Xbox 360 intercooler more harm than good?

[Squilliam]

I was just at amazon, checking out the discontinued sku's when I saw the xbox 360 intercooler. I had a look and I saw that more people are unhappy with it than are happy. There were several reports of the nyko intercoolers causing problems with the console. These ranged from freezing to excessive vibration and noise. Now I think with falcon or even the updated heat sink, these are probably not needed. Heck, some of the units even melted onto the xbox.

http://www.amazon.com/review/produc..._pr_hist_1?_encoding=UTF8&filterBy=addOneStar

Is there any proof that these things actually cool the console down more than stock cooling? Besides this, if you check out the 360 RROD thread, there was proof that some of the problems were caused by poor solder which, when combined with heat from the GPU/CPU, caused the solder joints to break.

Is this product snake oil laced with Arsenic like the thread appears to show?

 

[AlNom]

It's pretty much a scam... the extra fans would have to spin much faster than the console's own fans so that the extra fans are attempting to draw air faster and thus making the console fans spin faster. Air flow has to come from somewhere...

You might as well mod the 360 hardware and overdrive the fans by applying a higher voltage.

 

[Squilliam]

It's pretty much a scam... the extra fans would have to spin much faster than the console's own fans so that the extra fans are attempting to draw air faster and thus making the console fans spin faster. Air flow has to come from somewhere...

You might as well mod the 360 hardware and overdrive the fans by applying a higher voltage.

Do you care to explain how this works? I don't quite follow you. What mecahnic causes this? Is it a low pressure area? Or something else.

 

[Graham]

the shape of any fan + grille will slow down any air being pushed through it - so for the 360, if you were to get *more* air into the case, you'd need to be pushing that air through faster than the current fans do. The intercooler fans don't really do much better, and because they add surface area to the intake area - you can get less air through anyway (i haven't explained this right I think...)

However by far the bigger problem is the original intercooler sat between the power brick and the 360, drawing power from the 360 - therefore putting more stress on the power brick. On top of this, the connections were pretty cheap, and it caused 'browning' of the terminals on the 360.

In short, it makes things much, much worse.

 

[infinity4]

Probably because that thing steals power from the 360. I am sure those with usb connection for the power is safer, because I heard all these things about 360 being weak to power supply etc.

 

[Shifty Geezer]

I hear the sound of a class-action lawsuit being drawn up Only this one would be deserved. Anyone selling these bolt-fans as a good thing needs to brought to task for providing a product that isn't fit for purpose, and can actually damage the machine it's sold as protecting.