PS3 Fan Noise

fatchowmein

I picked up a PS3 because of the 5 free BR plus the store bundled two free movies with it. Primary usage will be BR playback. Initially, the player is very quiet. After about an hour, the fans kick in overdrive. By the second movie, the fans are louder than the dialogues. Anybody else having this issue? I have the PS3 sitting at the top of my AV rack out in the open with a ceiling fan nearby. It's louder than my 360.

Should I return it for another?

ESavinon

My ps3 makes some noise while the fan is running but is not enough to intrude while a movie or a game is playing.

fatchowmein

Mine is too intrusive. I walked in the room and noticed the noise was gone so I asked my wife about it. Nope, she couldn't take it anymore and was using the Samsung DVD player instead. I'm just wondering if at some break-in point the ps3 will calm down.

jflail2

Mine hasn't been that noticeable, but I went from a 360 to the PS3, so I was used to the sound of a 747 warming up for take off.....

Demiurge

This is the issue with people trying to basically use a compact PC as their main DVD player. Just like a PC, they get hot, and the fans run in overdrive, much like on a PC.

The PS3 is exactly the same as the XBox 360 in this regard (I have both as of this weekend). As far as being able to notice the fan sound, are you listening to movies with the speakers integrated into your TV or surround sound? Any half decent system should completely negate any sound you're hearing from the PS3 or 360.

I guess it's possible that some are louder than others, but loud gaming systems are the norm with high processing power.

Gaara

How do these compare to last generation systems? There are two reasons I haven't upgraded yet, one is lack of games which won't be the case in a few months, and the other is noise and heat.

Demiurge

Gaara wrote: »

How do these compare to last generation systems? There are two reasons I haven't upgraded yet, one is lack of games which won't be the case in a few months, and the other is noise and heat.

Most of the issues are exaggerated on both systems. That said, if you consider an XBox 360, get the elite. The older systems have had a lot of hardware issues causing them to fail. I, personally, haven't had a single issue, and neither have any of my RL friends.

That said, the XBox 360 is strongest for games by a long shot at this point. The PS3 is getting more games and things should even out, but it's going to be quite a while before the "must haves" hit the shelves.

Both systems will have ample games within a year. I guess what you might want to ask yourself is if you want to buy it as a gaming system or mostly for movies. I didn't have a problem affording both, but I know for a lot of consumers out there it will be one or the other.

What pushes XBox 360 to the top for gaming is that it has XBox Live. Being able to play games with all of your friends online with an intuitive interface was a very strong selling point for me. For a lot of people that doesn't matter to them at all.

The PS3 is great as well, but I don't own a single game for it. It's just a Blu-Ray player for me. As of right now, it's the lack of games that holds that system back.

BIZILL

Demiurge wrote: »

...I know for a lot of consumers out there it will be one or the other.

such as myself. that is why we MUST take sides and defend them. nobody wants to invest money only to find they've chosen the wrong side...

PoLk FaN

just make sure you keep your system in a well vented area, the only way I can tell if my PS3 is on is when I press the ps button and it beeps. other then that I hear nothing coming out of my PS3.

cheddar

PoLk FaN wrote: »

just make sure you keep your system in a well vented area, the only way I can tell if my PS3 is on is when I press the ps button and it beeps. other then that I hear nothing coming out of my PS3.

Agreed. The ps3 should rarely go into overdrive mode unless it isn't well ventilated or used in a hot summer house. My 360 will sound loud even in winter because of either overdrive cooling or the dvd-rom drive. They both put out the decibels when they spin up. If your ps3 is really a noticeable noise issue, maybe you should look into it as a defective unit. Since you just bought it, return the sucker and get a new one just in case...

cheddar

Gaara wrote: »

There are two reasons I haven't upgraded yet, one is lack of games which won't be the case in a few months, and the other is noise and heat.

The ps3 is very different than the 360 just based on the red ring of death posts on this forum. Here's a technical breakdown of the 360 heat problems.

http://techon.nikkeibp.co.jp/english/NEWS_EN/20070801/137224/

Microsoft apparently had no choice but to downsize the graphics LSI heat sink in order to locate a DVD drive above it. The DVD drive's bottom surface covers the top of the heat sink and forms an air channel.

"In most PCs, a solid duct covers the top of the heat sink in order to secure an air channel," the expert said.

