360 Fan Noise

[Sareth]

Got a 360 the other day and the fans are driving me nuts. Its not the *whoosh*
of the air flow through the vents thats bothering me its the high pitched whine of the fan motors. Its definately the fans as it changes intensity in sync with variations in the volume of the whooshing noise (all technical terms )

Is this normal ? I sought out a recording of a 360 and could hear the whoosh but no whine, however when I recorded the sound of my 360 on my pda from the same distance there was a whoosh but no whine so I guess you need a mic with a decent range to pick it up. To the human ear its very noticeable though.

Its final position will be in the lving room around 12ft from seating position so I'm pretty sure it wont be too noticeable then but its wether its normal or a fault in the fans I'm worried about.

So, do your fans whine and/or I'm stuck up or should it go back ?

 

[Sareth]

I havent put anything in the drive apart from a test DVD so far. Bad news if it is pretty silent otherwise as that probably means mine has a fault.
It whines like a gang of 20mm Northbridge chipset fans in the pub at happy hour.

 

[Sareth]

Thanks folks, its pretty well ventilated where it is but its a small room, long term itll be going into a much larger room with a ceiling fan which will help come Summer.
I notice the underside (if its sat horizontal, left as you face it if its vertical) gets pretty hot, wonder if a laptop cooler would help.

 

[Sareth]

Brand new one bought last night. Just as loud, just less vibration at spin up/spin down but as I said that could be my old drive being faulty.

EDIT- was a Core if that makes a difference.

Mine says manufactured October 06 yet looking at the pictures of the Samsung and Hitachi trays it looks like neither, it has small round hole in the tray at the near side.

 

[Sareth]

Guy in my work got one at the weekend and it has a Samsung drive in it.
TBH i don't think i have heard of anyone who has a elusive BenQ drive yet tbh

Looking again at the picture I found of the trays mine might be a Samsung, theres a dark spot on the picture where mine has a hole, might be a slight variation in the tray builds.

 

[Sareth]

It's most likely going to be a Samsung MS28 as most are. How loud is the 360 WITHOUT a disc inside?

Mine is irritatingly loud with the high pitched whining from the fans. I made a couple of recordings but I dont have a cable to upload them from here.

 

[Sareth]

This is what it sounds like :

http://www.zen97535.zen.co.uk/360/recording1.wav

 

[Sareth]

Yep, sounds totally normal to me. I don't find it in the least bit annoying.

The first noise you hear is the fans at the back of the 360, and when you put the disc in the initial whine of the DVD player which stops, to be replaced by the whoosh of the disc spinning round at a million miles an hour.

It's normal. I don't consider it loud at all and like someone else said, just turn your TV up if it bothers you that much.

I need to find a way round this, perhpas building a duct for the rear vents to both draw the heat away and shield me from the noise or theres going to be a news story about *a man giggling and shouting weeeeeeeeeeeeee oooooooooooooh weeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee whilst dancing across his roof holding an unidentified grey object above his head* soon.

 

[Sareth]

Blue Peter'd my own cooling box to sit next to the bottom vents with the 360 sat horizontal....

 

[Sareth]

The noise you're hearing isn't because the darn thing is hot. It's the DVD drive.

I've read that on so many forums when looking up the issue of whiny fans, it isnt the dvd drive, that is a fact.

The fans make a high pitched whining noise, which is especially disruptive when the fans change speed and thus the pitch of the noise changes.

I made the box to try and keep the 360's temperature lower and more consistent and hopefully reduce the internal fans speed changes.