Not sure what Extremetech was thinking after they installed their Whisper fan for the Xbox 360 when they asked if the fan was even on? Who knows maybe they are deaf, all I can tell you is that for me it was a waste of time. The 360 might be a little quieter, but lets face it, for $25 I expected it to be silent from across the room. Luckily it was easy to install and kind of fun — the Extremetech instructions were good, but I’d add to use a hair dryer to heat up the tamper sticker so you don’t have to cut it. I hope that the new fan at least moves more air like it is supposed to so maybe it’ll run cooler, that way it’ll do something other than light up blue.
Either way because this didn’t fix the problem I’m going to have to move the 360 into my closet. This isn’t a big deal since I don’t change games much anyways and have a Blu-ray player for movies, but it is disappointing.
Ben any rumors of new extenders with more power to run transitions like a 360?
I feel the same way about the ExtremeTech review. I don’t agree with their findings at all. It made a small difference but no where near “whisper”!
I looked at the Lian Li case but that’s a chunk of change and reviews didn’t sound perfect – which I’d want for that much money.
The Linksys was silent but just not as nice to use. I really wish MS would do something about the fans. To their credit a more recent box I got does seem a little quieter but not enough.
I envy your closet setup 🙂
I can’t believe that Microsoft won’t/can’t fix this noise problem. Since they are making newer versions of the device with lower power-consumption and the cost to manufacture has gone down significantly since the first release, why can’t they just spend a few more dollars and put in a fan with equal airflow, yet quieter. I am frustrated by this too!
Do you think the embedded extenders set to be released in Toshiba TVs this year are going to be underpowered like the linksys ones are? Maybe they could use the Ion platform to make some better extenders!
Make sure you have sufficient ventillation in you closet, otherwise you may end up going through a series of replacements!