In the Xbox 360, however, the duct was cut off before the heat sink and the DVD drive, and, instead, chassis took up the heat sink's upper area probably due to limited space inside the chassis...

In only five minutes since we started playing the game, the temperature of the heat sink on the graphics LSI rose to 70°C. The thermal gradient was about 10°C/min.

In 15 minutes, the microprocessor heat sink temperature stabilized at 58°C, but the heat sink on the graphics LSI rose to 80°C, 57°C above the room temperature.

Assuming room temperature of 35°C in mid-summer, the gap is estimated to reach more than 90°C. In that case, the temperature of chips in the graphics LSI could exceed 100°C...

Finally, we opened the chassis of the Xbox 360 repaired in May 2007 and compared it with the other Xbox 360 we purchased in late 2005.

"Huh? The heat sinks and fans are completely identical, aren't they?"

To our surprise, the composition of the repaired Xbox 360 looked completely the same as that of the Xbox 360 purchased in late 2005. It turned out that Microsoft provided repair without changing the Xbox 360's thermo design at least until May 2007.

Demiurge

The sound coming out of my PS3 is no different than the sound coming out of my 360. Neither of them have any unreasonable heat issues, either.

BIZILL

There sure are alot of links to articles written outside the u.s. not saying none of them are valid, but yikes!

dorokusai

My PS3 gets pretty hot and the fan does get a little louder over time but nothing like when it was in the cabinet.

cheddar

BIZILL wrote: »

There sure are alot of links to articles written outside the u.s. not saying none of them are valid, but yikes!

The Japanese are pretty anal about the fault tolerance of their electronics. No doubt this was brought on by microsoft admitting to a design flaw and extending their warranty to a full three years because of it with a 1 billion dollar charge against earnings.

From microsoft on their site:

http://www.xbox.com/en-US/support/petermooreletter.htm

We have been following this issue closely, and with on-going testing have identified several factors that can cause a general hardware failure indicated by three flashing red lights on the console.

Demiurge

BIZILL wrote: »

There sure are alot of links to articles written outside the u.s. not saying none of them are valid, but yikes!

I agree, it would help if the 2nd hand bashing came from some verifiable sources.

"It's hot, but we won't tell you what's normal!"

Many PC processors have maximum temps ranging between 60°C and 95°C, with a few Intel chips capable of withstanding 100°C +. Most CPUs are in the 90°C+ range.

The point is that thermal specifications vary by product. The higher maximum temperature that a chip can withstand, the better. It basically means that the higher max temp a chip can withstand, the less cooling is required for the chip in non-extreme operating environments.

Bottom line, the PS3 and XBox 360 running hot is not indicative of any problems for either system. It's all part of the design, which is the nature of todays chipsets.

jakelm

I walk in my son's room. The 360 pretty much stays on with him, the fan can clearly be heard, even over the screaming. Much louder than the PS2 and Xbox.

I do know that if it was in my living room and the fact that it is louder than my old Dell Pc, I could never stand the fan noise while watching a movie, even with it 16' away. So its either used in the living room for games or in my son's room.

cheddar

Bizill,

Here's another breakdown that notes the exact same issues. It's from the guy who makes the 360 laptops. The elite does appear to have a heat pipe tacked on to take the graphics chip heat up into the somewhat better air flow of the CPU heat sink. It does note that the RROD actually blocks straight air flow pass through. Sort of ironic... And that the ps3 is better designed.

http://benheck.com/07-12-2007/inside-the-xbox-360-elite#more-304

A BenQ drive… hm. I believe before their were either Hitachi LG or Toshiba. Perhaps this drive is quieter, well, it couldn’t be any louder I suppose. On that note, I don’t think the drive is loud because it’s a piece of junk or anything, it just spins the disc really fricking fast. I know, I’ve run them with the drive open before and it actually scared me. You’d half expect it to fly out of the drive and stick into the wall - better call Mythbusters and have them check it out with some ballistics gel...

The CPU ’sink is the same as before, because we all know the problem was with the GPU...



This photo also kind of shows how the XBox cooling is a bit weak. There’s no fans directly on any of the components, just 2 large ones at the back of the case and a “tunnel” to pull hot air from the chips. This would be akin to having only a rear fan on your PC and nothing on the CPU or graphics card.

