Watercooling 360

why would you watercool your console? if its overheating you can return it and the new xbox slim consoles are really quiet if thats what your after

I was seriously considering watercooling my PS3, but couldn't find any blocks for the Slim...I would have to strip it out and find universals that would work. I was going to opt for the idea that 4ryan6 and Moto have gone with the radbox idea; building a pedestal/box to house the pump/reservoir/radiator and run tubing to the actual console. I would have to consider powering the pump with the console power via relay, leaving it on, or setting up a manual switch with a mini power supply (the ones that look like laptop bricks).

You might look on Ebay or the classifieds and request to buy (cheaply) someone who has a dead Xbox you could possibly gut to mod the case (and keep the stock case you have for future use). Otherwise, maybe build a custom box to house everything...? You could remove the plastic shell and almost make a HTPC box and pump/res/rad box out of the console if you did that...just a thought?

I dunno if a rad would fit inside even the older xboxes. I would consider modding a second xbox casing or relocating the xbox into a PC or custom case and tricking it out.

Ya no point to this you cant overclock it and you water kit will most likely be just as loud if not louder than the original setup and is big and you cant move the thing around as easily... i mean i like a good mod project but dont really see the need for this one..

Thent

I think it's an excellent project simply because it's not often done and the system could benefit greatly from the cooling power of an actual watercooling loop. Also, it doesn't necessarily have to be loud- that's dependent upon the fans chosen for the radiator being used.

Watercooling doesn't automatically mean you are going to overclock. All of my gear is currently at stock speeds. Many do, but it isn't a 1:1.

What are the benefits besides ability to overclock and noise reduction? Neither of those applies here.

The DVD drive is really the loudest component - if you could fix that somehow, watercool the system, and 'bling' it up in a custom case, you're good to go  

no matter what the system you're talking about lower temps mean greater stability, even if not over clocking the system. if you can keep the temps down to ambient, or close to, the system will become more stable for long term use, let's say 12 hours or more. it is this type of person that fist discovered the red ring of death that the 360 is so famous for, if you where to water cool this system from the start I doubt that the ring of death will ever visit your system.

Thanks for all the suggestions, even forgot I need to somehow get power to the pump  

Indeed noise is one of the reasons why I want to watercool, I'm sure the tiny fan in the 360 is more noisy then couple of low rpm 120mm fans.

Also I would install games on harddrive so the DVD should be silent most of the time.

I have this Nexus noise isolated case http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/antidote-tedium,904...

I also have a fractal r2 which also has noise isolation.

I have a Corsair TX650 that is not in use and it has a wery silent fan at low loads(I think a xbox 360 qualifies as low load for TX650?)

Not overheating- I'm not an Xbox360 owner, but isn't the primary killer of these consoles excessive heat?

I think so, but maybe microsoft improved the newer versions of 360 to no overheat?

They did make improvements with a die shrink and it isn't as prevalent of an issue, but you need to check which chip you have to make sure.

The newer version is better and doesn't overheat unless you put it somewhere really stupid. However, 'not overheating' means just running at 70C instead of 80C, so you can easily get the chip further below its temperature ceiling (and you're probably better off for it).

Like I said before, the DVD is the cause of 99.999999% of the noise in any Xbox 360. Never heard the fan over the drive throughout owning many 360s.

EDIT: I made up those numbers like great statisticians/politicians. But the idea is the same.

I know what you mean, but on my old fat 360(That I have sold long time ago), When running games from harddrive obviously the DVD only runs to check license, after that the DVD should make no noise but I still could hear the fan noise.

seems like I'm not allowed for editing my post?

sorry for the double post  

edit---> is RROD because of temperature?
In that case I think it's safe for me to buy a used 360 and watercool it.

My understanding that primary cause of RROD is heat, but I could be mistaken...there might also be other reasons, but I don't know what they would be as most other failures would at least allow operation of the system...RROD is just a brick.

Ive read and it seems that it could be that soldering around GPU heats up and cools down making the soldering bad but this was just the first 1.5years accordign a website I read

Not all games run from the DVD drive. I wish they could eliminate even 50% of the noise entirely.

I think the heat is still the killer in the old Xbox models. You may want to wait for the next console - the current prices will plummet, or you could break for a new one so you get the new features and can make it even more bling.

yes in many cases this causes a cross connection between pins that should never touch the newer models changed the pin configuration on the GPU so that this problem was less likely to happen, but it did not fix the problem with the heat produced by the GPU.

Dunno why the heat was really an issue. It's not like the GPU is good enough to get that hot    

offtopic but anyone know what the equal PC GPU would compared to 360 GPU?

Also any ideas when next gen consoles start comming out?

From Wikipedia:

"Inside, the Xbox 360 uses the triple-core IBM designed Xenon as its CPU, with each core capable of simultaneously processing two threads, and can therefore operate on up to six threads at once.[116] Graphics processing is handled by the ATI Xenos, which has 10 MB of eDRAM. Its main memory pool is 512 MB in size."


The next Xbox is scheduled to unveil next year, I believe, and then release the year after.

This is the gaming equivalent of putting custom 20" wheels on your Pontiac Sunbird.

I don't think an xbox360 will benefit at all from water cooling. If yours is overheating, try to return/replace it. If you just want to do a project, mod a PC case and put the xbox guts inside. Maybe put a media pc and xbox in the same case for a custom, single-unit, HTPC.

Anyone know what size drill bit I need to make new holes on motherboard plate in case?

I'm going to use normal motherboard screws + spacers.

do you have a caliper and a tap small enough with the right thread
http://www.bing.com/shopping/4-way-dial-caliper-inch-re...

http://www.victornet.com/productpages/tapanddie1.html
and your good to go