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XBox (Games) Hardware Hacking

Watercooling the XBox 360 141

Posted by CowboyNeal from the staying-cool dept.
Steve from Hexus writes "Steering clear of jokes about overheating power supplies, one company is claiming to have constructed a watercooling kit for the XBox 360. HEXUS.gaming has obtained pictures of the product, seemingly attached to an XBox 360, though how it works and how it is installed remains something of a mystery."
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Watercooling the XBox 360 More

Watercooling the XBox 360

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  • Slow news day? (Score:5, Insightful)

    by blowdart ( 31458 ) on Saturday December 31, 2005 @10:35AM (#14370181) Homepage
    "though how it works and how it is installed remains something of a mystery."

    Almost as much of a mystery as why this a black box sitting next to a 360 is considered "news".

    • Re:Slow news day? (Score:3, Insightful)

      by DrWho520 ( 655973 )
      This article mysteriously made its way to the front page. In Games, this article is feesible. On the front page? Well, it does come right after the article on 5,000+ software bugs found this year.
    • It probably is a slow news day.
      Why the hell would anyone want to announce new things or release viruses on new years eve?

      Expect tush n piffle articles whilst most people *worldwide* are all off work.

    • Pictures. (Score:5, Funny)

      by Poromenos1 ( 830658 ) on Saturday December 31, 2005 @11:25AM (#14370337) Homepage
      Here are the pictures, so you don't have to load the ads:
      ________
      |      |
      |      |
      |      |
      |______|
      ||    ||
      ||____||

      • Re:Pictures. (Score:3, Informative)

        by CODiNE ( 27417 )
        Clearly a fraud, here's the REAL image.
        _________
        |       |
        |       |
        |       |
        |_______|
        ||\ | /||
        ||- o -||
        ||/_|_\||

        Huh... looks like some kind of goatse.cx robot.  This MUST be more than a coincidence!
    • Two Hexus articles both written extremely poorly today. I can't even believe HEXUS posted that story, HORRIBLE!!!!

      • Re:Slow news day? (Score:4, Interesting)

        by TallMatthew ( 919136 ) on Saturday December 31, 2005 @12:51PM (#14370706)
        Dude, Hexus sucks. From their article:

        According to their press release, "CoolIT Systems has designed a retrofit product that will transform the stock forced air cooling system with a state-of-the-art liquid-chilled system that employs the exclusive MTEC technology pioneered by CoolIT Systems."

        The "Systems" and "cooling system" are autogenerated hyperlinks to advertisements. And they're not even close to being relative to the subject matter. "Systems" takes you to Microsoft's web conferencing service. "cooling system" takes you to Sears.

        What a joke. Hey we saw something somewhere and we don't know how it works, but it's got something to with an XBox360 and aren't those cool? And by the way, speaking of cool, Sears can give you a free estimate on installing a central air conditioning unit!

    • It looks like it attaches to the outside of the box, where the vent currently is. You can see the fan in the pic. This second fan would take the exhaust normally expelled by the 360 and cool it further, perhaps drawing more air through the box as well.
      • maybe im mistaken, but isnt the xbox ALREADY supposed to be water cooled? apparently the MS solution doesnt work well enough.

        can anyone verify whether or not the builtin system is still supposed to be watercooled? i guess adding a /real/ watercooling system should make it run smoother, but still... given that most of the problems are supposedly due to the power supplies, and the x360 is already huge as is... isnt this overkill? not to mention takes away from the ventilation space that the x360 and its power
        • and by the way... how the hell is adding another huge ass external fan supposed to make the system "quieter"?
          • A huge ass fan can move the same amount of air a small one can, at a much lower speed.
            Lower speed -> less noise, usually.

            On a PC, the most irritating noise is often from the small graphic card fan.

    • Re:Slow news day? think: Roomba!! (Score:2, Funny)

      by Anonymous Coward
      ... but maybe I can use this on my hacked, overclocked Roomba!!
    • Looks like a bad photoshop job to me. Notice the blending where the black meets the silver(it should be a crisp contrast) and the bottom corner of the black box goes under the silver one, yet its not a curved line.

