What does make the temperature rise?

[RoyalX]

What does make the temperature rise in xbmc?

In my experience, the temperature increases as you play a .avi file.
And it increases even more when it is a .MP4 or .MKV

What can you do about it?

[Nextelhalo]

There are a few things you can do RoyalX to drop the temps, but under load it will still get warm.
1. Change out the heatsink compound to some AS5
2. Do the 80MM fan mod to move more air
3. Cut the grille behind the fan to improve flow and cut out the metal grille's on the side of the xbox to help with flow too, just be careful when your cutting the grille by the power supply as you might cut a wire if it's close enough. The areas circled in the pic is where you should cut the metal shiedling, not the case itself

4. In XBMC you can bump up the fan speed to 40% or more depending on how loud it is and ambient noise.

5. In the pic below you can also cut out the plastic peice that circled to help suck the hot air from the HDD too, please pay no attention to the small blue fan under the hard drive caddy, i pulled this pic of the net and i dont agree with that part of the mod.

With all of that done you might see a 5-10 degree drop in temps, maybe more under load but sometimes its different for everyone.

[RoyalX]

Thanks Nextelhalo,

I will have a go on some cutting

[spicemuseum]

What does make the temperature rise in xbmc?

In my experience, the temperature increases as you play a .avi file.
And it increases even more when it is a .MP4 or .MKV

Yep. You've nailed it there - the greater the CPU loading the more work it's doing, the more heat it generates.

What can you do about it?

You can improve heat dissipation through mods as others have said. But do you really have a heat problem? What makes you think you do?

[Nextelhalo]

I doubt it has a heat problem but you never know, could just need a good cleaning. When I went through a phase of beeing crazy about my xbox temperatures i started asking other modders about they're temps and I was surprised at how many people didnt even look and didnt even care. The guy that taught me everything i know about xbox modding (atleast the beginnings) did'nt even care about his temps, he left his stock fan in set on 20% and that was it. He did tell me that as long as there was some kind of air movement in the case everything would be fine, i've trusted that idea but slims are way different.

[bigkidoz]

Blowing all the dust out with a compressor is the best mod you can do to reduce heat but honestly i dont know why it should heat up so much unless ventilation is reduced.

[RoyalX]

I left the top of the case off to see what it does for the temperature. The temps are the same and it rises the same as when the case is closed. So I wonder if I cut those parts if it would make any difference?

It is only this v1.6 xbox (with X3 chip) of mine that is warmer than the others. Why?
And the box is cleaned.

The Target Temp of the Auto temperature control is set to 55C / 131F. And it always reaches the target.
Should I increase the target temp? And what is save?

[perah]

Will it make any difference to change the cooling paste to artic 5 ?

[spicemuseum]

Will it make any difference to change the cooling paste to artic 5 ?

Should do. Poor thermal conducction between processor and cooler was why one of my v1.6s ran hotter than the others.

BTW, the likely reason that taking the lid off made no difference is that the airflow is routed under the hard disc and DVD drive which I would guess RoyalX left in situ.

[RoyalX]

BTW, the likely reason that taking the lid off made no difference is that the airflow is routed under the hard disc and DVD drive which I would guess RoyalX left in situ.

That is true. Damn...I have to open it again. For the 6th time this week

Could someone make a new thread about the cooling paste? How to use it? Like a tutorial?
Are there any risks?

[Nextelhalo]

Changing out the thermal paste will help for sure but you wont see a crazy difference, especially under load.
The biggest thing is good air flow past that heatsink, I personally never set a target temp in XBMC, i always
set the stock fan to 30-40% and it keeps it cool, those bigger 80mm fans dont spin as fast so you can jack up
the fan speed to 100% and they are still very quiet and move a ton of air.

Removing the case top (without modding the HDD caddy) wont really show a difference in CPU/GPU temps but you
might see the HDD cool down a bit. If I get some free time tonight i'll do this mod on a motherboard and write up
a tut on it.

[RoyalX]

I tried it without the HDD case and indeed not really a difference.
But the room is very warm at the moment. So cannot really say.

