How noisy is your Xbox 360?

[Spatial]

With the advent of the NXE this Wednesday (or already for those lucky to get in to the preview), obviously the game installs mean less noise from the spinning of the DVD drive.

Sounds great in theory but I'm finding the noise on the dash / without the drive whirring to be much worse. It's not the fans at the back, rather what I'm assuming to be the GPU fan more towards the front.

Mine seems to be producing a droning whir that goes up and down in pitch and because of this is much more noticeable than that the consistent tone of the drive spinning. It's even to the point where I'm considering to continue playing games off the drive

I've always known the 360 to be a noisy beast, I'm just wondered what other people's systems were like on the dash / with installs?

Are they all this intrusive?

[Spatial]

Actually the installed one in that video sounds very much like my system. Seems that's just how it is.

[hudson]

Mine makes a bit of a whirring and whining noise without a 360 disc in, but I'd rather have that than the hoover-like sounds with a disc in.

[Spatial]

No I think it's been doing it for a while, even on the old dash.

When I first got it the noise wasn't as obtrusive. It seems to get worse in altering pitch when the system's been on a while - probably the noise of the fan revving up and down to pump out more heat?

It's just to my ear a variable tone is much worse than a steady one.

[mmmonkey]

Fan at the front? I've never seen a 360 with a fan at the front, at least not one that hasn't been modified.

Does the noise change when you put your had over the each of the fans at the rear?

Pete

[melody]

My 360 is like this too, the way the fan whine changes in pitch is very annoying. I have the yarred NXE and I just view the game installs as a way to reduce DREs and scratches on my disks which the drive enjoys doing sometimes. It's certainly not the magic bullet that solves all the 360 noise issues and it's very limited for those of us with 20GB drives. Most action sequences will drown out the fan noise but not if you're playing at night with the sound down.

[Charlie]

I can relate. My 360's naturally at it's loudest when there's a disc spinning in the drive but the noise it produces when idling on the dashboard is of a higher and alternating frequency and often more annoying.

[Myth]

One word.

Very.

[Matt]

Installs have made a big difference to the noise from my new system, can't say I've noticed the fan whining but I did on older machines I had. I'm not suggesting the issue has been fixed, just some fans will be quieter than others. Over time, PC fans get louder and the 360 will be the same. Then again, I'm also partially deaf and have trouble with higher frequencies in one ear, so the "whining" may be there, just I'm not noticing it.

That video was funny. Installations mean the fans don't have to work "anywhere near as hard". Yes because the DVD drive caused all those overheating issues

The easiest way for everyone to test right now is with a game demo on the HDD - something that makes the 360 work hard like Dead Rising. That's the noise you'll get when playing an install.

[fahrenheit]

The problem is that the fans come from three different manufacturers.

I went through three brand new units before I settled on my current one (returned them to the shop in disgust due to the fan noise).

If anyone is interested, I have recordings of the two different noise characters, but don't know where to host them.

[Spatial]

Fan at the front? I've never seen a 360 with a fan at the front, at least not one that hasn't been modified.

Does the noise change when you put your had over the each of the fans at the rear?

Pete

Nope it doesn't change if you do that - it was one of the first things I did and it wasn't until I'd really looked that I realised they're actually quiet.

If you put your ear to the unit the noise is coming from (assuming you're looking at it laid horizontally) the front underside, roughly in the middle.

Most action sequences will drown out the fan noise but not if you're playing at night with the sound down.

This is exactly the problem for me. I can't always play my setup at full volume either. But if I don't it's really noticeable. Even playing Act 3 of Gears 2 last night I could still just about hear it (and the bass on the speaker system was so loud I was in danger of making parts my ears bleed). Once you tune in to it, you can't seem to tune back out.

If anyone is interested, I have recordings of the two different noise characters, but don't know where to host them.

Something like Rapidshare might work.

If the 360 wasn't such a noise lottery I'd be tempted to go and get another system just to sort this. Then again there's no guarantee it'll be any better. This unit's also less than 12 months old, but if I have to take it back to the the shop and try and get it replaced I know I'd have a hell of a time getting them to do it.

[fahrenheit]

These are Delta fans in action. Very distinctive whine that is variable enough to be annoying -

http://rapidshare.com/files/164567374/360_fan_howl.mp3

And the much more pleasant (consistant) Nidec fans -

http://rapidshare.com/files/164567375/smooth_360_fan.mp3

I'm not certain whether or not the different fans can be identified without opening the case. Spinning them up leaves no doubt though.

[Dogg Thang]

Once you tune in to it, you can't seem to tune back out.

Yeah, I have this problem. I don't know what type of fan mine has and I don't know if it's down to the disc spinning or just the fan but my 360 is stupidly noisy. Quite comically so. If someone were to do a pisstake of a noisy 360, it couldn't actually be much worse than my unit. It's like having someone constantly vacuuming while I try to play games.

After having a three week break with my RRoD incident, it was tough to go back to that noisy beast.

[charlesr]

My 360 had a really noisy DVD drive and a really quiet gpu fan. When it died and was repaired, when it came back it switched over. The DVD drive is VERY quiet in comparison to the old jet engine one and doesn't bother me at all. But now the gpu fan whines like a bitch and changes pitch annoyingly. Bah. NXE won't help this. I'll be using the DVD drive like normal.

[Synthesthesia]

Mine sounds more like the smooth sound clip, so i'm very happy with NXE