Quiet Your Xbox 360 DVD Drive Options

[Xbox-Scene]

Quiet Your Xbox 360 DVD Drive Posted by XanTium | December 4 21:02 EST

From extremetech.com: [QUOTE] The most noticeable fault of the system, the one you'd be most likely to hear about from the largest number of users, is how loud it is. Sitting idly in the Dashboard system interface, the 360 isn't so bad: It's not whisper-quiet, but not annoying. Pop in a game, and it's a whole other story. When that DVD-ROM drive spins up to full 12x speed, it puts out a ton of noise. Fortunately, it spins slower when playing DVD movies, and the HD-DVD add-on drive is very quiet. Our experiments with trying to bring down the noise level of a high-end system in an Antec Nine Hundred case got us thinking: Can we do anything about the 360's noise level? Specifically, can we reduce the sound output when the DVD drive spins up while playing a retail game? We've seen plenty of 360 mods around the 'net, most of them centered on making the case look cool or water-cooling the CPU and GPU inside. In our view, silencing or eliminating those rear exhaust fans is a moot point when the optical drive creates a lot more noise. So here, we'll take apart an Xbox 360 and show you a couple of simple tricks applied in an effort to bring down the noise level a bit, without dramatically hacking up the box. Final Results--Worth the Effort? And after the modifications? We managed to trim quite a bit of noise out, but it's still not exactly what you would call a "whisper quiet" system: Idle (at dashboard): 48dB -> 44dB Playing a DVD movie: 50dB -> 45dB Playing a game (DVD drive spinning full speed): 60dB -> 56dB That's a difference of 4dB to 5dB. Interestingly, the extra insulation seems to help reduce the system's noise at all times, even just idling at the dashboard with nothing in the DVD drive at all. In the logarithmic decibel scale, a difference of 3dB is literally half the sound pressure. That doesn't quite map to human perception, though, and a 3dB difference doesn't always sound "half as loud." [/QUOTE] Read More: extremetech.com (6 pages)

[Arjun]

Yea I read that earlier today...But I'm kind of nervous on throwing dynamat in there especially because of the heat...

[rasputin69]

Arjun, I totally agree. I can just see the tar from the Dynamat dripping onto the heatsink of the GPU. I am not fond of the idea.

Want to keep the drive quiet? Extend the sata and power cables (or cut a hole on the top of the case) and place the dvd drive outside of your 360 case. Now, build or buy an external case and dampen the sound. This also gives your room for adding heatsink fans, etc. Just my two cents.

[majik655]

yeah just what I want to do... add more insulation and more heat issues.

I personally wonder if the dvd drive is the one adding more heat to the box causing alot of these heating issues. I am not a person who would know this just something I wonder about.

I have seen 1 360 come into my hands that when you lift the dvd drive out.. there were pads on the chips below. I do not know if this is common on most boxes but out of 10 only 1 has had it. I wonder if those pads help the heat stay away from those chips that the dvd drive creates?? Probably has nothing to do with it but I still wonder. Especially aren't the chips under the dvd drive have to do with ram or something like that.

Nice to know mod but probably not worth the effort.

[ruciz]

hmm, I bet if you got some rubber mats to put around the fans where they mount to the case it would quiet the system down a lot too.

Either way good guide and I cant see the dyanmax making that much of a heat difference in the system, due to where its located (top part of the case and around the DVD Drive). Its more material, and looks to hold heat (made of tar?) it might rise overall system temps by a degree or two.

Guess it depends on which is more valuable to you.. ensuring the system runs cooler or making it quiet. Ears or longevity. The gromits are defiantly a good way to go though.

[memturbo]

I have never heard my dvd spin up and make any kind of noise But
I have the 360 built into the wall along with my xbox ps2 and widescreen tv
So maybe thats why.

[rasstar]

How come I don't hear a sound coming from my 360? Obviosly if you put your ear to it then you will hear it but I don't understand why anyone would complain.

[infamous_Q]

man my disc drive is quite loud. maybe some other good ideas will spawn off this.

[majik655]

How come I don't hear a sound coming from my 360? Obviosly if you put your ear to it then you will hear it but I don't understand why anyone would complain.

You know I wondered the same thing...

out of the 360's I have seen or firmware modded the first ones were louder than hell!

I mean it was the first thing I thought of when I first bought it (launch day)
That one was loud!

Then as time went on they seemed to get quiter... like hitachi's I do not hear the drives that bad.

I had one box that had a ms28 drive in it originally... swapped it with a ms25 purchased at etech4sale.com and man that ms25 was louder than hell.. it sounds like a jet taking off major major major difference.

However I have other ms25 drives that do not sound that bad at all. I just don't get it. It seems launch ms25's are different than ones released a few or couple months later.

[Heet]

Thank God for hacked firmware. Its the only real solution for a quieter drive. And the extra 5-10 second loading time doesnt bother me.


I have a ms25 drive, box was made in April, its loud as hell stock. With the firmware its about as loud as the fans when running a game. Almost cant hear it at all.

This post has been edited by Heet: Dec 5 2006, 03:58 AM

[TraZer]

I definately need to make my 360 more silent... you know the sound of an old vacuum cleaner?... well that's it... and it's even worse when I put a disc in the drive.
I have to turn the volume up on my stereo if I dont want to sit and concentrate really hard to hear the sound of the game I am playing.

I thought of removing the dvd drive from the console and put it in an isolating box or something... as the rest of the console would most likely overheat and turn itself off if I put the whole thing inside something.

[BoNg420]

The best 360 silencer, is a nice surround sound system. Also sitting away about 10+ feet helps too.

[Interfire]

Heat? Melting and dripping on stuff? Hilarious.

Exactly at what point do you think that stuff melts? Try a temperature range of -54C to +149C (-65F to +300F) and if your Xbox ever got that hot you would have other problems to worry about.

[frostedflakes]

I plan to give this a try eventually, just waiting for my 90 day warranty to run out. As long as you don't cover up any ventilation holes heat shouldn't be an issue. Most of the heat from the box will be pulled out by the fans, hardly any will be dissipated by the casing. The metal on the inside of the case is more than likely for EM shielding, not heat dissipation.

[xboxexpert]

Oh crap, all we need are a couple of 12's in there and were good to start bumping our music out of our 360!

P.S- The dood left his serial number for the world to see.