Console Thermals/Fan Noise

[Phil]

I think this conversation is relevant to two fronts;

- how loud is the One as a personal experience thing and relevant to others
- how relevant is the noise generated by the fans to its use as a passthrough device to control your livingroom

The first IMO is somewhat clear, as it's clearly a lot quieter than both previous consoles. The latter (and the points I have been raising further up) is relevant to the "business approach" topic. As far as noise goes and as a gaming device, it's easily quiet enough. I think the more important question is; is it really quiet enough to be used as a passthrough device - and in that area, we have conflicting opinions from reviewers alike.

But yeah, you're right. Also, 10dbA isn't necessarely 10dbA. Some frequencies tend to be more noticable, irregardless if it has equal sound-pressure. And then, as you say, it also depends on the environment. A pretty empty room where sound isn't absorbed well (like my livingroom) will make even quiet fans noticable, where as a fully packed livingroom with carpet and lots of furniture will absorb and dampen a lot of noise in itself.

 

[-tkf-]

The X360 slim was noisy enough (similar noise levels to PS3 slim) that I would not even consider using it as a media extender. For me, totally unsuitable for music or movies. For pop/rock/etc. type music it's probably OK. But for the classical stuff I like, there are many quiet passages where the noise would be incredibly distracting. But I also don't play my music at loud volumes anymore as I'd rather preserve my hearing which is already partially damaged (constant ringing) from going to concerts and listening to loud music in my youth.

So, for core gamer's? Probably fine. For videophiles? Questionable depending on how much noise they can tolerate and how loud their media environment is.

Regards,
SB

Most Semi highend HT setups feature excessive large subs (me) with stupid crazy fronts (me) in way to small rooms to actually get the full benefit (me). If the PS4 is to go by i doubt very much that the sound XB1 and PS4 makes will be of any concern for anyone except a very minor part of the hometheater owners that simply has a complete different taste in movies like silent movies or classic concert video. The noise floor on movies is simply to high to hear anything from these consoles.

 

[dobwal]

Where did you get the idea that I said consoles are only bought primarily for their limited capability and narrow focus?

In fact, if you read closely, I even made the distinction that there are some that are buying a console with gaming as their prime intended use with a secondary interest in anything beyond that - and the market that sees the new Xbox as exactly the 'one device' Microsoft has been marketing the device to be. You know, the crowd that buys expensive gadgets on a regular basis but isn't a serious gamer, but happens to like to be entertained in front of their TV.

Because you try to distinguish two wholly separate markets which are only attracted to a subset of the XBox One's feature set. One that is focused on mostly gaming and the other thats made up of frivolous spenders thats focused on over spending on TV functionality. And somehow if you embrace the concept of the One you fall into the later group. All the while MS is somehow fixated on this market of expensive gadget buyers who aren't serious gamers. Even though the market for high price HTPCs isn't large and the biggest sellers in the space are $99 devices. Both consoles are primarily game machines and the main motivation for purchase for both machines is gaming. And unless you invest into Live, the Xbox One is practically the more basic game machine.

There is nothing enticing about buying a $500 media box which requires $60 a year subscription to gain access to media apps and a TV guide thats offered freely on other less expensive devices. Frivolous console/media box spenders aren't a huge market or else we would have a bunch of console/media box manufacturers that produce a ton of expensive crap that sell relatively well and act as profit centers for those manufacturers.

I can see how MS with its initial reveal created this perception that MS is focused on market expansion through widening its console TV/media feature set and selling to nongamers. But an examination of the Xbox One feature set and what exist in and outside the pay wall shows a structure that counters that perception. MS is targeting serious gamers who readily invest and use their console's secondary features. Having a bunch of media apps locked behind Live is not a barrier if you plan on investing in Live for its primary gaming related features. And if you are a gamer that subscribes to Live and will readily make use of media features that is enable by Live then you more likely to find Live more valuable. Its the reason why its call the Xbox One not the Xbox 2 Halves.

Consoles don't sell with huge profit margin so the ideal way to make a platform more profitable is through increased spending per user while expanding the userbase not simply selling more devices. Its the reason why in regions where hacking and bootlegging consoles and games is a more common phenomenon, manufacturers tend to jack up console prices. Manufacturers tends to use a more traditional profit model in those regions by realizing more profits from the actual sale of the console. One of the main factor in MS ability to generated more profit from the 360 then Sony from the PS4 is because the 360 extracts more revenue per user even though the console userbases are relatively the same size. The Xbox One TV feature set is a continuation of that strategy.

The deeper a gamer embraces the TV functionality of the Xbox One the more likely they will invest in the media content available through the Xbox One. Thus, the more money MS will make off that user.

See the thing is; everybody has different levels of noise tolerance. It all depends what the intended device is supposed to do - and what alternatives there are on the market; did you buy it for the sole purpose of playing games? Did you buy it to play games with some media usage? Did you buy it as a hi-tech device to control your livingroom by using simple voice-commands? It all depends.

