Hmm my own mods I guess... Need some input

[C0RR0SIVE]

Ok, so I guess my Halo edition 360 has a Zephyr board, but It is kind of confusing, because when I look at some pics online it appears to be a mix between Zephyr and Falcon...

Anyways, I was going to do the 12v fan mod, to make the fans run at 12v, all the time, well all the tutorials I found are for I am guessing the xenon motherboard, that had the 4 pin fan connection, mine has a 3 pin... Is it safe for me to do this to mine, or will it error out from not seeing the fan on the 3 pin connection?


If I can do this, on this board, which point should I solder to? Red, or blue? Should I just use the middle pin on the fan as the ground for good? Or will I have to find another ground? I know the outside pins are the + pins.... That is about all I really know of...

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[CalcProgrammer1]

Personally, I wouldn't do the 12 volt fan mod. I tried it before when I first got my console and...it is REALLY ANNOYING when you have the fans running 12 volts full speed. You can hear it several rooms away. It should be safe to do with the 3 pin as well, just solder the two POSITIVE lines to one of the +12V and leave the negative (ground) lines the same into the plug. Be sure to leave enough wire on the plug end of the fans to solder to should you (and most likely will) decide to undo the mod and hook the fans up normally again. This is where I messed up and had to stuff wires into the plug.

For me, I did the 12V fan mod with the X-clamp mod to try and fix RRoD. The fans were blowing out air like crazy and the air was cold but it still kept getting RRoD. I undid the fan mod because it was annoying and spent time working on the clamps (the Hybrid mod) and now it's working fine. Cooling is a decent preventative method if you are still using X-clamps, but I would do a clamp mod first like the Hybrid fix.

 

[C0RR0SIVE]

Well as of right now, I have $0, and will have $0 for a few months, no AC in this house, and I found out my board is one of the older models and wanted to try and get it to run cooler, noise won't bother me any as I have 3, 120mm 120CFM fans that hit 70ish decibles. So which point is the one that I should solder to? The top of the transistor marked in red, or blue?


EDIT: Ok, well I finaly figured out which one to solder the fans to. I guess you was right, they are freaking loud... Didn't think little fans like that could ever be louder than my current fans, either way, small price to pay till I can get some high flow fans from the llama to put in there...

So far, my "mods" are:

Wired exhaust fans to 12v source
Used electrical tape to force the air in and through the CPU heatsink, and half way through the GPU heatsink
Small mini heatsink on the HANA chip.

Mods in near future:
Replace fans with some green led talismoon fans. (just to help get rid of the noise and still have good air flow)
Cut the side metal chassis grill near the CPU with the millions of small holes for improved airflow
Add second fan on the side near the CPU to bring in fresh air over the GPU heatsink in front of CPU
Remove metal exhaust grill.
Make a aluminum version of my electrical tape mod lol
Add AS5 to the cpu/gpu...


But so far, I have been playing Halo 3 on the 360 apart, heatsinks get really warm, but not scorching hot... Stupid CPU got hot enough it left burn marks in the top metal shield.... But now, it is just a toasty warm in a room that is around 80F.


Update:
After playing Halo 3, FEAR 2, and Lost Planet for a few hours in a room around 75F, the temps on the 360 SEEM to have dropped, well the fans are at least blowing a load of cool air out of the 360, will most likely do more testing with it apart soon to see how the 12v fan mod is doing along with the added "electrical tape air ducts". The reason I got the idea for the electrical tape is that the Dell desktops when using an air duct, actually has the air duct surround the entire heatsink except for one side, to force the air through the entire heatsink.

 

[CalcProgrammer1]

I would do the clamp mods as well, the RRoD is not an overheating issue but rather a heat stress issue. The X-clamps are half of the problem. Xclamps + heat = fail. You fix the heat, but there are still the X-clamps. Do the Team Hybrid mod (or at least the regular X-clamp replacement) while you have it open. That plus the cooling should get rid of RRoD.

I honestly don't know how it is getting so hot though, my Xenon console gets warm while playing but my case (at least the top) doesn't even get hot. I did clean my fans though, but they're not at 12V and they're stock.

Those stock fans are good fans though, they can move a TON of air, just they're really loud when doing so.

 

[C0RR0SIVE]

Yea, I noticed the top of mine was always warm to the touch, took it apart a few times before just to clean dust out, and noticed that it wasn't a 3rd gen board but a mix between gen 1 and gen 2 more or less... I MIGHT try the xclamp mod some time, but I will have to get some torx bits as I don't have any, just used needle nose pliers to get the top of the case off of the chassis. But how exactly is the xclamp mod different from the normal xclamp and so on?

 

[CalcProgrammer1]

...There are only 4 motherboards (well, 5 actually, if you count Opus).

Xenon (original board)
--------
No HDMI (ANA chip)
16.5A (203W only)
90nm GPU and CPU
No extended GPU heatsink (though if you have a refurbished one they may have added one)
Copper heatpipe CPU heatsink
4-pin fan plug

Zephyr (2nd board, introduced in Elite but eventually spread to all models)
--------
HDMI output (HANA chip)
16.5A (203W only)
90nm CPU and GPU
Extended GPU heatsink
I think it still had the copper heatsink, not too sure, could've had the new CPU heatsink
3-pin fan plug

Falcon (3rd revision board)
-------
HDMI (HANA chip)
14.2A (203W or new 175W power supply)
90nm GPU, 65nm CPU
Extended GPU heatsink
New aluminum CPU heatsink, no copper heat pipe
3-pin fan plug

Jasper (4th revision, introduced in Arcades but also seen in Pro and RE5 Elites)
---------
HDMI (HANA chip)
65nm GPU, 65nm CPU
12.1A (203W, 175W, or 150W power supply)
Extended GPU heatsink
Aluminum CPU heatsink w/o heatpipe
3-pin fan plug

The only one I've ever personally taken apart was a Xenon (I'm not opening my new Jasper, not a chance!) but I've seen pictures and fixes of all (at least to Falcon, Jaspers don't break )

 

[C0RR0SIVE]

Ok mine, pulls 16.5 amps, has HDMI, but stock, didn't contain the heatpiped GPU heatsink, and had a 3 pin fan connection.... I added the heatpiped GPU heatsink after a student at my old votech brought in a burned up 360 that had it, ended up pulling it, and added it to mine.... But my CPU does have the heatpiped heatsink... Probably why the top of the box has burn marks... BTW I never heard of the opus one...

 

[35g700]

Ok mine, pulls 16.5 amps, has HDMI, but stock, didn't contain the heatpiped GPU heatsink, and had a 3 pin fan connection.... I added the heatpiped GPU heatsink after a student at my old votech brought in a burned up 360 that had it, ended up pulling it, and added it to mine.... But my CPU does have the heatpiped heatsink... Probably why the top of the box has burn marks... BTW I never heard of the opus one...

I'm pretty sure opus is when they take parts out of other broken xboxs and put them together to get one that works.

 

[C0RR0SIVE]

Strange as no Halo edition bought at walmart was done in that fashion...

 

[CalcProgrammer1]

You have Zephyr.

Opus is a new motherboard that Microsoft designed just for refurbished units. Since many consoles have been through the replacement and refurbish line multiple times, these motherboards are just wasting MS's money and getting worse each cycle. Instead of trying to fix the same failed boards until they can't be fixed anymore, Microsoft made a replacement board. The Opus board is based on the Falcon board (65nm CPU and 90nm GPU) but doesn't have HDMI. This is so it fits in the thousands upon thousands of returned non-HDMI cases that are stocked up in the warehouses. The only way to get an Opus is to get it from sending in a broken non-HDMI console.