Xbox 360 quieting mod

While there's no shortage of useful and not-so-useful solutions to keep your Xbox 360 from overheating, there's far fewer options at your disposal to keep the console's loudness down. And for good reason, while the 360's fan isn't the quietest one around, the biggest decibel culprit is the system's irreplaceable DVD-ROM drive, especially when it gets up to full speed in the heat of gameplay. Well, it seems that the folks at Extreme Tech apparently couldn't put up with the racket any longer and cracked open their system in search of a solution. While swapping the drive out for a quieter model wasn't an option, they did find some degree of success by squeezing some rubber washers in between the drive and the motherboard, and padding the whole works in Dynamat sound-dampening material. Obviously, with the same drive in there it's still not going to be whisper quiet, but Extreme Tech did achieve a small but noticeable drop in decibels (about 4 to 5dB). You'll have to decide for yourself if that relative peace and quiet is worth the risk of voiding your warranty.