Xbox 360 fan noise ranked

81 Comments by Vladimir Cole Nov 19th 2005 10:58PM
Filed under: Nintendo GameCube, PC, Microsoft Xbox, Microsoft Xbox 360

You know those car freaks that can identify the make and model of a vehicle simply by listening to the rumble of the engine? The Xbox 360 makes such aural feats easy for us gamefreaks because, well, the sucker is loud.

Here's how the Xbox 360 ranks in terms of noise output versus the other fan-cooled devices in the apartment.

Old, clunky refrigerator
Xbox 360
PlayStation 2 (fat version, not slim-line)
Panasonic PT-AE700U projector
GameCube
Xbox 360 power supply
IBM T42p (Laptop)
Dell Latitude C610 (Laptop)
iBook G4 (Laptop)

So why should anyone care about sound output? For one, if you're trying to sneak in some late-night gaming with headphones on while a significant other sleeps, stealth is key. For another, it can interfere with the enjoyment of a game's quieter moments.

We don't have an original Xbox to test it against (it's on loan to a buddy), or we would, however reader comments below provide some additional comparison points. Water-cooling mod, anyone?

Source

(Page 1) Reader Comments

Luke: Dec 18th 2005; 9:06PM

At least it's not number one.

Mike: Dec 18th 2005; 9:06PM

I thought Microsoft said at e3 that 360 would be watercooled...

Hallway Giant: Dec 18th 2005; 9:06PM

I thought it had water-cooling?! guess not. X_X

Dan: Dec 18th 2005; 9:06PM

It has heat pipes... not watercooled but sorta close. sealed pipes with a liquid in it it heats up turns to steam goes up the pipe and turns back to liquid and repeat. but its also has fans... sucks to hear its loud but whatcha gonna do...

Chris McDowell: Dec 18th 2005; 9:06PM

It is water cooled. Just not the way you would think. It has liquid that evaporates in a tube that also gets the heat or something and then that stuff is cooled by the fans and then returns back down to the hot chip where it evaporates again. So liquid cooled but not with all the messy pumps and storage tanks. Kinda like the Apple G5 that was water cooled but still had some fans in it.

Chris McDowell: Dec 18th 2005; 9:06PM

Just turn up that 5.1 and you'll never notice.

Mark Korsak: Dec 18th 2005; 9:06PM

atleast my TV should overcome the noise. As it is, my desktop is loud anyway so thatl make it less noticeable, and I don't really notice my desktop when paying attention to it anyway.

tomato: Dec 18th 2005; 9:06PM

you are stupid if you think that it is watercooled. have you seen it opened up? as far as i can tell, its just a massive heatsink and a duct to direct airflow through that heatsink. the heatsink covers the 3 cpus and the gpu, and is pretty big. if you think that it uses evaporation, you are obviously not an engineer. phase change (thats what evaporation is) is a considerably complicated way of cooling a comp, and although very effective, there is no way that they would utilize this in a console. basically, for cooling, the best is phase change, then water cooling, then regular heatsink/fan combo.

Alan: Dec 18th 2005; 9:06PM

Dang... I was really hoping it would be quieter than it's predecessor. Sounds like it's probably about the same. LOUD.

Dan Citi: Dec 18th 2005; 9:06PM

well w/ 5.1 sound its hard to hear a lot and id know the ibook G4 barley makes any sounds ever. but the normal ps2 isnt that loud so hopefully the 360 isnt vary loud either.

this is a pretty accurate ranky if u ask me

Luke: Dec 18th 2005; 9:06PM

It does use evaporation. Look it up.

Kliend: Dec 18th 2005; 9:06PM

that might be because its been on for 30+ hours? I heard it was much quieter than the orginal xbox. but that was at one of those convention things, where they have them standing on tables next to HD tvs.

Matt T.: Dec 18th 2005; 9:06PM

I remember from that Ourcolony.com that it is water cooled

But imagine it need at least 3x more cooling power then your PC

Bo: Dec 18th 2005; 9:06PM

#7 tomato, from your post I'm going to assume you're ignorant and don't know what the previous poster mean by 'water cooling'. There are liquid inside the pipes attached to the heatsink. It's not a 'watercooled' system like some PC mods use that has an external water reservoir and radiate heatsink.

Also the 'watercooled' piped heatsink cover one CPU with three cores inside, not three physical CPU's <- shows your lack of knowledge in regards to your comment.

