to the Top Motor fan instead of using XCM's fan.

I also did some investigating on my 360 and the outer shell is apparently from the Zephyr = 12V--16.5A board which then got an overhaul and was replaced with the Falcon 12V--14.2A internals/power brick.

I'm still awaiting a few more parts then I will finish the build with more pictures


So that's it for now, enjoy the pics!

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35
*Update*

Here's a little cooling mod to tide me over until the Core Cooler comes.

Today I soldered into the 12v coming from the power and put in a 3 pin y splitter, didn't take pics of this yet but will when I get the core cooler. For now you can see the pics I took last night pre solder and core cooler.





















It's nice how that ASUS fan wedges in there perfectly, don't have to put on my fan controller yet either because its whisper quiet at full speed. However as soon as the XCM Core Cooler comes I'll have to have that hooked up to the FC. I'm going to also try and put the little asus fan somewhere just for kicks since I put in a Y splitter to allow two fans straight to the 12v on the mobo


LATEST
****UPDATE 4/06/09****

Side Project: "Make hybrid Falcon a new lady"


Out with the old....




Close left: Soon to be new lady /// Far right: Dead Zephyr with *updated* heatsink.


In with the new




Someone's previous sloppy job.



+1 for Microsoft's mirror finish. -1 for not continuing that method for the heat sinks.



Arctic silver goodness


Time to sand her down a little....


Forgot to take pics of the finished product *lol* but it's working fine


Will post mods to the new Jasper coming in a week.
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timxirish
If I had my guess, I would say the original owner wired the fans to 12v and not Microsoft. They claim that any internal modifications will go against your XBL ToS (yes, even a fan mod) and they -can- ban you for it... Though, as many have pointed out time and time again, that doesn't mean they will. I personally don't know anybody who's been banned over a fan mod like that, but the story goes that they can detect that.
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P
Yeah could be. I'm glad I took it off then. The noise was unbearable! However the silver sticker under the faceplate was still there and unbroken, so the last person to crack this case open was M$
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P
So if I put in a couple fans, one mated with the 3pin mobo connector and one on the 12v chain, not stuck on 12v all the time will it still be detectable?

I'm curious as to how many fans you could actually chain together off of that 3pin mobo connection......
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burrbit
whered you get the xbox tool?
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P
ebay
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DennisC
I don't think it was repaired by Microsoft either. The case shouldn't be be swapped and the heatsinks shouldn't look like that if it was a falcon. The falcon ones have different heatsinks. The warrenty sticker was probably just put back on. When microsoft repaired my system, they replaced the warrenty sticker with a new one that looks different than the original one.
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2
It's a falcon alright. I checked pics and compared with all the other mobos, its defintely a Falcon mobo with the original original heatsink, also the power block is consistant with the Falcon power rating. Also noticed it has the xclamp fix as well. I'm considering getting the Falcons extended heatsink and putting it in as well. I have another $45 Falcon coming from ebay that "wont turn on" so I'll probably swipe that cooler. Fan mods in
Looks good, did a quick mockup with my asus fan I had laying around until my core cooler comes. Scroll up to second post for updated pics
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LuckySe7ens
this definitely needs a 56k warning in the title.

Its killing my g/f's lappy on wireless... 5 mins later still waiting for half the pics to load
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P
lol true
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DennisC
4
Quote:

Originally Posted by porschedrifter View Post
It's a falcon alright. I checked pics and compared with all the other mobos, its defintely a Falcon mobo with the original original heatsink, also the power block is consistant with the Falcon power rating. Also noticed it has the xclamp fix as well. I'm considering getting the Falcons extended heatsink and putting it in as well. I have another $45 Falcon coming from ebay that "wont turn on" so I'll probably swipe that cooler. Fan mods in
Looks good, did a quick mockup with my asus fan I had laying around until my core cooler comes. Scroll up to second post for updated pics

The one you bought said it won't turn on? I bought an elite that said it won't turn on. When it came, I noticed that the power button on the faceplate was pushed in and stuck so it won't turn on. I removed it and manually pushed the little button and it turns on fine but I got the RRoD. I shipped it back to Microsoft and they sent me a working one.
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Yeah I haven't received it yet but that's what the listing claimed. Can't wait to open her up and find out what's wrong. It's probably something silly like that.
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So that xbox was indeed broken, unloaded that as-is on ebay. Now I currently own a Jasper which is nice and quiet and cool
Operation Silentish 360 was donated to my brother and is kickin fine!
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S
their 12v fan mod looks a lot cleaner than mine, lol....

I know my box is loud but i think of the sound as an insurance policy
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I
Is the XCM Core Cooler V2 that noisy? I was looking at getting one along with the talismoon Whisper for my Xbox....
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L
lol M$ did the 12v fan mod to one of there own systems lol. I bought a 360 from my friend, and he bought it used, and when I opened it up it had a 12v fan mod. At the time I didn't know what it was so I was like ***?? I replaced the fan with a new one and about a month later it red ringed, so maybe the mod does work after all...
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P
Honestly, the XCM wasn't THAT noisy, usually gets drowned out by the drive spinning. However I had mine hooked up to a fan controller and turned it down some to a nice level.
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E
just add potentimeter to the fans (Or a fan contoller)(But the potentimeter is 50Cents at radioshack) then install all the games to the hdd.
Done.
Silent.
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