Afternoon Techies

I bought a second hand xbox in 2007 that served me fine until it got the RROD and Microsoft replaced it FOC with a refurb one.

I have now found out that the warranty does not start afresh with this new machine (circa mid-2008) meaning the standard warranty ran out 18 months ago and i now have no Microsoft support.

Not really a problem as my console still works perfectly fine, and plays games & DVD's and streams media as always, but boy oh boy does it makes a huge noise about it!

The cooling fans (I think) run at about 5 times the volume of any other console i've heard and sometimes gets so bad that i have to turn it off to make sure it doesn't self destruct!!

This makes me think it may die in the near future and an Elite could be required in it's place but could I launch a premeptive strike to keep it alive longer.

As the warranty has expired Microsoft will repair it......at a charge of £94.50!!!! £94.50!!!!!

How can they justify that?! A new arcade console is around the £100 mark at the moment!!

Anyway with this in mind surely breaking the seals, diagonsing the problem, fixing it, and modifying the case would extend it's life for less than a new console?

Alternatively RROD consoles are on eBay for about £30 - are they salvagable just by breaking the seals, openning the case and performing surgery?

Any Briskodian Techies got any experience in sorting 360's?

Have you got a decent sized HDD?

Both my 360s are loud, but significantly quieter when running games from the HDD.

I wouldn't worry about the console TBH. I've had one that made a heck of a noise last years, yet a quiet one that never seemed to pump out much heat died within a couple of months.

Personally i'd just wait for it to die, and replace the console with an arcade when it eventually dies.

Im gagging for mine to die, so i can justify upgrading to an arcade with HDMI, but the thing has been battling on for years :( (i've got to be one of the only people to moan about the amount of time a 360 can last )

As far as I can tell, RROD can actually be caused be several things but most the time it;s over heated and the CPU has popped off the mother board.

I've got a 360 my mate gave me with RROD.. Stripped it and did the nuts n bolts mod on the heat sinks to apply pressure without pushing on the exact central underside of the CPU.. such'a stupid design those x-clamps!

After that I over heated it by disconnecting the fans with the lid off (not the towel trick, that can cause further damage).

I'd say just keep your existing unit as cool as possible and it should be fine..

I don;t use a HDD as they block half the cooling vents (again, what a great design) I did have that 4gb max memory card until they blocked 3rd party memory... g!ts!

I've only got a 20GB harddrive

Which now it's got both discs of Forza 3 installed on it is down to just a few GB left.

I've had to delete most demos and the DLC for Burnout Paradise just to get Forza to fit!!

When playing Modern Warfare 2 from the disc is ridiculously noisy but then gunfire does drown it out well enough

I'd probably replace it with an Elite anyways cos a bigger hard drive would be useful and black console would fit in lovely with my new black home cinema stand and LG kit!

The inconsistency also makes me think it's gunna go pop

I went playing a demo from the harddrive to the dashboard the ther day, and went fans went from silent to "OMG what the hell is that noise!? why is it trying to take off!?!"

I was just trying to be proactive with a solution to coincide with some down time when my xbox live gold runs out next week

Take the lid off, check the heatsink is properly attached, perhaps take it off, apply some new thermal compound to it after cleaning the CPU/heatsink and reattach it.

At the same time work out the air flow on the fan, buy a quiet fan, with a high air flow (quietpc sell them) and replace the normal fan with this.

Give it all a dust off with an air duster while you're at it and that should be much quieter then.

That plus make sure that you have placed it in an area with decent air flow and not on a carpet etc.

Take it apart and clean it. it'll be fine then

the noise is actually the disc reader vibrating when spinning.

go on xbox forums and have a look to sort it. mines silent now

had it since it first came out

Eggbox 360's have always had problems with cooling tbh.

If you don't want to spend too much money then open it up and give it a clean and maybe re-apply the thermal compound on the heatsinks.

If you want to spend some money to improve the cooling then grab yourself one of these:

Quiet Xbox case

Direct case replacement for the Xbox 360 that gives it more breathing space!

I'd probably replace it with an Elite anyways cos a bigger hard drive would be useful and black console would fit in lovely with my new black home cinema stand and LG kit!

Dont rush into buying an Elite.

Reading the internet, Elites are in very short supply at the moment, and the gossip on the internet suggests the 120GB Elite is about to be dropped, and the 250GB Elite (as seen in the COD/Forza special editions) will take its place.

