Nyko's Intercooler may burninate the Xbox 360
by Ross Miller 
{ Oct 27th 2006 at 6:35PM }
Nyko's Intercooler for the Xbox 360 causes more trouble than it's worth, according to Microsoft representative contacted by Elektriq. The problem is its construction: the Intercooler steals some of the power originating from the supply, decreasing the joules the console actually receives to inadequate levels. One representative even reported that the Intercooler has caused "scorch marks" on the console.For those who simply must have a cooling accessory, one Microsoft representative suggested the Pelican Fan Stand, whose power comes from a USB input. Microsoft does not make a first-party cooling unit, although you're more than welcome to throw the console in the freezer in between play sessions.*
* Joystiq does not recommend putting a console in the freezer and can only promise to laugh at you in the event you do heed our ridiculous non-advice.
[Via Xbox 360 Fanboy]
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
james @ Oct 27th 2006 11:53PM
burninator got da email. get da email for da burninator!!
Wulkar @ Oct 27th 2006 6:46PM
hmm who would have thought. nice disclamer
Zeichrat @ Oct 27th 2006 6:49PM
I had to take out my Intercooler because it was causing me trouble a lot of trouble while playing Dead Rising (the console turned itself off and the power brick light went red)... apparently the problem was not common because I couln´t find anything in the web about this...
Hannibal @ Oct 27th 2006 6:54PM
Yeah, I already removed my intercooler 2 months after using it. It caused the infamous 3 rings of death and made the 360 sound like a jet. Since then my 360 rarely freezes (about as often as my PS2) and sounds whisper quiet in comparison.
Scott @ Oct 27th 2006 7:06PM
My PC hasn't frozen while playing a game in.....
Lee @ Oct 27th 2006 7:08PM
look at what that piece of crap did to my 360
http://img91.imageshack.us/img91/3555/1027061858wr4.jpg
and
http://img291.imageshack.us/img291/4977/1027061857zc7.jpg
FOX @ Oct 27th 2006 7:11PM
Thats a nice picture of your couch.
Lefty @ Oct 27th 2006 7:19PM
lee
mine was similar to that but not that bad
and i only took mie off and saw this when i wa splaying madden i think ti was and my 360 just turned off mi power brick light was red as well. when i touched my power brick it was white hot i tell ya. i unplugged evrything and sit started up starting playing again and with in 10 mins it did the same thing. this had me really scared i decided to unplug it again and noticed the intercooler was really hot as well. took it off and it was burned. let my 360 chill for like and hour and bam has worked like a charm since.
my 360 runs probly 18 hrs a day. its always on. i turn it on when i get up and turn it off when i go to bed. (i work from home) i have ahd no isses since i removed my intercooler and threw it in the trash.
Vercin @ Oct 27th 2006 7:16PM
Holy crap. I haven't had any problems with mine, but I'm not going to wait until it burns up my system to stop using it. Thanks for the heads up, 'Stiq.
Easy_G @ Oct 27th 2006 7:33PM
This is America, Joystiq! We use Btu's and only Btu's!
Oh how I wish we were on the metric system. sigh. . .
Imadogg @ Oct 27th 2006 7:37PM
"6. Thats a nice picture of your couch."
Hahahahahahahaha oh damn that gave me a nice laugh
Skrilla @ Oct 27th 2006 8:22PM
I used to put my Dreamcast in the freezer all the time. No harm done.
Aaron @ Oct 27th 2006 8:24PM
TROOOOGDOOOORRR!
BURNINATING YOUR 360!
AirIntake @ Oct 27th 2006 8:40PM
@Easy_G
Actually, it's not BTUs or joules, it's watts. They must have misspoke when they said joules. A joule is a finite amount of energy, whereas a watt is a joule/second. They definitely mean watts.
CiD @ Oct 27th 2006 8:46PM
The intercooler 360 has not burned out any 360's since they have removed the on/off switch that were used on the old models.... So if you have an old one with the old switch I would suggest getting a new one for peace of mind.... I have the new one and it works great... not a single problem.....
Brandon @ Oct 27th 2006 9:22PM
Yeah you can put stuff in the freezer, as long as you don't take it out. That's how they cool large servers sometimes. The problem is taking it out I think, because the cold air would condense when it hits warm air. I could be wrong though.
troc 59 @ Oct 27th 2006 10:03PM
Jules, schmules! It has nothing to do with power/amperage or anything like that. It is a strictly mechanical condition. That piece of shit reverse Bernoulli attachment is an INDUCTION FAN.[pulling air as opposed to pushing air] That is to say, it's the same as sucking on a big Havana cigar-it gets hot-get it? Now the way it's designed, it's:[a]too compact/contained [b]sucking too much volume of air at once thereby overwhelming the weaker output fans in the console. Smaller fans on the outside, on the other hand ,running more diffuse blowing INTO [and not like the thrust reversers on a 747]the intake ports are actually ASSISTING the console fans. In other words, it's an inherintely piss-poor piece of engineering. It only takes a difference of 1 or 2 degrees to turn that motherboard into a smoking piece of shit.
