Watercooling the XBox 360

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."

Comments

That is no water cooler

[Oldsmobile]

It looks just like a car heater.

Like so:

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

Re:In all seriousness

[Quarters]

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.

UL certification does not mean reliable

[Flying pig]

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.

Re:Slow news day?

[LiquidCoooled]

Oh, I almost forget, Happy new year everyone.

I'm confused

[jandrese]

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.

Re:Slow news day?

[TallMatthew]

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!

Hoax

[mwilli]

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!