Quiet Xbox case

That's the one I was thinking of originally but it's almost as expensive as buying a new console!

Think i might just crack open the case and give her a damn good air dusting and check the heatsink

..the 120GB Elite is about to be dropped, and the 250GB Elite will take its place.

That's the "special edition 250GB HDD that won't ever be available unless in a special edition console"

Another classic Microsoftism

I was thinking of an elite just so it fit in with my black front room set up

Although if i pop the case off to clena it i might just spray it as per Dave's thread here

I've only had problems with xbox cd drives, so to avoid heavy use of them I install all games that I play regularly at that time, the call of duty mw 2 disc never spins up now so it can't be wearing out the dvd drive

My brother had 3 replacement consoles before Microsoft worked out that the power supply was frying the new consoles as soon as it was plugged in

Edited 13 January, 201016 yr by yegnold

Thinking back I didn't actually have the RROD!! My console was replaced because the disc drive stopped reading 360 discs.

Whenever I put a game in It would tell me that "to play this disc please put it in an Xbox 360 console" :S

Either way I think once my live membership runs out on Sunday it will prove the ideal time to pull the thing apart

I've repaired loads of 360's. And as said above, the noise is the disc drive spinning up.

However, if you want quieter fans, I've got some Talismoon Whisper fans in blue for the princely sum of £5.

However, if you want quieter fans, I've got some Talismoon Whisper fans in blue for the princely sum of £5.

I have green (as to fit in with the green xbox theme) and pain £10 off ebay :(

they move like 50% more air than standard fans

I have green (as to fit in with the green xbox theme) and pain £10 off ebay :(

they move like 50% more air than standard fans

Not a fan of the LED's (see what i did there :peek: ) but from reading online they seem easy enough to remove. Might investigate them should things get any worse.

However this morning I had a free half hour before work so got cracking.

Based on the instructions I read online and the youtube guides I watched I was expecting it to be a pig of a job. It wasn't!

Was simple and took about 2 minutes! Given how easy it is I shall definitely pop the bad boy apart again and get some black paint out to Elite-ise it!

Having checked the internals I think I found the problem as show in the attachement.....yuck!

A good brush down, a light hoovering and the innards are shining again.

I also added some vibration deadening material (bluetack) to the bottom of the legs of the DVD drive, so hopefully that will now shut up too!

Fingers Crossed

Don't think that will have been helping matters much!

Let's hope it works a bit better now and maybe your pikey drive silencing might do the trick too!

blutack is the fix to many a vibration - most of the interior of my Fabia is kept quiet with it!

I don;t use a HDD as they block half the cooling vents (again, what a great design) I did have that 4gb max memory card until they blocked 3rd party memory... g!ts!

There are no air vent holes at all on the side where the HDD sits, if you remove the blank cover that hides the HDD connections you will see a solid plastic mounting where the HDD attaches, behind that is a solid metal barrier which forms part of the internal case of the 360. A HDD on the 360 is now essential, especially in 60GB,120GB and 250GB sizes because you can install the games to the HDD now and that means the DVD drive is silent as its not used once the game has loaded. Also the vents on the bottom of the 360 (horizontal) are dummies, beneath those is a solid metal case with no ventillation holes. The only air paths through the 360 are the top (horizontal), front, and back.

I have recased my 360 into one of these cases, I did it ages ago and so far so good as they say.

http://www.quietpc.com/files/images/products/xbox-case.jpg

Well that dust won't have helped and will no doubt have increased the core temperature, so increasing the fan speed to pull more air and no doubt eventually leading to the CPU getting too hot and causing issues.

Fingers crossed that's it done for you for a while.

Well i gave the xbox a work out with a couple of hours of watching 24 from external HDD and then half a dozen games of COD:MW2 and we had constant (almost) silence for the duration.

Top job and surprisingly easy!

Next up - my console gets to black up! :yes:

And to think that Microsnot would have been quite happy with charging you £95 to do exactly what you have done yourself!

Sounds like a good result anyway!

I do wonder whether I had sent it back and M$ found no problems with it except a large amount of dust they would have still charged me for what is essentially a bit of dusting or just cleaned it and sent it back without charge telling me there was nothing wrong with it?

Pah! who am i kidding!

I'd think the would have charged you, because they send you out a recon unit when they get yours and then send yours off to be processed usually.

I got my original one back