Water Cooling an Xbox 360

An anonymous reader writes "HardOCP has done it once again. They have an article running down the process of water cooling an Xbox 360, and with surprising effectiveness and remarkable styling." From the article: "We had plans to water cool an Xbox 360 for over a year now. Little did we know that not only will this water cooling project be more fun than the original, but it may even be practical. Imagine that. With reports of heat related issues and a heat sink that can get almost too hot to touch after marathon gaming sessions, the Xbox 360 water cooling project now had a sense of purpose. We bought a retail Xbox 360 specifically for this project. The minute we got it back to the [H] labs we tore into it and, with a little help from the fine folks at Koolance, we have put together a water cooling solution that will handle anything the Xbox 360 can throw at it and literally knock your socks off." Actual implimentation with hand-holding. Hexus.net was discussing a kit to do this a few days ago.

Comments

Cooling the wrong components?

[Hunter-Killer]

It's the PSU that overheats, causing the majority of recent problems.

But hey, if you'd rather spend ~180 on a water cooling system instead of not stuffing the power block deep inside a cabinet, more power to you. ;)

sad

[mj2k]

it's sad that after all the hype, MS seemingly ignored such a basic component as verifying that internal components remain within thermal limits. I should be able to leave my xbox 360 on overnight without having to worry about it overheating, and I shouldn't have to resort to water-cooling the 360 to ensure it operates properly. Props to those who got this to work, but a user who spends 300+ bucks on a console shouldn't have to make the choice of voiding their warranty (and spending extra to put a cooling sys together) in order to keeep their 360 operating within thermal specs, or risk overheating and failure in the future. MS never seems to quite get it, they made a _huge_ deal pre-release about the chassis being smaller and more attractive (especially those stupid swappable front covers), yet all the hardcore gamers I know would prefer a stable system with great performance to an attractive POS that overheats when you leave it running overnight.

it just works *FOR NOW*

[vlad_petric]

Unmodded, the temperature after a couple of hours of Quake 4 was ~150F. With watter cooling it got to ~100F. Such a dramatic change in temperature can greatly increase the lifetime of the system.

XBOX360 is an awesome gaming platform, but it's pretty clear that the first version is doing poorly power- and cooling-wise.

Re:it just works *FOR NOW*

[CastrTroy]

That's only 65 degress celcius. Which isn't really that hot. I don't think that a chip running at that temp would have any problems in the long run. PC processors run at that temp all the time. It might feel a little hot to the touch, but nothing metal, silicon and other chip materials shouldn't be able to handle.