Xbox 360 Cooling mod

Purchased an Xbox 360 E the other day, always been PS, but something new to mod, and though it was time to post up my handywork.

I always aim for a stealth mod, so that it still looks standard but operates quieter, cooler and hopefully more reliable.

As with any mods, i'm not responsible if you try and damage something, and electricity bites.

Fired it up, and after 5 mins noticed that the power brick was pretty warm, and the heat out of the xbox was pretty hot, this was without actually playing anything.
Also, there was a rattle in the power brick, time to investigate.

Remove the plugs under the feet by using a screw to grip and pop them out.



Open it up to find a fan screw rattling around, great for short circuits, but im guessing the fan may have been changed. Give it a good clean and figure out how the cooling works.



It seems that the air comes in via a chamber, through the fan, pushed through the brick housing, then out the exit chamber, the chambers are to reduce noise and channel the air im guessing.



Now the ducts come very close to the ends, with the exit chamber plate having a baffle, and the inlet slots have 2 small openings, while the exit has many more. The aim is to remove restrictions to let the air flow.

 

I then shortened the ducts, removed the baffle, and cut more vent slots in the entrance side.





Next I looked at the fan outlet, and trimmed off a baffle the allow better air distribution throughout the brick.



Put it all back together and tested, there was noticeably more airflow, and the brick went from very warm/hot to warm.

 

Next up was the Xbox itself, after pulling it down and giving it a dustoff, I repasted the 'CPU' using Arctic Silver 5.
The heat that was coming out the vent previously meant that it was transferring its heat, but way too hot for my liking, no surprise the Xbox suffers from overheating issues/red ring of death.

Now there really isn't much to see here, as after I studied how the air flows, it turns out that it really only pulls air in from the left side, the right side vents are pretty much just for looks, as there is a blocking plate, which I could have removed, but didn't want the remove the airflow from the components on the motherboard.
After removing the metal grill from above the fan and the sides, I realised that the DVD drive blocks most of the inlet, but then noticed that the plastic trim venting only vents 3/4 of the side.
Time for some patience while I drill and cut the side vents to try and match the existing ones.



Before



After


Installed



I think that I have increased the inlet venting by perhaps 25%, now to test.

You can now feel the airflow into the xbox, and the air exiting is cooler, not as much as I would have liked, but probably the best I can do with the restrictive design, overall I'm happy with the results, cooler brick and xbox should prove more reliable.
(Xbox didn't come with any games or controllers, so couldn't give it a good test, but so far so good.)