FierceDeityLink1: Dec 18th 2005; 9:06PM

Google says:
http://www.heatpipe.com/heatpipes.htm

And, yes, it is three cores on one die, and it would seem as if the memory controller is on die also. Heat pipes are great for cooling and are much cheaper than most watercooling methods (tons cheaper than actual phase change, which I would imagine is louder due to the compressor).

ledorky: Dec 18th 2005; 9:06PM

It's a little on the loud side IMO.
Nowhere near as loud as the original Xbox nor the Dreamcast but it is still noticeable.
Far louder than the PS2 and close to a Gamecube.

glitch77: Dec 18th 2005; 9:06PM

7. Posted Nov 19, 2005, 11:32 PM ET by tomato

We could tell that you are an engineer by the fact that you think you know what your talking about, but dont.

Please do not post anymore. You should format your computers hard drive, and call your ISP and terminate your account.

Thank you.

Glenn: Dec 18th 2005; 9:06PM

What is the sound level of the HDD and the DVD? Compare it with no disc and HDD maybe. Also, is it quieter during DVD playback? (the fans *should* slow down)

tomato: Dec 18th 2005; 9:06PM

my bad. i was just looking at some sites (teamxbox.com) and they all acted as if xbox360 used some uber cooling method, not just standard heatpipes. heres a quote:

"This intelligent approach has allowed Microsoft to build smaller console by removing the traditional heatsinks found in most computer and replacing them with a combination of fans and liquid cooling."

very misleading, imho, when its obviously just a standard heatpipe/heatsink fan combo.

http://www.anandtech.com/systems/showdoc.aspx?i=2610&p=6

and thanks glitch, i love you too.

Rare Hare: Dec 18th 2005; 9:06PM

sucks that it's that loud.. the PS2 is pretty loud as it is (enough so that when i wake up and i've left it on but don't feel like crossing the room to turn it off it can be hard to get back to sleep).

Paul Atreides: Dec 18th 2005; 9:06PM

Heatpipes usually contain a solution made of ammonia and water.
The solution near the die vaporizes and ascends to the top of the heatpipe by a pressure differential and convection.
Heat is then transferred to the fins of the sink and the solution condenses...and the process repeats.

In any case, it does not qualify as liquid cooling in the sense PC assemblers understand.

It's just a heatpipe and 2 fans. 2 very loud fans that almost guarantee it will fail in Japan...as Japanese live in small dwellings and cannot bear noisy electronics.

Paul Atreides: Dec 18th 2005; 9:06PM

Under full load, it's louder than the original Xbox.
Forget about using it to watch movies. It's too loud.

Arkz: Dec 18th 2005; 9:06PM

16, you say that about japanese, but the original ps2 was noisy as hell, louder than my xbox thats for sure, ps2 had a whuring fan that was very anoying, my xbox has more of a humming sound thats not very notisable, and look how popular ps2 is over there, i dont think the fan noise bothers them, and since when do all japs live in small dwellings and cant bear noise?

Monmin: Dec 18th 2005; 9:06PM

#17, It has been said before that when playing DVD's the xbox360 slows down the fan to reduce noise. Can we get any confirmation that it is too loud to play DVDs (as I am planning to replace my DVD player with 360)?

Luke: Dec 18th 2005; 9:06PM

we'll see.

jc: Dec 18th 2005; 9:06PM

Go back to bed Jake... it's late and you have to get your kiddy sleep.

Luke: Dec 18th 2005; 9:06PM

They made him go away.

David: Dec 18th 2005; 9:06PM

OK, so its loud. What am I gonna do??? Turn my surround sound system up.

CV: Dec 18th 2005; 9:06PM

I'm disappointed it's not virtually silent, but I guess you can't have everything. I would have enjoyed the Xbox 360 standing upright next to my TV, so I could see the ring of light, but if it's going to be noisy, it's going behind a door.

Hachi_roku: Dec 18th 2005; 9:06PM

PSU on the 360 is fan cooled or is that a typo?

jc: Dec 18th 2005; 9:06PM

CV, the controllers also have the ring of light on them.

Alan: Dec 18th 2005; 9:06PM

If you do put it behind a door make sure you have adequate ventilation in and out of whatever you are storing it in. All those processors make the 360 generate a lot of heat.