Everyone has different levels of noise tolerance and its not just dictated by intended use of the hardware. Both consoles are intended to be always on devices. Always on is not required but it needs to be encouraged as it makes moving maintenance and feature upgrades into the background a lot easier. All in an effort to provide a better console experience. Its the reason why noise matters even for consoles meant strictly for game playing. The PS4 has to be quiet enough so gamers won't feel discouraged to leave the PS4 in a 'power on' state. As noise levels go up, the level of confidence in a console's longevity goes down. Furthermore, regardless if a device is used for gaming on watching TV, its intended use doesn't dictate how readily a person will accept a device constantly buzzing 24 hours a day in the background when not in use. MS nor Sony want you to turn their device off and both have accommodated users who don't have canine or feline like hearing.

 

[Phil]

I'm clearly puzzled. Are we disagreeing or not?

Perhaps we have different view points regarding Microsofts intentions with the Xbox One. While I agree that the ultimate goal is to make more money per user, I do think they have every intention to rack up as many sales as possible to increase the potential of having more customers ready to invest. In that sense, Microsoft is somewhat eyeing the whole eco-system that Apple and Google/Android have built up and taken a huge share, lead and lots of money. Microsofts market is constantly shrinking as more people buy into smartphones and tablets and invest in those eco-systems while the PC market is continueing to shrink.

Microsoft still is in a strong position given their role as a OS manufacturer and they do have a presence on smartphones and tablets, even if the marketshare is relatively tiny compared to Apple and Google. What Xbox is for them, is an easy way to expand in an area that is relatively untapped and might have a huge potential; the livingroom. On Xbox, they invested in very promising technology in form of Kinect and have evolved it to the point where they feel they can sell their vision of a futuristic livingroom where you control your devices by the command of your voice and potentially gestures through kinect.

If this takes off and they can rack off serious sales, this could have an impact on their other markets as well, mainly PC, smartphones and tablets - as one device potentially sells the other through a linked and connected eco-system, as Apple nicely demonstrates with their iPhone and iPad.

You think this all about selling to their existing console market? I doubt so. The smartphone and tablet market are rapidly growing. The PS2 might be considered the greatest selling console there is with 160 million, but it's still relatively small compared to the large market of smartphone and tablet users that all have a livingroom and TV as well. And, not all of PS2's 160 million customers (okay, some of them bought multiple devices, so it's actually quite a bit smaller) are dedicated hardcore gamers. The PS2 was as successfull as it was, because it was more or less the only mainstream machine to play games on - unless you were into Snakes on a monochrome display. With the rise of smartphones and tablets, many less serious gamers have the ability to get their share of entertainment on those devices - while serving other more important functions (like browsing, email, skyping) as well. What Microsoft effectively wants is to have that one device that controls the livingroom, enables you to browse the web on your television, skype, do all that fancy cross TV stuff with live TV and be able to be entertained on it (games). A successfull device like this might be the start into a very viable eco-system that would have the potential to carry over to their other markets, like smartphone and tablets where Windows is the underlying OS.

Now, back to the point - which I am rather clueless if you're actually disagreeing with or not - is that a device that is/can be used as passthrough device, needs to be running silent. People won't use it if it's sounding like a vacuum cleaner (no joke, that's how my PS3slim used to sound while listening to music after around 20minutes) while they're watching TV either on an app running off the Xbox or using a device that is hooked up to the HDMI-In port. They also won't be too happy if they hear a constant fan running while the device is in a supposed "off/standbye" state, but waiting for voice commands, ready to go in any instant. Now, I'm obviously exaggerating to a degree, but at this point, I think we still don't know how loud it is and how the noise is effected by less optimal set-ups.

For what it's worth - you're absolutely right about noise being a factor regardless. But as I said previously, the intended use does matter. Just as a vacuum cleaner is loud/noisy, people still use them because it's only noisy when you're actually using it. A console that happens to be noisy by the shear effect of it being used to generate cutting-edge graphics is less of a disturbance and easily forgiven than if there is noise above a certain threshold when the box supposedely is idling, but waiting for commands while passing through signals.

In the context of it as a gaming-machine, the noise doesn't matter - given both are clearly less noisy than the previous generation of consoles. But as a trojan horse trying to take-over the livingroom to be that 'one device' - I beg to differ.


