I don’t want to mislead you, this is not a guide, not a how-to, just a mere story about a failed attempt to reduce the noise level of my Xbox 360.

I purchased a new Xbox 360 a while back. Nothing was wrong with my old one, in fact I was very pleased with it. My only caveat was it had no HDMI output, hence the purchase. When I received the new one, the first thing I noticed was that it was significantly louder than my old one, which to me is a big deal. I hate hardware noise, there is nothing worse.

So after much consideration, I realized Microsoft doesn’t allow you to use the warranty if you’re anything but the first owner of the Xbox 360, and as I was the second owner of this thing, I thought “heck with it”. I cracked it open. My master plan was to switch the fan in the new box for the fan in my old box, then i’d be all good. Psssh, yeah right.

The flippin’ fan connector was different on my new box! What the hell man! Here I’ve spent my good nerves disassembling this freaking thing, and I get slammed on the nose by a connector? Unhappy.

So back to the ads listings trying to find a fan with the proper connector. Thing is, how am I supposed to know if it’s as quiet as my old box’s fan, and not as loud as the new box’s fan? Eh… Well, I found one, bought it, received it, disassembled my new Xbox 360 again, installed the new fan, assembled the Xbox, fail.

The new fan was as loud as the fan on my new Xbox. So there it is. Fail. I gave up. Not worth any more of my time. Microsoft, make a better product next time, Xbox 720 or whatever it may be. Promote it “Xbox 720, now with ear plugs. Caution, may cause inconvenient IRL death by heart attack after weeks of noise torture.” or freaking make it better.

Update: Added some pictures.