XBox-mini citing at Bioware's invite only area.

[Guden Oden]

From what Takahashi has said about the Xbox design in his book, everything seems to point towards heat/airflow and quality (that is to say that perhaps they could have made it a smaller system but didn't want to run the risk of overheating Xboxes).

They didn't really try to make a smart system though, like the PS2 and GC. They went the American way with the plastic box, it relies on simply having a large volume of air inside to dilute the heat in. There's no forced airflow channels at all, stuff is just plonked down on the circuit board with a fan slapped onto it if needed.

Like I said, with a smarter cooling solution it would only need one fan total. Dell PCs for example are rather clever in this regard if you've opened up one in the last couple years.

 

[Fafalada]

My ideal Xbox Mini!

Good god and people say PS2 looks like a radiator...

 

[archie4oz]

Like I said, with a smarter cooling solution it would only need one fan total. Dell PCs for example are rather clever in this regard if you've opened up one in the last couple years.

Well assuming you don't count the PSU fan... But ducting the HSF is pretty simple really... It can still be a problem if you stuff a hot GPU in there and/or couple more fast HDDs... They get away with it becuase it's a pre-built system and they don't expect most of the customers to turn them into high-end gaming machines or workstations...

 

[Fox5]

Like I said, with a smarter cooling solution it would only need one fan total. Dell PCs for example are rather clever in this regard if you've opened up one in the last couple years.

Well assuming you don't count the PSU fan... But ducting the HSF is pretty simple really... It can still be a problem if you stuff a hot GPU in there and/or couple more fast HDDs... They get away with it becuase it's a pre-built system and they don't expect most of the customers to turn them into high-end gaming machines or workstations...

So they have 3 fans anyhow in the end right, the PSU fan, the cpu fan, and the graphics fan? That's no big accomplishment, I think that's how most people run their computers.

 

[Guden Oden]

Well assuming you don't count the PSU fan...

There's hardly any air coming out of my PSU fan as it is temperature controlled. When my old PSU fan's sleeve bearings seized up periodically the PSU did get hot enough during the intervals when the fan did not run properly for the fan to run up to maximum speed when it did work properly, but during normal operation it barely moves air at all, even during full load.

It can still be a problem if you stuff a hot GPU in there and/or couple more fast HDDs...

I have all PCI slots full, run 2 7200rpm ibm deathstar drives (3 platters each) and 2 DVDROMs, no problem. The 92mm fan at the back has plenty of oomph, and the case design seems pretty intelligent, airflow-wise that is. Yes, I have an internal cardbay cooler fan too running at 7V, but that's just to let my GF3 overclock a little easier. It's equipped with the standard green heatsinks introduced with the GF2 Ultra, so they're pretty darn small really. The cardcooler does wonders despite being practically dead silent.

So they have 3 fans anyhow in the end right, the PSU fan, the cpu fan, and the graphics fan? That's no big accomplishment, I think that's how most people run their computers.

Most hand-assembled PCs would have 4 these days I think, maybe more. PSU, rear chassis, CPU (on heatsink), graphics. Maybe front chassis fan too. Dell - and maybe other brand-name manufacturers - do away with the CPU fan and stick a duct over the CPU heatsink instead leading to the rear case fan. A GPU fan is needed due to the dumb ATX design, in a console the GPU would not be mounted on a riser card facing down/away at an awkward angle like a heat trap (assuming a tower chassis like maybe 95% of the cases today), so a couple fans could be axed there in one fell swoop!

 

[Fox5]

Yeah, I always wondered if the AGP port wasn't going to be compatible with pci, why not completely change the orientation of it on the motherboard?

BTW, my main pc has two power supply fans(just cause the power supply has two, my old power supply had 1), a cpu heatsink, two case exhaust fans, and a pci slot fan, so 6 fan...oh 7 with the graphics card.
My other pc has a cpu fan, the power supply fan(which barely blows anything out), and the graphics card fan(very weak as well), so just 3. It's a very large and empty case though, but no heating problems with it at all.
A few years ago I think I would have had the same amount of fans, voodoo3 would have no fan(well, later I added in a fan so I could overclock it more), I case power supplies still had fans back then, and then 2 fans on the athlon cpu, so 3 fans still.

 

[PC-Engine]

On my old PC, I took off the cpu fan from the PII 450MHz and just left the HS on. I use a chassis fan that draws cool air from the outside and blows it right across the HS. My PSU fan draws warm air from inside the PC case and pushes it out. I've had no problems with this setup so far.

I think Xbox Mini's cooling system could be designed like GCN and work very well, however, you would probably have to use a straight or curved duct otherwise you would have to use a very powerful fan to get any useable air velocity as the internal volume would be fairly larger than GCN.

 

[London Geezer]

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