      Seems like the "black box" from Sneakers is back!
    • Watercooler jokes: they're not just about Seinfeld anymore.

  • jesus (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Anonymous Coward on Saturday December 31, 2005 @10:38AM (#14370191)
    WTF is this? The article is smaller than the /. summary and is basically just two almost-identical pictures of a black box sitting next to an XBox 360. Maybe it's a slow morning for news, but this is just lame.

  • Oooookay (Score:3, Funny)

    by OverlordQ ( 264228 ) on Saturday December 31, 2005 @10:38AM (#14370192) Journal
    Slap a stick on lexan cube and set it next to an XBox and call it a XBox Microwave.

    Let's just say that article is rather light on details, the story summary pretty much is everything minus pictures.

  • why? (Score:2, Insightful)

    by Novotny ( 718987 )
    I really don't get this - surely in any normal gaming scenario, the xbox's internal cooling will be drowned out (no pun intended) by the gaming sound? What's the point in overclocking the thing, even if its possible?

    • Re:why? (Score:5, Funny)

      by CosmicDan ( 934381 ) on Saturday December 31, 2005 @10:49AM (#14370217)
      360's DVD player is slightly louder than a 757. Was watching Serenity and I found myself wondering why I could hear the drone of the ship's in every scene. Then I watched Mel Brooks' Silent Movie and found myself wondering why I could STILL hear Serenity's engines in every scene. The cooling system, however, is almost silent.
      • Too bad no amount of watercooling is going to make a DVD drive any quieter.
      • Was watching Serenity and I found myself wondering why I could hear the drone of the ship's in every scene.

        Ironically, there's no engine sounds in Firefly/Serenity when the ship's in space, which is pretty much all the time, except when it's grounded.

    • Watercooling is not always used for overclocking. I watercooled some systems without ever wanting to overclock them.

  • watercooling, or steam cleaning? (Score:5, Funny)

    by User 956 ( 568564 ) on Saturday December 31, 2005 @10:41AM (#14370201) Homepage
    I tried watercooling my XBOX 360. I ended up with a bunch of steam.

  • Dear God Why? (Score:3, Insightful)

    by Matey-O ( 518004 ) <michaeljohnmiller@mSPAMsSPAMnSPAM.com> on Saturday December 31, 2005 @10:45AM (#14370210) Homepage Journal
    You have a sealed box unit that's been tested to pass UL requirements for fire resistance and has been pounded to within an inch of it's life in development (yeah yeah, they never put the power supply on a scrap of deep shag, whatever)

    And someone's selling additonal cooling for it? Makes as much sence as a water cooler add-on to your coffemaker.

    P.T. Barnum was right.

    • UL certification does not mean reliable (Score:5, Interesting)

      by Flying pig ( 925874 ) on Saturday December 31, 2005 @11:08AM (#14370279)
      Sorry, but all UL certification means is that the thing will not catch fire or get hot in a way that will cause damage in a domestic environment (that's why it's Underwriters' Laboratories for Heaven's sake). Every single example tested could fail open circuit in five minutes and it still could be UL certified because it does not create an INSURANCE risk. UL approval does not mean that additional cooling could not be beneficial.
      Odd you mention coffee machines because some years ago there was considerable trouble with them catching fire and it took UL a long time to evolve an acceptable testing methodology.

      But this leads to an interesting possibility about these add-ons. It's possible that additional cooling could cause a thermal trip or similar overload protection device to fail to operate when it should, perhaps resulting in a fire starting elsewhere in the system. (For instance, a number of systems use PTC devices as simple thermal trips. Blowing additional cold air over a PTC could prevent it tripping). If this resulted in a fire, you might find your add-on cooler had invalidated your household insurance and you were not covered. The situation with changing the CPU cooler is different because the total heat and net airflow in the case should be unchanged.

    • Often, the reason to go to water cooling is to quiet a system down, rather than to cool it more. The 360 in game playing mode really is pretty loud, and some folks would undoubtedly like it quieter.