As a side note to your previous comment about Sony wanting the same - I actually feel, wanting and focusing on to be two different things. Sony is not in the strong position Microsoft is - they don't have an OS nor are they an OS manufacturer. Their strength lies within the content area - they produce movies, music, games, as well as manufacturing hardware (TV, Amplifiers, phones, portable music players etc). While it's their interest to build up a viable eco-system as well, they are more limited in the sense that they don't have an OS, meaning that they are more limited than Apple, Google and Microsoft. They might be trying to connect their products but the synergy isn't as strong as what the others could achieve - hence, why I believe they are focusing foremost in delievering a strong console foremost and hoping to expand from there onto apps for the livingroom. Without Kinect or even a less sophisticated bundled camera, they are much more limited to offer the 'experience of the future' - hence why they probably dropped that idea and will simply expand on their apps what they are offering. I don't see the 'PlayStation' becoming that center of livingroom though - ever. Nothing Sony has shown so far shows that they have this intention or believe that they can. It's a gaming machine, foremost. It's not even a Bluray player anymore, given that anyone can buy one for a quarter of the price.

Not that it really matters - if they get back on track in their hardware business, people will continue to buy their products. They are in that sense not like Microsoft, who's future is a bit shakey given Apple and Android stronghold on a very large market that is continuing to grow and take away PC sales. Sure, Microsoft will never quite lose their presence, but they might be reduced to a large degree because less people will see a need to use a PC. Well, they'll always have Office - although I don't think they want to be reduced to that.

 

[Silent_Buddha]

The noise floor on movies is simply to high to hear anything from these consoles.

Which again depends entirely on your choice of movies. When you get into serious drama and film it is not uncommon to have quiet passages where there isn't even any music playing. And even action movies can have dialog passages with no background music/noise that can make fan noise evident in a properly quiet room.

Not everyone wants to listen to music or movies at sound levels that are potentially damaging to your hearing or even relatively loud. Set a movie to the same volume in a living room/apartment next to a busy street or with white noise from electronics (like refrigerators or AC units) versus a quiet room and in the former it might be too quiet while in the latter it seems deafeningly loud.

For example, in just my living room which does nothing to cut out noises from outside (big plate glass window facing the street) I have to turn the volume on my A/V unit down 10 db at night compared to daytime when there's some traffic outside (from a street a block away) to have the same subjective volume. If I leave it at the same volume as daytime TV/movie watching, it will be entirely way too loud at night. In that environment the X360 slim is fine for most things during the afternoon. But not entirely suitable for most media consumption at night.

Regards,
SB

 

[dobwal]

Which again depends entirely on your choice of movies. When you get into serious drama and film it is not uncommon to have quiet passages where there isn't even any music playing. And even action movies can have dialog passages with no background music/noise that can make fan noise evident in a properly quiet room.

Not everyone wants to listen to music or movies at sound levels that are potentially damaging to your hearing or even relatively loud. Set a movie to the same volume in a living room/apartment next to a busy street or with white noise from electronics (like refrigerators or AC units) versus a quiet room and in the former it might be too quiet while in the latter it seems deafeningly loud.

For example, in just my living room which does nothing to cut out noises from outside (big plate glass window facing the street) I have to turn the volume on my A/V unit down 10 db at night compared to daytime when there's some traffic outside (from a street a block away) to have the same subjective volume. If I leave it at the same volume as daytime TV/movie watching, it will be entirely way too loud at night. In that environment the X360 slim is fine for most things during the afternoon. But not entirely suitable for most media consumption at night.

Regards,
SB

No. You just pretend there is a 360 running in the background in the scene. If its a scene where a 360 doesn't make sense like outdoors then you pretend its the hum from a nearby powerline. If its ancient time you just pretend one of the characters has Tinnitus.

Problem solved.

If life gives you lemons you make lemonade.

 

[MrFox]

No. You just pretend there is a 360 running in the background in the scene. If its a scene where a 360 doesn't make sense like outdoors then you pretend its the hum from a nearby powerline. If its ancient time you just pretend one of the characters has Tinnitus.

Problem solved.

If life gives you lemons you make lemonade.

To mask the fan noise, it's better to add samples of vinyl crackle, pop and hiss, then you can pretend it's a really high end sound system.

 

[BoardBonobo]

My PS4 has been getting gradually quieter since Friday. It's now barely audible when running KZ, BF4, CoD etc. It was definitely fan noise and not the disc drive. I guess it's just down to it doing less now that it is all set up. Now it just needs updates and not full downloads etc.

 

[SlimJim]

My PS4 has been getting gradually quieter since Friday. It's now barely audible when running KZ, BF4, CoD etc. It was definitely fan noise and not the disc drive. I guess it's just down to it doing less now that it is all set up. Now it just needs updates and not full downloads etc.

That's strange, same here.. It is not the room temperature, which has been controlled at 18 degrees every day.. Maybe the fan is 'wearing in'?
I still think they will collect all the diagnostic/ thermal data from all PS4's and make firmware updates regarding fan speed according to that. They don't want any risks that's why they started at a relatively high fan-rpm, and it can only go down from that.

 

[BRiT]

If anything, it might be the thermal compound curing.

 

[3dilettante]

It might be coincidence.
We could more likely attribute it to thermal compound curing if we knew the sort of compound and when the two PS4 consoles were purchased and how long their uptimes have been.

Another question is when/if those consoles took the latest update.