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Forums - Microsoft Discussion - Slowing down Xbox 360 DVD-speed to reduce noise for everyone and heat!

Was browsing the Xbox.com forums and came across this thread, and I immediately took there advice and it works! 

 The player -Smartfox- from the areagames.de-forums discovered a way to reduce the speed of the Xbox360 DVD-drive and reduce the noise while playing without real hacking or opening the Xbox360. All you need is an unmodified Xbox360 console, a game where a Xbox live patch exists for and of course an internet connection to get that patch.

First all patches on the console must be deleted with a maintenance of the data storage units. To do this, go to the the System blade, go on memory and press Y (if you have a memory card inserted you first have to select the HDD to get the Y-option.) Enter X, X, LB, RB, X, X to call the hidden maintenance option and confirm the question with Y. No other downloads than the patches will be affected.

Start the patchable game or insert it into the DVD-drive and close the tray and wait to the message that an update is available. At this point, do not confirm the message! Open the tray and close it again (You may insert a game-disc of a game where no patch exists for) and now confirm the message and download the patch. The game will then start with reduced drive speed! This procedure must be repeated each time starting the game again to reduce the speed.

Please test it, enjoy it and spread the word (this text and also how it works for you and what you think about it) so MS can see we need a slowdown patch. We tested this little hack with "Gears of War" and "Project Gotham Racing 3" and there were no noticeable lags or popups. Perhaps the loading times raised a bit, but that was acceptable so far. It IS possible, that future games need the full speed of the DVD drive, but till then - enjoy the silence! :)))

I know some of you might think the same way this guy thinked:

 Sly Jon wrote:

Anyone who tries this 'trick' is putting their console at risk of overheating. Anyone that knows about how the 360 works will agree with me. By slowing down the Drive you are forcing the fans to not function as they should because they speed up depending on what the drive is doing. Microsoft will never let you have a option to slow down the drive so get over it. Also, before some smart *** says "But the 360 over-heats anyway!!" your putting it at more risk of overheating with this 'trick' method.

 

 

 

But here is a response of one of friends said: 

err...dude? Are you sure you know as much about the 360 as you think?  The fans arnt dependent upon the drive-speed...that is a very under-thought statement.  The fan speed is determined by thermal sensing components located in the CPU and GPU.

THREE WAYS FOR EVERYONE TO PROVE THIS KID WRONG:

1. If you place your hand behind the xbox both before AND after the workaround trick, its obvious that the amount of air coming out of the back is the same.

2. If your theory of DVD drive speed determining the fan speed was true...then my xbox would have burned up when I was spending alot of hours playing the Halo 3 Beta, considering there was no disc in my drive to be spinning.

3(and this is the best one!). Quote from the Xbox 360 Lead Mechanical Engineer, Jeff Reents: "We use thermal sensing diodes in the main ICs (GPU and CPU) and thermal algorithm firmware that reads the diode temperatures and adjust the fan RPMs by altering the fan voltage to a predetermined minimum requirement that minimizes the fan speed (minimizes the acoustics) while providing the required cooling capacity for the system."

So from those of us who ACTUALLY KNOW HOW the 360 works(I'm a level 3 electronics tech myself), I offer you the advice of thinking before you speak...Please do NOT come on these forums and pretend to know something you don't and spread your misinformation, its people like you on these forums that cause the widespread paranoia about the 360 which causes people with perfectly good consoles to send them in for repairs that they don't need because you made them paranoid pretending to know something you don't.

http://forums.xbox.com/1/12946080/ShowPost.aspx#12946080

Well to be honest with my personal experience. It works fluid, my discs come out cool. I mean I can hear the lens in the DVD drive moving to read the disc but having to lower the DVD speed its also. The load times surprising works well. Halo 3 started up good. I know my GPU in my Elite is happy.

 



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Just like i never used boot disks to play pirated games on my ps2 because it was a hassle, I won't do this because it's a hassle and it doesn't make a big difference for me.



