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

Slow news day?

[blowdart]

"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?

[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!

jesus

[Anonymous Coward]

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.

Re:jesus

[Urusai]

It's not that there's a black box, but what's inside it. It could be a water pump, heatsink, and fan; it could be a leprechaun with a pot of gold; it could be ninja gerbils wielding nunchuks! Think of the possibilities!

watercooling, or steam cleaning?

[User 956]

I tried watercooling my XBOX 360. I ended up with a bunch of steam.

Dear God Why?

[Matey-O]

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.

Re:why?

[CosmicDan]

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.

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

Slashvertisement

[DavidV]

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.

Re:Slashvertisement

[BushCheney08]

Hexus probably bought x number of slashvertisements for the year. Now that it's the final day, Steve is reminding the "editors" that he's still owed y ads.

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.

Pictures.

[Poromenos1]

Here are the pictures, so you don't have to load the ads:
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This article sucks

[DogDude]

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.

Troubling

[rinkjustice]

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?

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.