theman @ Oct 27th 2006 10:39PM
hey i heard the first ones that came out where the bad ones but the ones that are out now are better. I bought mine a few weeks ago because ign gave it a pretty good review just look at what they had to say about it. http://gear.ign.com/articles/703/703791p1.html
The ZeroCorpse @ Oct 27th 2006 11:00PM
I told you guys the Intercooler was stupid. It's NOT NECESSARY. You're just strapping a fan on top of a fan. The 360 stays plenty cool when you keep it on a flat surface (NOT CARPET!) and in an open area (NOT AN ENCLOSED ENTERTAINMENT CENTER WITH A DOOR!) with at least an inch of space on all sides (NOT SNUG AGAINST OTHER COMPONENTS!) and away from heat-producing equipment (NOT SITTING ON TOP OF YOUR TV!)
I run mine all damned day and it never gets hot- It gets a little warm, but no more than a well-cooled computer or a DVD player.
Intercooler is a scam to play on the fears caused by Sony fanboys who flooded gaming sites saying the 360 was overheating to make it look bad. YOU DON'T NEED IT.
Fan Stand is OK. I never used the fan, but the stand is nice and stable
GalileoAce @ Oct 27th 2006 11:01PM
I put my PC's CPU and heatsink in the freezer once, when it got hideously overheated. My computer ran awesome for about 12 hours...And now it's back to it's normal state.
Steve2 @ Oct 27th 2006 11:13PM
ZeroCorpse:
I agree with your summary up top. With rare exceptions (a few bad units), the 360 doesn't overheat unless you use it in a way that defeats its internal cooling system. There is no need for this thing. There's no situation where adding this thing will cool your 360 properly when it wouldn't have cooled itself fine otherwise.
However, I don't agree the only people posting about 360s overheating are Sony fanboys. There are a ton of people who don't understand how much heat this thing puts out. You can put a Gamecube in a an enclosed space. You can put a PS2 in an enclosed space. You can put an Xbox 180 in an enclosed space.
So some legitimate Xbox owners (Xbox fanboys?) put their brand new 360s in enclosed spaces (esp. tempting since it is so loud) and found it overheated. Another smaller group of legitimate Xbox owners got bad units.
Between these two, there was plenty of talk of 360s overheating that wasn't just Sony fanboys.
This story will turn around in three weeks when Sony fans get their PS3s and find that it too cannot work in an enclosed space, because it puts off so much heat.
In short, don't buy this thing, it's useless.
Also, don't run your 360 all day if you aren't using it. If you run it 18 hours a day, every day, it will cost you $60 a year in electricity. (it uses about 90W at idle). Turn it off when you're not using it.
90W*16 hours/day = 1440 Watts/day
1440 Watts/day * 365 days = 525,600 Watt-Hours/year, or 526 KWh/year.
Electricity is $0.14/KWh in California, for $74/year in CA. At $0.10/KWh it's $53/year.
It's a waste of money, and a waste of energy.
cheese @ Oct 27th 2006 11:12PM
I just modded my intercooler as of seeing these stories about it. I ripped out the power passthru and connected the power leads of the fans to a usb cable. Ironically, to get the USB cable I sacrificed (with prejudice) a Nyko Airflo pc joypad, which I havn't used since I use a 360 controller on pc now. I ran the cable thru the hole where the on/off switch was on the intercooler and epoxied the wires together. I also took my sautering iron and melted the edges of the intercooler's plug port so the 360's plug could pass thru the intercooler and into the 360 directly. I could hook up the intercooler to the 360 now if I wanted to, but since it's next to my pc, the usb cord is pretty long and I'll have constant cooling, even after the 360 has been turned off, which is good, since your processor loses all cooling fan power after being turned off, which is bad to a degree. Not having it plugged into the 360 is a plus though. The 360 was much cooler with the intercooler, but I did not want to run the risk of damaging the 360, so modding the intercooler was a necessity.
robothouse @ Oct 27th 2006 11:45PM
Well, what do you know? Internet Flash Cartoon Characters are to blame for all the 360 failures!
SquirrelPhister @ Oct 28th 2006 1:36AM
I bought the Intercooler because all of the reports of overheating kind of freaked me out. I kept using it because it really does drop the temperature of the console by about 10-20 degrees (judging by feel). I put up with the loudness of it because it's not that noticeable when the music and sound effects kick in on the 5.1 surround.
After hearing this I removed it and was amazed by how incredibly quiet the system was. I had almost forgotten that it makes almost no noise. No going back.
Why have people been bitching so much lately that the 360 is loud?