Steve: Dec 18th 2005; 9:06PM

#17, the PS2 seems to have done fairly well from what I gather, and boy were the 1st generation of those loud!

I'll take fan noise though over flipping the thing upside down for ventilation to read disks like my PS1.

Paul Atreides: Dec 18th 2005; 9:06PM

I bought my PS2 1 year after its launch date.

Compared to my Xbox, which I bought 18 months after its launch date, my PS2 seems very very quiet.

I don't know how loud the first PS2 were.

Steve: Dec 18th 2005; 9:06PM

#29, They were much, much louder. My brother always remarks at its noise level compared to his PS2 whenever he comes over to play.

Pat: Dec 18th 2005; 9:06PM

Hey, not really about the noise, but I want to know if you guys like the 360 more horizontal or vertical, or if you have even tried both yet. I think I will be going with vertical, but just getting a second opinion.
Thanks,
Pat

Matt: Dec 18th 2005; 9:06PM

Did you measure it by apparent noise, or with a tool of some kind? Can you supply decibels?

ledorky: Dec 18th 2005; 9:06PM

I disagree with it being too loud to watch DVDs. I enjoyed watching 2 dvd's on it so far and it's pretty near me. The fan and drive slow down so it's not much noise (compared to say, when you're playing Kameo wherein the drive is constantly seeking and the 3 cores are being pushed). Of course YMMV regarding tolerable noise.
I could never watch a DVD with Xbox 1 despite buying the remote since it's too loud. I can do it with Xbox 360.

Rufus359: Dec 18th 2005; 9:06PM

As long as it is quieter than my original XBox and my desktop PC (stupid Geforce FX heat pumping monster... sorry) I'll be happy. My entertainment center reduces much of the noise of the original to a tolerable level so hopefully...

jago: Dec 18th 2005; 9:06PM

wth? Since when is the Gamecube loud?

Steve: Dec 18th 2005; 9:06PM

It can't be any louder then the heat sync in my 2002 Alienware tower. That sounds like a jet engine.

tiesto81: Dec 18th 2005; 9:06PM

Any chance of having a writeup of 1080i vs 720p and how the games feel on 1080? I know a bunch of me and my hd friends are wondering this since we don't have 720p sets. Thanks.

Oli: Dec 18th 2005; 9:06PM

I believe that one of the fans shuts off when you play movies, I've had mine since thursday and agree it's loud when you play games (but you are wasting your time if you dont have the volume turned up IMO) but is fine when you play movies.

Nicholas Puleo: Dec 18th 2005; 9:06PM

It's actually the DVD drive that's so damn load, more so than the fans. If you are only browsing the dashboard or playing a Live arcade title it's very quiet. Have you guys felt the discs after you remove them? They are f'n hot!

When you pop a movie in the fans actually slow down to almost a stop because it's only utilizing 1 processor core.

Dan: Dec 18th 2005; 9:06PM

Whoa, this is a gaming blog, and you don't have an original Xbox? Nice.

Bob: Dec 18th 2005; 9:06PM

Give me a break! Kameo does not use 3 cores. The launch titles are using 1 core, maybe 2 if we're lucky.

Jim: Dec 18th 2005; 9:06PM

I've read on several other websites that it's not as loud as the old Xbox...

...for me less noice is very important - it's just bad karma to make a loud console. :)

Master misChief: Dec 18th 2005; 9:06PM

Bob,

PGR3's developer Bizarre Creations said that most AAA games need to use 3 cores, but if the developer goes crazy, they could do it with 2. Unless the game is just a straight-on port of a current-gen game, then 2 cores seems to be the minimum you would need to implement a decent next-gen game. This does not mean the individual cores are maxed out, though. For the sake of parallellism, you might need to use more than one core to do multiple things at the same time. Even Geometry Wars: Retro Evolved uses all the three cores, apparently - but not implying that it maxed out all the processing capacity of the console.

teamonkey: Dec 18th 2005; 9:06PM

Hang on - is this the retail unit or the debug unit you've got there (a lot of the review models are debug units)? The retail unit I saw was near-silent. The cooling method changes according to whether it's upright or not - lying it on its side or obscuring the vents with other equipment may make the fans work harder. That was only when playing media though, so maybe it gets louder when playing a game?

Casey: Dec 18th 2005; 9:06PM

This is not good. I actually replaced the fan on the original xbox because it annoyed the hell out of me. If this xbox is pretty loud, I might hold off a while.

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