Is it worth putting a 360 into a pc case for better airflow?

[Sirus]

I was looking at this all day on youtube and google and am thinking about doing it as I have a great little Lian li pc -7 tower which would be perfect for it.

Main reason is my xbox is old(2006 model).. and after using it for about 2hrs it gets too hot(must be about 60C+ inside it), you can use it as a mini radiator to warm your hands up on the plastic its that hot.. I'm good with my hands and I know I can get it(motherboard) in there ok, but would it be worth the effort of will it make things worse. The dvd drive must generate alot of heat and to make things worse its right over the gpu. So I'm thinking the space in the pc case and good positive airflow would be good for it and it may last a few yrs longer.. since people say as long as its kept cool there is no rrod

I was gonna wire it to the pc psu with one of them ebay xbox to atx psu leads, and I will have two 12v 120mm fans (intake and exhaust) fans in the case... as well as the psu 120mm fan. And the case is aluminium which is great for heat disburstion

The guy I bought it off knows his stuff, he did the red light fix on it and x clamp fix and has the back fans reversed and at 12v intaking air and even an extra fan in it at the cpu heatsink, and also has lots of holes on the side/top to let heat out... but it's still too hot after an hr or so, bound to break again like this i think.

Is there even any custom heatsink for the cpu/gpu that will dampen the heat a bit, or any way to screw a 80mm fan to the heatsinks?.. its becoming now that I'm too scared to play it and can't enjoy getting into games with all that heat on my mind and the thought it may break again if I don't do something about it.

Anyone tried this or heard any good/bad points about doing it?.. I dont care what it looks like on the outsides with dvd drive sticking out, as long as its cooler, which it should be by about 50% I'm guessing

[chroma]

Not gone to that extent, what ive done (which helped temperatures immensely) was use a cereal box card and duct tape.

Where the fan shield funnels to the heat-sinks I've just cut up card to make a seal around the heat-sinks then duct tape over that to get a tight seal, now the air is essentially vacuumed over the sinks and out the back before any real heat can build up. it also shields the sinks from other heat sources.

Seems to work and there's minimal fuss.

[Sirus]

Yeah, I seen a few people were doing that on youtube.. but my rear fans blow inwards(they are reversed) so I think it may help leaving the heatsinks open to help whisk air into a wider area of the case.

Was there ever any 3rd party heatsinks ever released for the cpu and gpu?.. like copper ones or something

[chroma]

Not that ive seen, however ive never really looked, you can just switch the fans polarity to have it extract instead of blow.

[locopatre]

u dont need to do it, just make house cold

[Sirus]

you can just switch the fans polarity to have it extract instead of blow.

I heard its a lot better having them intake air though.... I can remember my mate had a 360 back in 06'(so same build as mine) and after about an hour of using it he told me to put my hand at the back, and the exhaust fans were like 2 hair dryers, I couldn't believe the heat


I bought the xbox off a guy with the mods done to it already. It has holes and everything drilled on top for ventilation, so it sucks in a lot of air and pressure vents the hot air out the sides and through the holes on top.. its just that it's still pretty hot to touch.. its also missing the steel sheet that goes inside the top/side panel, though I don't know if that would make a difference, I think he had to keep it off so that the drilled holes take effect..... I actually swapped an old scooter for it, so thats the only reason I own a 360. i was always afraid of buying one and having it RROD.. but the guy told me this one would never RROD again with all the mods he has done to it. I was thinking atleast adding a 12v 120mm fan on side panel where the holes are drilled, I have one from an old powermac that can be wired up through the small 60mm fan he already has in it.. only thing is it'll be daft looking

I suppose I will just ride my luck and keep it in its case then.

[Cod3waX]

what i done is put a piece of card under the drive and over the top of the tall heatsink duck taped them down to the plastic wind tunnel and then screwed a fan to the tall heatsink and wired it out to the usb

mine also a 2006 model she has died on me twice before

[Sirus]

I'd made up my mind not to bother to do anything to it mainly because that you may have to reburn backups with newer patches and stuff, I couldn't be bothered having to do all that if I wanted to play the backups in the future. So I decided about 2 weeks ago to sell it. So I was trying to play and get through as many games as possible. But now from a few days ago the drive is starting to make this loud grinding noise when I switch the xbox on . It sounds like the laser is moving along its track but without grease or something, but then it stops after about 10-20 seconds. Even if I eject the tray it still goes on making the noise. It doesn't do this again once it's running a game, and it only seems to do it every other time I turn it on.