W29 said:

Well to be honest with my personal experience. It works fluid, my discs come out cool. I mean I can hear the lens in the DVD drive moving to read the disc but having to lower the DVD speed its also. The load times surprising works well. Halo 3 started up good. I know my GPU in my Elite is happy.

The loadtimes are probably the main factor against it.  Try a game that normally has a fairly noticeably load time and see if it takes a while longer.

Rotation speed affects disk read/write speeds.  Write speed is largely irrelevent to the 360, but depending on how much slower the speed is, you may be looking at read heavy operations taking more time.  Of course, you probably will only notice during already read intensive (read long loading times) operations.



Interesting read, but I must have a mutant DVD drive because it is very quiet. I can hear it a little bit if I listen closely, but when playing Halo 3, for instance, while loading the game (sometimes 20-30 seconds depending on map), I can't hear it at all and I'm sitting about 6-8' away.



I hate trolls.

Systems I currently own:  360, PS3, Wii, DS Lite (2)
Systems I've owned: PS2, PS1, Dreamcast, Saturn, 3DO, Genesis, Gamecube, N64, SNES, NES, GBA, GB, C64, Amiga, Atari 2600 and 5200, Sega Game Gear, Vectrex, Intellivision, Pong.  Yes, Pong.

cowbourne said:
Just like i never used boot disks to play pirated games on my ps2 because it was a hassle, I won't do this because it's a hassle and it doesn't make a big difference for me.

Yeah, it just seems like it's too much hassle to make the system quieter...  The system should just be quiet out of the box without having to switching discs and all of that.  Interesting read though, guess if you really can't stand the sound then you should do it, I've gotten used to it. 



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DMeisterJ said:
cowbourne said:
Just like i never used boot disks to play pirated games on my ps2 because it was a hassle, I won't do this because it's a hassle and it doesn't make a big difference for me.

Yeah, it just seems like it's too much hassle to make the system quieter... The system should just be quiet out of the box without having to switching discs and all of that. Interesting read though, guess if you really can't stand the sound then you should do it, I've gotten used to it.


I'd say it could be worth it if you plan on a very long gaming session.  10 min. to 1 hour of effort depending on patches, followed by 10 hours of gaming?  If the game had really good atmosphere that the drive was totally destroying?  I'll definitely consider using this trick occasionally. 

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Final-Fan said:
DMeisterJ said:
cowbourne said:
Just like i never used boot disks to play pirated games on my ps2 because it was a hassle, I won't do this because it's a hassle and it doesn't make a big difference for me.

Yeah, it just seems like it's too much hassle to make the system quieter... The system should just be quiet out of the box without having to switching discs and all of that. Interesting read though, guess if you really can't stand the sound then you should do it, I've gotten used to it.


I'd say it could be worth it if you plan on a very long gaming session.  10 min. to 1 hour of effort depending on patches, followed by 10 hours of gaming?  If the game had really good atmosphere that the drive was totally destroying?  I'll definitely consider using this trick occasionally. 

But you forget that if you play your 360 for ten hours, it'll RRoD on you!  LOL!  jk.  But really though, I can't sit down and play a game for ten hours, I think tha'ts too much work to play the game for an hour or two then turn it back off and do it all over again when I want to play again.  I don't leave or play 360 for hours at a time for fear of the RRoD.  I actually get scared everytime I turn it on...  I can really only play for an hour or two before I fear it coming on...  Already on my fourth 360...



Double Post



@DmeisterJ
Where do you put your Xbox that it keeps RRODing? Like one thing ive started noticing with the RROD is that theres almost like 2 kinds of people; 1) never had a problem or 2) have gone through multiple xbox 360's.

Makes me wonder what the problem is sometimes.



Actually, it's not really mine, it's my bro's but I play it all the time... It's in a well ventilated area, It's sitting on a flat, clean surface with no dust in sight with plenty of air circulating around it and space around the back sides, and front of the system, much like my original XBOX and PS2 and GC were. The elite he has hasn't RRoD-ed... yet, but I still get a chill everytime I turn it on.