Quieter Xbox consoles?

[SuperGrafx]

Went over a friend's house today and he told me he bought a brand new Xbox the other night. So he fires it up and pops in Forza Motorsport.
I noticed the DVD tray (when ejected) looked much different than the ones I'm familiar with. But the other thing that I couldn't get over is just how quiet this particular Xbox console is! I mean, most of you Xbox early adopters remembered how loud the fans were in the system, but with this particular unit you can barely hear that fans at all! I'm talking Gamecube-like quiet.
Hell, even the hard drive and optical drive seemed quieter than usual.

Now, I have a launch day Xbox and (before the unfortunate incident) a Halo Xbox...both of those are noisey as hell when they run. But my friend's system...I can't get over how quiet it actually is. Did Microsoft change the manufacturing process in the latest batch of Xbox units or what?

[Evangelion-01]

there are like 6 revisions :\ so, yeah. they also removed a fan to save money.

[cahaz]

there's actually 3 versions of th dvd-rom. i heard the best one for copies and booting cds was the samsung one, but i don't remember how to know if yours is from samsung or not.

[PhreQuencYViii]

I dunno, but I know what you mean. My friend got an Xbox for xmas and I got mine from when it was packed with Sega GT/JSRF, and I noticed the same with his DVD drive, and when we were lanning with Halo 2 his was loading about 3 seconds faster than mine with the IDE cable mod. I think the newer Xbox's have a Samsung DVd drive, and I think the older ones had Thompson drives, and I guess the Samsung drive is the best. Oh and the new ones have less fans...I think the first launch ones had a fan on the cpu, gpu, and back, mine has a fan on the cpu and back, and my friends just has one on the back....so I bet thats it. Is there anything like this on the other systems, like, is the slim PS2 quieter and faster?

[Alien Workshop]

Actually, there's the Thompson, Philips, and Samsung. As far as quality goes, there is little difference between the Philips and Samsung drives. Either one is fine. You don't however want a Thompson drive.

[cahaz]

i would like to know why now. :/

[Alien Workshop]

i would like to know why now. :/

You would like to know why you don't want a Thompson drive :confused:

Those are the drives that get the DRE's. They aren't the best of quality, and there were a lot of people haveing trouble with them a while back, which prompted MS to switch to the Philips drives, and the only reason [that I know of] that MS switched from the Philips drives to the Samsung drives was price alone.

Now that I think about it, there was a thread about this a looooooooooooooooooong time ago [when the XBOX DRE problems were actually on the rise] on the DP forums. There was a picture that showed exctly what each drive looks like. Maybe when the DP forums get back up I'll seach for the thread and post the picture here.

[Borman]

They are on xbox-scene, the pictures that is. And i never had a problem with my thompson drive for the couple years ive had my xbox (1.0 console), that is, until i dropped it lol. (Only dropped the DVD drive :P) . Samsungs and Phillips were used before the major DREs occured, it just happens that theres more now because of it.

[Alien Workshop]

They are on xbox-scene, the pictures that is. And i never had a problem with my thompson drive for the couple years ive had my xbox (1.0 console), that is, until i dropped it lol. (Only dropped the DVD drive :P) . Samsungs and Phillips were used before the major DREs occured, it just happens that theres more now because of it.

Oh, ok. I couldn't remember all the details, but from what I have heard MS no longer use Thompson drives. Also, I have heard that most modders prefer the Philips drives.

[SuperGrafx]

Well, going from memory, it did appear to contain the Samsung drive (as shown here:
http://forums.xbox-scene.com/index.php?showtopic=17216&st=0 )
But wow, what a difference in terms of overall noise level with this Xbox compared to the Halo Xbox I bought a little over a year ago. I'm tempted to buy a new unit now just to play games with less fan noise.

[mairsil]

If you ever want to "benchmark" your Xbox, try running KOTOR II through it. God help you if you are running a Thompson...

[Taemos]

Most of the newer drives are the same thing (Samsungs no longer read CD-Rs, apparently), and they've started using Hitachi drives as well (they look the same as older Thompsons). Older Samsungs are preferred by most, since they're the only ones that read CD-Rs (although I've heard of Philips reading certain brands).

As for the fan, they removed the CPU (I believe...) fan after the first revision of Xboxes. The main fan in the back is usually a bad source of noise. The Sunon fans are the worst (trust me...). Maybe your friend just got lucky ;). If the noise bothers you, go out and buy an 80mm fan. The mod takes maybe thirty minutes, if you've never done it before.

[Evangelion-01]

why would you want to read cd-rs anyway? most people want it for burned games, just get a 200gig hd for 100bucks and pass the iso tot he hdd via ftp :\.

[PhreQuencYViii]

I also read something about MS using HD's bigger than 8GB in some Xboxes, is that BS?

[Topic Archive]

I also read something about MS using HD's bigger than 8GB in some Xboxes, is that BS?


8gb and 10gb drives are fitted as standard.

[RyanGamerGoneGrazy]

10 gb?...i thought they were all stnadard 8 gig......

[the_steadster]

I think they're both formatted into the same sized partitions - so it may be a 10 gb drive, but theres 2gb which is unformatted and unused, thus giving the "standard" (i.e. non hacker/modder) user no advantage, and keeping all consoles pretty much the same

[Topic Archive]

...Yep, thats correct, the 'extra' 2gb is unformatted.

[Taemos]

why would you want to read cd-rs anyway? most people want it for burned games, just get a 200gig hd for 100bucks and pass the iso tot he hdd via ftp :\.

I have a 200 gig :). I don't use it for burned games, though. It's more convenient for me since I have to drag my Xbox down two flights of stairs if I want to FTP something over. If I already have the file on a CD-R, it saves me time and trouble.

[Perkunas]

I have a European PS2 model standing next to an American PS2 model. The first one is one of the early revisions (launch period 'window'), the second one is a PCH-50000 (the one without Firewire and with an infrared port). It's funny that one makes one hell of a noise, while the other one can't even be heard.

[atomiX]

From my experience, the noise level will also vary within versions 1.1-1.6 (the ones without a GPU fan). Of all the ones I personally own, the main fan in my 1.2/1.3 runs much quieter than my 1.4 at the same fan speed. DIfferent fan brands are the cause. The 1.4 even runs louder than my dev kit which has a GPU fan much like the initial 1.0 consoles.

DVD drives don;'t make much difference in noise but a nearly-dead thomson will seek alot thus pruducing more noise.

A recap on fans:
-No version has a CPU fan...just heatsinks
-The first version (1.0) has a fan on the GPU
-All other versions have a heatsink on the GPU. They were deemed not necessary by MS. A 1.0 console should function just fine with it's GPU fan/heatsink replaced with the larger 1.1-1.6 heatsinks.

It might also be worth mentioning that the Seagate 10GB drives run somewhat quieter than their WD 8GB counterparts.

[Putzi]

I got my xbox at christmas and its as loud as my freind who got his box packaged with the segagt and jsrf my xbox didn't come with any games in the box Ill check and see what version it is later I think it could have been sitting in the storage room cause around christmas it came with ncaa and that tennis game mine didn't. Or maybe it was the one release right after the one with tennis and ncaa?