ERrrr @ Oct 28th 2006 2:33AM
Actually, Contrary to Popular Belief, or Visc Versa... The 360 Makes a Fabulous heater for my home. And being Canadian, this is a must. (I live in an igloo?)
Though I was playing Dead Rising for about 5 hours because I had to squint to read most of the dialogue, and I lifted up my 360, for no particular reason, and My White Carpet had turned black.
*Twilight Zone Music Plays*
DeezNuts420 @ Oct 28th 2006 11:40AM
Has anyone tried removing the crap 360 fans inside, and only using the intercooler fans to cool?
The ZeroCorpse @ Oct 28th 2006 3:51PM
The 360 fans are NOT crap.
Jeez, some of you are stupid. It does not get "hot" at all. It gets warm. If your 360 gets HOT then you either have a defective unit, or you're an idiot who is somehow blocking the airflow or introducing extra heat.
I swear, I've had idiots tell me their 360 gets way too hot when they play it, and then they reveal that they had it sitting on top of their television or surround sound receiver. WELL DUHHHHHH... The components BELOW it are getting hot and HEAT RISES, dumbass! Then there are the guys who complain that their 360 is a toaster and I find out they have it sitting on a carpeted floor. AGAIN, DUHHH! Sit your 360 on a flat surface (horizontally) and look at the underside--- You see how it curves and leaves a little space underneath? They did that on purpose. When you put it on a carpet (which is already insulating the heat buildup) you block airflow and IT GETS HOT.
There *were* Sony fanboys on the Xbox forums complaining of overheating consoles-- We know they were Sony fanboys because these guys had no gamertag yet talked about playing on XBL in their elaborate descriptions of overheating trauma. It DID happen. (To be fair, I'm sure some Xbox fanboys will probably do the same in Sony's forums, too.)
No, this isn't an NES or a GameCube. It's a function-specific computer with modern computer cooling needs. Give it room, give it airflow, give it space, and give it a nice flat, cool surface and the 360 cools itself fine. It was DESIGNED to cool itself-- Some of you act like MS "forgot" to build cooling components into the thing. That's stupid.
Nine times out of ten, the "overheating" problems are USER ERROR. That tenth time is a DEFECT. The rest of the time it works fine and doesn't require some cheap plastic hokum to make it work better.
I can't wait to see what stupid junk people strap to their PS3s.
someguy @ Oct 30th 2006 11:08AM
TROGDOR!!!!!111!!11!!1!!1!!
Billy @ Nov 2nd 2006 11:02PM
I recently had to toss my intercooler, because it was shutting off quite alot. I had to unplug it and start it up several times. I moved the system to a new spot and removed the intercooler, and now it seems to be working fine. After taking it off, the xbox 360 sounds very quiet. I was wondering, are there any long-term problems that the 360 will have due to the intercooler system?
360UserSS @ Nov 29th 2006 8:34PM
I just bought a 360 for the holidays and i bought an intercooler, should i be worried that it will fry my 360, and what if you sit it horizontaly on top of the original xbox which you never play?
The Year 2000 @ Dec 13th 2006 3:16PM
I got my 360 on launch day last year - had no problems as of yet. I bought an InterCooler in the spring and have had no problems, except that the IC is noisy as hell.
So, from what I'm reading, the IC with an on/off switch can burninate the 360, where the ones without the switch will not?
Regardless, I bought the thing for peace of mind due to all the overheating rumors. My 360 sits alone on a shelf, which has doors that I open when playing, so I more than likely do not need the intercooler.
Although, with the HD-DVD add on I just purchased, I wonder if I should leave the IC attached just in case. Probably not, since MS likely developed and tested the thing without an external cooling source.
Anyone?
ChaZ @ Dec 28th 2006 11:01AM
I just ordered one of these and then came to read all the stuff about burning the xbox etc. Im pretty worried and wondering whether to just sell it on when i recieve it or not?
Is it true that the IC's with the on/off switch cause problems and the ones without do not?
ChaZ
x360RIP @ Dec 31st 2006 5:31AM
This one hit me by surprise and I feel like a total idiot, so flame away, I deserve it, but my 360 just fried. My intercooler was fused into it. Going to find out exactly what it took out with it. Hopefully it'll just be the PSU and I'll be able to replace it, though most likely it'll be in a new case. Also, anyone suing Nyko?
x360RIP @ Dec 31st 2006 9:42PM
YAY!!
-Update;
PSU turned out to be ok,
After prying my intercooler off the 360 unit, I was able to scrape out small bits of melted intercooler out of my power connector, and it started back up.
john @ Jan 8th 2007 11:40AM
I've been having troubles with my 360; I unplugged everything to get ready to ship out when I had to pry the intercooler off. Turns out the thing was fried to my power inlet on the console!!! Mine was burnt worse than the guy with the picture!!Can I sue nyko?? Is it easily fixed? what should I do??