Quieting Down Your XBox 360

Everyone who owns a 360 will no doubt know how much noise the thing makes when the fans start turning at full RPM and the DVD just spins and spins and spins around. In some cases it can get so bad that you will hear the 360 over the game you’re playing which is obviously not the idea.

I had this problem myself. Especialy because my console is inside a cabinet it got hot very fast so I would hear the fans goig in less then 10 minutes of gaming. Wanting to silence the damn thing I decided to look for solutions on the internet and quickly found a guide to hacking your 360’s fan. Hacking might not be the right term though, it’s more like replacing.

Anyway after ordering the fan online I got to work on my Xbox using the above guide as reference. I didn’t have the unlock tool they had handy here so I had to use a screwdriver to pry things open here and there. It wasn’t as easy as the guide made it out to be (though the unlock tool might have made things a lot easier, I dunno). To open up certain areas of the Xbox I had to use some force which resulted in some minor damage to the back of the case. It’s not really a problem since you don’t see it anyway, but it’s still anoying that you have to damage your console just to open it up.

But once it was open replacing the fan was easy. Take the old one out, put the new shiny one in and put the entire box back together. To my own surprise the thing actualy still worked when I turned it on again. The quality of the fan was a bit disappointing, as I had hoped it would be even quieter then it is. But it’s absolutely an improvement over the noisy fan that comes standard with the Xbox 360.

You can order the fan, toolkit and unlock kit at this store. And while you’re there also have a quick look at all the fancy cases and mods they have there. I’m considering replacing the case sometime. White is about the worst color for any console.

Robin