How to make your PlayStation3 more silent

[PS3SACD]

How to make your PS3 quieter, and (a tiny bit) faster:

Swap the Hard Disk Drive (HDD) for a Solid State Drive (SSD).

At least, that's what we assume. Of course, more noise is generated by the fan (and possibly the Optical Disc Drive) than by the HDD but an SDD is undeniably 100% silent -- unless the power consumption is higher, which would cause more energy dissipation, leading to a higher temperature, triggering the fan to spin at a higher speed.

We haven't put it to the test but are interested to learn the results if any does.

ExtremeTech tried it to see if it helped speed up install times (which it did, marginally) but they haven't reported anything about noise levels.

And one final consideration: the storage memory required to match the capacity of the removed HDD will currently cost you more than PS3 itself.

[Brandon B]

Man, I opened the thread hoping for a real solution.

I did vacuum the dust out of mine, and that yielded a temporary improvement (mine got louder about 10 months ago, the dust removal quieted it down for about 6 weeks).

[FunkyMonkey]

I have had mine stood on its end for teh past week (afte redecorating) and it is twice as near as it used to be. This coudl have been a real problem. But the fan hasn't kicked in noticably (i.e. at high speed), even after hours of playing PES2009!!!

[Brandon B]

Is it quieter on its end than it was flat?

[FunkyMonkey]

[The Seventh Taylor]

Here's a company that supplies an 'Ultra-Quiet Xbox360': the electronics built into a special PC cabinet with a large fan and some noise-dampening measures.

http://www.reghardware.co.uk/2009/02/12/quiet_xbox_360/

Sounds like an interesting option for PS3 too, even though it's already much more silent. Especially if they were to use SACD-compatible units. Given that this is a PC company doing this, it's a little less likely but who knows..

[TJ-Max]

Excellent topic, because I just recently had some experience with this that I'd like to share.
Last week I finally replaced my 60GB HDD with a 320GB Western Digital Scorpio Blue.
One of the listed features of this drive is to run cooler than previous drives. And there IS a difference. After replaceing the original Seagate drive, my PS3 has been running a lot cooler and quieter.

With my Seagate drive, my PS3 would be very warm towards the top rear, the fan motor would also kick into top gear whenever my room was hot after 30 mins or so.
But with the WD Scorpio, the PS3 can be on for hours and still be barely luke warm to the touch, and the fan has yet to move past it's 2nd gear.

So yes the original Seagate drive installed in the PS3 is a large heat source. I'd recommend everyone to change it.

[Brandon B]

Good to know. I have a couple of WD's greenpower 3.5" drive and like them quite a bit, they are super quiet and cool. I wonder if the Blue Scorpio line is supposed to be the equivalent for notebook size drives.

[The Seventh Taylor]

Interesting to hear, especially if the knife cuts both ways: if the hard disk drive itself is more silent and draws less power otherwise you'd get into a trade-off between drive noise and fan noise.

[Yuri]

Three, almost four years on and solid state storage has dropped in price such that not only has using it in PS3 become economically feasible, it looks like it will become the new norm with the imminent introduction of the CECH-4000 series PS3.



Firmware update v4.20 gives it away: The next model(s) -- to be introduced at GamesCom 2012? -- will not have a Hard Disk Drive built in.

http://ps3ultraslim.com/news/?p=107

[Brandon B]

Late in the day to post it, but the Amazon deal of the day is a pair of pretty inexpensive SSDs from Kingston if you want to make your older PS3 faster and silent-er.

[PS3SACD]

Too bad this great technology isn't getting used for making a dream model PS3 with SACD playback in a silent, fanless housing.

[culabula]

[Brandon B]

It was 2 months ago, and was the deal of the day.

[culabula]