I just drilled 3 holes in the HDD case. See pictures.
After playing some videos the CPU temperature went to 51C-52C.
But again the room is warm at the moment.

Hope these holes are enought for me.
Otherwise I might have to drill also some holes where the Warning sticker is.

RoyalX HDD case with some holes

Where is the Bunny?

By the way this is my first hardmod on the xbox

[Nextelhalo]

Wow Royal, that's such a good way to look at it and do it. It never would have occurred to me to just drill some holes
Just watch the HDD temps when doing dome FTP work and see what happens now that you've drilled the holes.

[RoyalX]

Thanks for the compliments and for the help.

Going to read your thermal paste tut now.

BTW: What is the purpose of the Auto temperature control then?

[mrdally204]

I was thinking the same thing when I saw your "hole solution", what a great idea. Cutting that would have been a real pain, and the vent holes you made should accomplish the same goal! The auto temp option is pretty neat but I do not use it for 2 reasons. 1. I found that the fan would lower then raise often, creating a disturbance while watching something. 2. I read once that the option uses more memory than setting a speed, which is to be avoided on the Xbox. I have since disabled it and set my box to 30% ( I think). I have not worried about heat since, and rarely notice the fan while watching something.

[RoyalX]

Thanks.

BTW: I got my holes patented, so you need to buy a license to use it

I will check on your number 2 and see what it does for the memory.
But someone told me that the xbox will automatically shut down when it reaches a temp of 70C

[xman]

Yer your box will shut down if you exceed about 71c. I personally set auto temp at 50c and minimum fan speed at 2%. Your holes will take heat out of the HDD but late model HDDs run a lot cooler that the originals did. I run 1 and 2TB satas that run at about 1/10 the heat of the stock originals so this mod would not be suitable. What I found was not having the fan suck through the heatsinks would cause problems and that panel with the warning sticker is shaped that way to force the air to be sucked through the heatsink and no pull air over the top which I found was causing problems especially on slims with no HDD tray in place. The grill mod between the fan and the plastic makes a huge difference also as it stops the fan from pushing the air it is really capable of. Don't put your machine on carpet or it will restrict the air from being sucked into the case. I have also found if you run no DVD drive like in a slim, it is important to close in the area in the empty DVD tray like the DVD did so as to force the air being sucked through that heatsink as well. Remember, your machine is actually monitoring the temperature of the chip under the heatsinks, not that of the inside of the Xbox. If you are seeing high temps, target the heatsinks as they are the only way of getting the heat out of the chips under them.

[RoyalX]

I did the cuts on the RF Shielding, just like Nextelhalo has advised.

See pictures:

Snipperdy..Snip...Snip


You can really feel the airflow on the sides of the xbox. It is working great.

Did the 80mm fan mod too. But that is in an other thread.

[professor_jonny]

What does make the temperature rise in xbmc?

the processor is made of hundreds of thousands of transistors probally even millions in cases which all require a small amount of current to operate. To make a transistor turn on it requires current to flow from the base to the emitter (in an npn transistor) this in turn allow current to flow from the collector to the emitter.

The processor's transistors run in arrays to proform logic tasks and every time a transistor turns on it consumes a small amount of current so when the processor proform more extencive tasks more of the transistors could be switching than at idle as more parts of the processor will be active.

so in turn the more current that flows through the transistor the more power it comsumes and the temprature rises.



so you may ask why dont processors use field effect processors that dont require current flow to operate as they are voltage operated, well they do but there is some problem with this way also:

the problem is that to create a voltage that the fet before it can use to drive the next one in the logic chain a resistor must be used which requires current flow in it to produce voltage across it.

you could use such a high value resistor to minimise the current flow but the problem is that the gate of the transistor requires electrons to fill the gate in the fet for the current to flow so the more current flow the quicker the electrons flow into the gate and the quicker the next fet in the line can turn on.
so you end back with a more expencive design more prone to static dammage and larger die areas and you have to make lots of on die resistors also but you end up with a more power savy processor.

fets are used but usually in the power stages of circuits to drive the out side world as they are fast and produce heatwhen switching unlike a transistor as they produce more heat as the load in them increases.

[whufclee]

In reply to the title question...