      Yes, the water cooling would probably run the chips at a lower temperature, but the two major reasons to do this (overclocking and improved reliability) don't really apply. Nobody in their right mind is going to be overclocking a 360, and extending the lifetime of the chips is just making the strongest link in
    • If you've ever heard a 360 at full "whine" you'd understand why some people would fiddle with the cooling. Maybe I just got a dodgy 360 but the fan and DVD drive are so loud in mine they drown out the fan in my projector. And my projector already sounded like a hair dryer. Honestly it's like playing games at the hair dressers! ;)
    • And someone's selling additonal cooling for it? Makes as much sence as a water cooler add-on to your coffemaker.

      I have one of those

  • Waste of time (Score:3, Funny)

    by swimfastom ( 216375 ) on Saturday December 31, 2005 @10:50AM (#14370224) Homepage
    This acticle was a waste of time. I cannot believe it was put on /. It contains two similar pictures with no descriptions. Talk about brevity, the whole article is missing!!

  • That is no water cooler (Score:4, Interesting)

    by Oldsmobile ( 930596 ) on Saturday December 31, 2005 @10:50AM (#14370227) Journal
    It looks just like a car heater.

    Like so:

    http://images.amazon.com/images/P/B0000V0AKE.16._A A260_SCLZZZZZZZ_.jpg [amazon.com]

  • News? (Score:2, Funny)

    by zsadiq ( 942364 )
    One, why is this news?

    Second of all... whats the point? I'm pretty sure Microsoft is handling the cooling issues well, and problems have only been reported in a small number of instances. I for one think buying this would be a big waste of money.
    • MS themselves have stated that the problems are only present in 3% of the consoles, and of those something like 1% have been returned. thats /if/ you want to trust MS numbers. [i dont...] that doesnt mean anything in itself. what that means is that buyers are sucking it up with dealing with the crashes, because kids dont want to go over two weeks without their new console or shiny new christmas present.

      theyve sold something around 300,000- 400,000 xboxes, that means ~12,000 [one in 33] are "defective" or cr

  • Slashvertisement (Score:5, Insightful)

    by DavidV ( 167283 ) on Saturday December 31, 2005 @10:54AM (#14370239)
    Just how much is Hexus paying for the Slashvertisements? It probably wouldn't be so obvious if there were more than one article in between them.
  • This should not be necessary. Microsoft screwed this up and it never should have hit the market in this state. This serves one of two things: (1) lowers further the quality expect by consumers (2) lowers further the quality expected of Microsoft. Take your pick, but sadly, I lean to the damage of 1.

    • Re:In all seriousness (Score:3, Interesting)

      by Quarters ( 18322 )
      So every 3rd party XBox controller only exists to fix a flaw in the standard one? Every set of 3rd party cables only serve to cover up some manufacturing flaw?

      Companies will make a buck on anything. That this exists doesn't imply Microsoft screwed up. It implies that CoolIt knows there are enough suckers out there that would be interested in buying their product.

      • This is a consumer product and not a "computer" by virtue of marketing and placement.

        A cooling kit is meant to make this thing WORK not improve game play or customize the system. The basic system, as shipped, should be sufficient and it is demonstrably not. The need for a cooling kit illustrates it perfectly.

        • Do we even have accurate statistics of how many systems are overheating? It seems that the majority of these cases fall under a few main issues:

          1. Placing the "power brick" (It truely is the size of a brick) on carpeting or in a cramped space; causing it to overheat.
          2. Having the system in a poorly ventilated AV rack, or extremely closed off cabinet.
          3. Sitting the system on top of other equipment, or placing other equipment on top of the system.

          If it is actually a widespread manufacturing flaw, then cer

        • Why do you think there is a need for this? You keep implying that 360s are defective and that Microsoft is to blame and CoolIt is just fixing the problem for them. On what are you basing that assumption?

          By your logic AMD and Intel are at fault for poor chip designs because 3rd party companies make water cooling kits for computers.

          This is just a gadget for people to waste their money on. There's no absolute need for it, just like there isn't a need for quite a lot of things that companies sell to people.