So I'm pissed because I now cant sell it unless I replace the laser or whatever. Another annoying thing that also hinders a sale is some games freeze for a few split seconds randomly, mainly Oblivion and Dead Rising 2, they constantly freeze when too much is on the screen, like they are running on a low spec pc.The motorbike part at the start of DR2 is unplayable unless running of the hard drive, and Oblivion when outside every 50 yards I walk the game freezes for about 5-10secs, so very annoying. Also on GTA4 the cut scenes have alot of pop up issues, things like doors and flower pots pop up in the background when watching a cut scene and the camera angle changes... but they all play normally at most or atleast some parts. And when running off the hard drive they play perfect and load very fast ofcourse(which is a god send for DR2's 20 second loading screens)

But I'm confused because I'm pretty sure the console wouldn't load data on the fly from the DVD drive(using it like ram) the second it needs it. Like the cut scenes in GTA4 are bound to be loaded to the xbox's memory then played from there at the moment, so how could I be geting pop ups. Same in DR2, once it loads through it's annoyingly long loading screens to the motorbike game at the start, surely all the game data it needs for that part is in system memory(hence the loading screen) so no need to access the DVD for more info... so why does it freeze every 2 secs when playing that part.. same with oblivion

Would a new laser or drive sort it, or is it possibly the motherboard is going, or something?

[tinkertiler]

Is the drive flashed? If so has it got a older firmware which has the read speed slowed down to help with playing backed up media.

This was one of the problems with the older firmwares and you had to load the gane to the hard drive to stop it.

The other thing is your fans on your xbox should ONLY blow out and inwards will kill the gpu as the air flow is wrong for it. If you want it to cool down better then get a whisper fan replacement for it and do a 12 volt mod on it then it will be quiet and also alot cooler. 20 degrees i checked on a jtagged console that i use.

The drive problem can be one of 2 things :

1 the laser is dying which is what it sounds like
2 The magenet on the drive is failing and makes the disc spin out of control.

You can pick up replacement drives off ebay pretty cheap and that may solve the freezing issue but you wont get very much for it in resale value anyway because of the console being old and the rrod will come soon enough to it. That is not fiction it is fact the older consoles will fail at some point im afraid, bad design on Ms behalf

[Sirus]

..this keeps getting better and better... I'm defo selling this ASAP!.. and going ps3

Yeah mate its flashed with 1.6 or something(guy said this was the latest for my drive)... though I don't understand how intake fans would kill the gpu, since they keep the heatsinks much cooler, and mine are modded to 12v too, also very loud,.... though I was looking at them whisper fans, so would they blow outwards then?

Also what you said about the disk spinning out of control, maybe that's what the sound was.. it is a very loud grinding noise, like one of those kids toy cars you have to roll a few times on the ground to gain speed... it really did sound similar only with a deeper tone. I know if I do replace the drive then I can use the bad one for ripping games in the fututre, since it does work ok. But I hate spending cash on "dying things" ....though I suppose it's the only way to get it sold.

Thanks for the info mate...

[tinkertiler]

The whisper fans should blow out. It sounds like the magnet is dying and that is what is causing the problems mate im afraid. What happens is the disc keeps trying to fly off so thats what makes the noise! Quick fix so you could get rid of it would be to get a strong magnet and try and re magnetise the magnet again to see if that helps you never know may work long enough

[Sirus]

It does work ok most of the time though...I actually thought it may have been because it was off a few days, cause once its on and playing it never makes the noise again, weird or what.

Has the magnet anything to do with backups?.. would it fail quicker using backups all the time or anything?

[tinkertiler]

No it has nothing to do with it they just go from time to time. Its like everything it always breaks at some point Even though MS didnt do a great job with the 360 to start with! Ive repaired a few drives its mostly the laser that goes and the magnet going ive changed a few but not many.

[EliteScouter]

This is my setup on my jtagged falcon. I did a reflow on it, few weeks later I got the E-74. Reflowed again and then E-74 coupe weeks later on. I kinda got tired of reflowing it (Reflow station, not heatgun) and so I found some old intel fans laying around. Tapped into 12v on the DVD drive and it really keeps the temps down. Almost a year and the E-74 has not came back so I guess it's really working. The back fans are left stock, didn't change the voltage on those because I didn't want it too loud.