Xbox 360 heatsink options, cooling upgrades
After making my fat PS3 nearly silent, I wanted to make my Xenon Xbox 360 as quiet as possible. Right now I’m in the process of attaching a computer heatsink to my console, but before I write about that, I should probably write about all of the Xbox 360 heatsink options.
Xbox 360 revisions, and their heatsinks
Microsoft’s first Xbox 360 revision was called Xenon. It featured a very short, but long and deep aluminum fin heatsink on top of the graphics chip. On the processor there was a beefier heatsink with a copper baseplate, heat pipes, and many aluminum fins.
Those original heatsinks weren’t enough to cool the Xbox 360, leading to the red ring of death (RRoD) problem. Microsoft quickly released a new revision of the console called Zephyr. Along with an HDMI port, Zephyr improved the design of the graphics heatsink. They added a copper heatpipe leading to second array of aluminum fins. Many Xenon systems that were repaired by Microsoft were shipped back with this upgraded heatsink. The processor heatsink remained unchanged.
Later in 2007, Microsoft released the third revision of the Xbox 360, called Falcon. Falcon kept the same graphics heatsink from the Zephyr revision, but upgraded the processor heatsink. This new heatsink featured a larger all aluminum design with many thicker fins. Opus, from 2008, was another revision that had the same heatsinks as Falcon , but didn’t have HDMI. Jasper was another revision that used the same Falcon heatsinks.
Interestingly the final revision of the fat Xbox 360, Kronos, kept the processor heatsink from Falcon, but reverted back to the original Xenon graphics chip heatsink. The newer Slim, and E consoles combined the CPU and the GPU into a single chip, and cooled it using a larger single heatsink.
Microsoft slowly improved on the design of their heatsink, while also using more efficient parts within their consoles. Xenon systems used a 203W power supply, while the Jasper systems used a 150W power supply.
List of official heatsinks
Here’s a list of official heatsinks that Microsoft used in the Xbox 360 fat systems.
- Xenon CPU heatsink
- First used: Xenon
- Used in:
- Xenon
- Zephyr
- Mass: 232g
- Xenon GPU heatsink
- First used: Xenon
- Used in:
- Xenon
- Kronos
- Mass: ?
- Zephyr GPU heatsink
- First used: Zephyr
- Used in:
- Zephyr
- Falcon
- Opus
- Jasper
- Mass: 139g
- Falcon CPU heatsink
- First used: Falcon
- Used in:
- Falcon
- Opus
- Jasper
- Kronos
- Mass: 272g
As you can see the Falcon CPU heatsink is very massive compared to all of the other heatsinks, and the Xenon CPU heatsink is also much more massive than any of the GPU heatsinks.
Mass isn’t the only factor that goes into the effectiveness of a heatsink, but it is a good way to compare the heatsinks. There was much more material to help cool the processors when using the upgraded heatsinks.
Processor heatsink replacement
The only official heatsink available to replace the Xenon CPU heatsink is the Falcon CPU heatsink. They can be hard to find, but there are some on websites like eBay for under $10, which isn’t a bad deal.
I replaced my heatsink with the Falcon heatsink and did find it improved cooling performance, but wasn’t perfect. Before I had to run my fans at 12V to prevent overheating, now I am able to run my fans at around 9V without overheating. It’s still loud, but is an improvement.
Graphics processor heatsink replacement
My console had the improved Zephyr GPU heatsink, so I didn’t have any official upgrade paths. I ended up deciding to attempt to replace the Zephyr GPU heatsink with the extra Xenon CPU heatsink that I had after replacing it with the Falcon CPU heatsink.
Surprisingly the bigger heatsink fit right into place without interfering with any other components on the board. One thing to note is that with the bigger heatsink there is no longer any room to fit the DVD drive into the case. You can either extend the wires and have it positioned outside of the console, or use an optical drive emulator (ODE) internally. I went with the ODE option.
Another important thing to know is that the airflow within the Xbox 360 isn’t very great, so there needs to be a shroud to route the airflow where it needs to go. The stock shroud routes air through the stock CPU and GPU heatsinks. Because the replacement GPU heatsink is much taller, the shroud needs to be modified.
I cut out the part of the shroud that routed air through the original GPU heatsink. I was then able to use some aluminum foil tape to extend the shroud to route air through the new GPU heatsink. You want to make sure that the foil doesn’t come into any contact with components on the board, since when connected to the heatsinks and case, it acts as a ground.
By doing this mod I found that the CPU puts out more heat than the GPU does. Any overheating was a result of the CPU overheating, and no longer had anything to do with the GPU. In other words replacing the GPU heatsink with the Xenon CPU heatsink is a pretty good way to keep the GPU cool.
Conclusions, and future plans
If you don’t mind opening up your Xbox 360, it’s possible to get better cooling performance fairly easily, by upgrading the heatsinks. Using either two Xenon CPU heatsinks, or two Falcon CPU heatsinks will help keep your Xbox 360 running cooler and quieter.
To stop the processor from overheating I’m in the process of installing a tower computer heatsink into the Xbox 360. I may also do the same thing for the GPU heatsink depending on the results. Using a computer heatsink should allow me to get much better temperatures with much lower fan speeds. They are much more massive, and use much larger fans.
Actually, the Xenon-style CPU cooler is the better one. It got replaced by the Falcon-Style cooler when they shrunk the CPU to 65nm because it needed less cooling. The Xenon CPU cooler has a copper heatsink and more fins, which is far more important than weight. or volume. But you can still put the Xenon cooler on later xbox 360 CPUs and actually improve your temps by -5°C (you can check your temps on hacked xbox 360 consoles and confirm this for yourself, if you want to). The “coolest” fat xbox 360 would be a jasper v2/kronos with zephyr-style GPU… Read more »
Thats exactly what I just built with addition to a 12V 5cm fan, running at just 5v for acoustics sake, on top of the GPU heatsink extension. Temps are never more 55C.
The irony of Microsoft selling apple hardware us one thing, the other irony which Microsoft completely overlooked and paid no attention to, the ibm power pc based cpu. Every one who owned a g3/g4/g5 knows they run hot, Microsoft practically condensed all that heat with the heat sinks and kept it there with the lack of airflow and boom you have a reflowoven. mind you the nearly decade gap of the products and forgetting to think what issues did the powerpc cou face?
Exellent job!
Thanks
Yeah the Xenon CPU heatsink is much better because it has a copper base and copper pipes. Imo Copper based heatsinks with pipes and the ones that are gas filled are the best heatsinks. Xbox One X uses a gas that is similar to water cooling. I bet no one knows that! I think the reason why Xbox 360s rrods is simple. Poor fan speeds. (PS3 also suffered from this) The heatsink were good. Everything was good. It’s just that the default fan speed that Microsoft configure on the 360’s was poor. Heck even the original Xbox had better fan… Read more »
9v fan mod will be plenty good, it will just be warm, not hot, but not loud either.