    • Much like the requirement for anti-virus, spyware remover(s) and firewall on Windows. Why would a desktop OS need any ports open or to respond to ICMP by default in any case?
      • I wouldn't go that far.

        A game console is not intended to be a general purpose computer system although it could be fitted that way. It is intended to be a simple, "turn it on and play a game" device for entertainment purposes. As such, it should be simple and reliable. If this device is needed to make the machine operable for extended amounts of time, then it's a problem with the design of the machine. If it cannot be placed in the same locations as other game consoles in the past (i.e. in front of the
        • "General purpose computing, while I agree shouldn't be as troubling and hazardous as it is [for Windows users]"

          You what? Troubling? Hazardous? I'm sure trying to remember 101 cryptic commands to use in the shell is so much less troubling for 99% of people...

          I'm fairly indifferent to the whole OS wars, if anything OS X is the far better of the three big ones, but to call Windows troubling and hazardous is just trolling.

          Anyway, I thought the overheating issue was with the PSU block, not the console itself. Th

    • Serious question: Has anyone reported the problem to be with the CPU/GPU? I was under the impression (from all the accounts I've seen, which is admittedly not many) that the PSU is to blame, since it wasn't tested in the sort of environment that it'd be used in, and that the XBox itself was not the overheating unit.

      Anyone? Apologies if this has been asked already.

  • it appears to me more of an air conditioner unit that replases the stock cooling, almost like a forced cold air system. could be interesting...

  • This article sucks (Score:5, Insightful)

    by DogDude ( 805747 ) on Saturday December 31, 2005 @11:25AM (#14370338)
    Plain and simple, this shitty advertisement disguised as an "article" sucks. Seriously, can we get the Editors to make up a new "advertising" category so we can opt out? I know that that may be asking too much from people who can't even bother to spell check a 3 sentence article summary, or check to see if the same article was posted in the past 24 hours.
    • The article does suck, but it's simply covering a press release from "CoolIT Systems Inc.," albeit poorly. A few clicks into the article produce this forum post [hexus.net] which then links to this (relatively) more in-depth coverage [eworldwire.com] regarding the press release.

      The only really informational bit:
      "CoolIT Systems Inc. today announced that it is showcasing the world's first truly liquid-cooled Xbox 360 in Las Vegas at the Consumer Electronics Show from Jan. 4 - 8, 2006."

      There are even pointless audio and video versio
  • Okay the xbox is a nice gray little unit that is much "slimmer' then its predecessor but the only ugly attribute of the system was the big bulky power supply, so what do they do? build an encased cooling system that makes it even more bulker and uglyer ....

    Makes sense to me ...

  • Troubling (Score:5, Insightful)

    by rinkjustice ( 24156 ) <rinkjustice@NO_S ... m ['roc' in gap]> on Saturday December 31, 2005 @11:45AM (#14370405) Homepage Journal
    It says on the front page HEXUS.gaming is UK's leading gaming website, but after appraising the articles and layout of the website, it can't be so. Don't get me wrong, I'm not about ripping apart other people's work, but this site is about making a dime on cheesy in-text advertising and ugly, blocky ads in place of content. /. certainly shouldn't be directing their loyal readership to this internet flotsam when they know full well it's a lame scam.

    I seem to be asking myself how long will I put up with this crap before I stop frequenting this site?
  • "though how it works and how it is installed remains something of a mystery."

    And what part about "boil your xbox" don't you understand again?

  • I'm confused (Score:4, Interesting)

    by jandrese ( 485 ) * <kensama@vt.edu> on Saturday December 31, 2005 @12:29PM (#14370604) Homepage Journal
    Why did they watercool the 360 itself and not the power brick? Everything I've read suggests that the power brick is the most likely component to overheat on the 360, if anything they should create a custom cooling solution for it, especially for people who live in hot environments.
    • I'm guessing that what they're selling is in fact a water-cooled power brick. Which includes a big honking fan.
    • My own xbox 360 is experiencing overheating, but the power supply itself remains only a bit warmer than ambient. There's a distinct smell of melting plastic that comes from within the xbox 360 itself.