In comparison the PS3, which I may or may not have opened and worked on, has a huge fan which pulls air from the rear and ejects it out the top (or right side if laid flat - is it just me or does the PS3 looks stupid sitting on end?) The air goes through a very large system of heat pipes and radiators along the way and is fairly similar to what’s probably on a Geo Metro. It’s very ridiculous looking when you first see it but then again we never hear about massive failures on the PS3 do we?...

You can see how the heat that travels up the pipe from the GPU is intended to go into the mini radiator and be in the same “airflow line” as the CPU. It’s too bad there’s a pesky wall of metal and the Ring of Light blocking things to the right of this. Oh well, the 360 probably wouldn’t look very cool if the front of it was covered with holes. But it’s probably run cooler that way.

BIZILL

cheddar wrote: »

Bizill,

Here's a US breakdown that notes the exact same issues. It's from the guy who makes the 360 laptops.

anyway, i'm very well aware of the flaw as i've already received my own red ring of death. just noticing there are alot of links that venture beyond the states.

cheddar

BIZILL wrote: »

anyway, i'm very well aware of the flaw as i've already received my own red ring of death. just noticing there are alot of links that venture beyond the states.

He pulls apart 360s and converts them to laptops appearantly. I think that's why he's pulling apart the elite...

fatchowmein

Demiurge wrote: »

The PS3 is exactly the same as the XBox 360 in this regard (I have both as of this weekend).

I have both but my 360 just came back today from the MS repair shop and I haven't had time to hook it up and compare.

Demiurge wrote: »

As far as being able to notice the fan sound, are you listening to movies with the speakers integrated into your TV or surround sound? Any half decent system should completely negate any sound you're hearing from the PS3 or 360.

LSi15, LSiC, LSi7. During non-action sequences, I can hear the fan over the LSiC. I'm taking it back tomorrow. Hopefully, the next unit is quieter.

fatchowmein

PoLk FaN wrote: »

just make sure you keep your system in a well vented area, the only way I can tell if my PS3 is on is when I press the ps button and it beeps. other then that I hear nothing coming out of my PS3.

Thanks. That's the type of confirmation I'm looking for. My PS3 is well ventilated. Sucker just doesn't like to work and starts huffing and puffing after about an hour.

Demiurge

fatchowmein wrote: »

I have both but my 360 just came back today from the MS repair shop and I haven't had time to hook it up and compare.



LSi15, LSiC, LSi7. During non-action sequences, I can hear the fan over the LSiC. I'm taking it back tomorrow. Hopefully, the next unit is quieter.

Hmm, sucks your 360 and PS3 has had issues. Good luck.

fatchowmein

Surprisingly, my 360 was very quiet during movie playback and only sounded like a 747 whenever I played a game. Maybe that's why it died? Not enough air during movie playback? My 360 was linked to a Media Center server on the backend so it spent 90% of it's time playing movies over the network. I rarely placed a movie DVD in it but when I did it was still pretty quiet. Let's see how the new 360 sounds. I'll report back after this coming weekend.

Demiurge

I don't know. I haven't had an issue with the 360 in the year and a half I have had now, but if this place is any barometer, I'm just lucky.

BIZILL

iirc, when i play my movies with the hd dvd add-on, the main 360 fans kick into LOW gear and remain quieter than playing 360 games. but everywhere i read, the hd dvd player takes more processer ability than do the games. if i'm not mistaken, that would be a good culprit for my 360 failing with rrod.

ilikesound

my ps2 makes an insane amount of noise, and when played in my bedroom, it generates more heat than my rear projector. i frequently clean it, vacuum it out and all, but to no avail. i dunno, its weird.

fatchowmein

I've exchanged the PS3 and the replacement is much quieter. After a 9 hour BR marathon, the replacement is whisper quiet.

wingnut4772

Glad your replacement works better. I received mine but I haven't set it up yet. It would be a PITA to exchange it with Dell.

dorokusai

fatchowmein wrote: »

I've exchanged the PS3 and the replacement is much quieter. After a 9 hour BR marathon, the replacement is whisper quiet.

I think I might do that as well. It runs fine but it's just odd to me.

cheddar

fatchowmein wrote: »

I've exchanged the PS3 and the replacement is much quieter. After a 9 hour BR marathon, the replacement is whisper quiet.

As Polk Fan and I tried to explain, the ps3 should run this way unless the ambient air temp is somehow overheated. The only time the fan sped up for me was when I put it in an entertainment center with the door closed. It was a no brainer to exchange it while you had the chance. Good everything worked out!