      The transformer is on a shelf by itself (glass plate on a component rack, not mounted on the wall, so it has 5 sides of open air) as well as the xbox 360 placed on another shelf (again, nothing around it). This didn't seem to do the trick, so I suspended a big box fan to the side blowing cold basement air ov

    • From the one evening I have been sitting in front of an XBox360, it seemed to me that the Box itself is what is really heating up, not the (Delta Electronics) Power Supplay (16Amps @ 12Volts..) All in all and with the exception of the DVD drive it seemed very solid manufacturing (though reports suggest its quality level is quite ..uhm.. ?dynamic' ) Even when in the XBOX OS alone, it gets very hot meaning theres nothing like powersave or nap modes implemented .. :D
  • Why is this news, does the cooler run Linux or something?
  • I thought the biggest issues were with the power supply? Shouldn't they have made a water cooler for that?

  • Hoax (Score:2, Interesting)

    by mwilli ( 725214 )
    I call hoax. I think it's just a fan slapped on the side of a 360. I doubt there's any more to it than that. No modification or anything. It's complete BullShit!
    • An additional external fan could be quite helpful. The loudest part of the old PS2 design was the fan on the back of the unit... a larger, slower moving fan that stopped the internal fan from spinning could provide a lot more cooling at a much lower noise level. Even without stopping the internal fan, most of the noise from high-speed fans comes from the intake not getting air quickly enough to feed the blades. Adding a larger, slower, less noisy external fan would greatly increase the amount of air avai
  • I think the picture they should have shown was the water cooler for the power supply. The Nifty little white box next to the black brick.
  • So they get to mess with their guts like the people who assemble computers. Sheeze. Does the console even neeed watercooling? Is the fan cooling system that loud?

        Nice ad, by the way.
  • iPod Videos and Xbox 360s... Two articles right after each other and both of them puff pieces. Lame.
  • Why the hell would anyone make a watercooling unit for the Xbox 360 when the built-in cooling system does the job just fine? The problem with the 360 is that the external power supply overheats - not the system itself - and even that problem doesn't require anything as complicated as watercooling, it just needs to be located somewhere air can move under it.

  • The site is currently down for essential maintenance
    Looks like we managed to take down another site ;)
    Mirrordot link of this story [mirrordot.org]

  • A better mystery... (Score:3, Insightful)

    by SeaFox ( 739806 ) on Saturday December 31, 2005 @05:28PM (#14371830)
    how it works and how it is installed remains something of a mystery.

    much like the reason why you would want to install a liquid cooling aparatus on a device that can maintain opertaing tempratures on its own!

    I haven't heard of a huge overclocking community of XBox'ers, and it's not like you can easily upgrade the graphics to something that would add lots of heat to the system. The actual usefullness of this product seems rather limited.

    Now, if they'd had made a cooling device for the power supply...

  • Ugh. Blatant and heavy-handed slashvertisement.

    BTW, opening the case of a device does not void the warranty, although manufacturers would like you to think so. (Magnusson-Moss warranty act)

    And "special cooling liquid?" What suckers would fall for such a coarse pitch?
  • Xbox 360 is already water cooled as it comes from the factory.

    And to those who said "I thought it was the power supply was the problem", why not just not comment at all until you have one? The power supply doesn't get hot enough on its own to shut down. It may be more sensitive to heat than the main unit (at least some of them may be), but it doesn't generate much heat on its own.

    Finally, the Xbox 360 doesn't have an overheating problem unless you put it in an enclosed space. If you do, the sheer amount of
  • This is really nothing new. The Dreamcast uses/used a closed liquid cooling system that operated on convection (a single fan cooled one part of the closed loop)...

    It worked for the Dreamcast...why not for the 360...what surprises me is that in 5 years, noone has come up with a better idea for cooling a console...I would really like to see a zero noise console...
  • Noticed on Penny Arcade that HardOCP is doing this for real [hardocp.com].

    And yes, it does void your warranty.

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