I Blame you, SPCR, two years ago i wouldnt have even noticed, now i cant stand the noise coming from that evil little exaust fan on the wii

here is the evildoer->



while the dvd is more noisy, if it is spinning, then the Wii must be loading something, and thus i wont notice (due to audio etc)

however the fan spins while web browsing, often while playing VC games, its just irritating

i'll be opening my Wii up at some point in the fairly near future to install a Mod-chip, so i may have a chance to do somthing about it

Using this video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g8epujddQTc

i can see at 4:36 that there is access to the heatsink from the side panel
the black over it is a plastic duct, and is easy to remove

however i cant imagine being able to fit a much bigger fan in there

by my rough measurements, i recon i could fit a 60mm fan in directly over the heatsink, or i could install two 60mm fans, one at the top, one at the bottom- the current fan is a monster 3-4cm

the question is, would a 60mm fan spinning at its lowest possible RPM be much better? would it cool enough? what about two of said fans?

other question is, what brand of 60mm fan is the best?

as for powering them, i'll work that out when i have to, worst case i could do them off the USB

anybody else know any smart ways to silence a Wii?

shame i dont have the resource, otherwise i would make a heatsink for it that stuck all the way out- Passive wii :p (well it is 17W load )

Fit a fan on the inside? How about fitting a fan on the outside? That's how I modded my PS2 to quiet it down. The existing 60mm fan was hopeless, but gutting the fan left a neat duct outside of which I simply strapped on an undervolted 80mm fan.

That looks like a supertiny fan of some sort, so you'll want to remove that fan entirely. Instead, cut up the case to expand the exhaust hole, and strap a much larger fan on the outside to suck air out of the case.

this is what i am thinking of doing, problem is it would look, not particulally pleasing

my girlfreind is rather attached to the wii, as she worked so hard to get it for my for xmas

but the Tiny fan has to go

White coloured fan?

Alternatively, you could make a duct for your fan out of white plastic, so that the fan itself isnt visible.

Another option is to eliminate the standard outer case entirely, and place the guts of the Wii within a custom box. That way, you can place fan(s) as large as you want wherever you want.

Well the girlfriend has fallen in love with

http://uk.gear.ign.com/articles/792/792814p1.html

that case

so it might be more simple than i had thought XD

prehaps an 80/92 mm fan ducted to the side, at lowest possible RPM, hmm

(is it wrong i look at the dvd drive and wonder about suspension?

Update:

well i got the cash together finally to have somthing to work with for the wii

after opening up the case to put in a modchip (relavent in a sec) , i noticed removing the fan competely and replacing the heatsink wasnt an option

at the bottom of the console, there is a tiny 1cm vent gap that leads to the motherboard, so the leafblower provides airflow (not much, you could turn rocks to lava in there)

the majority of the sound i was able to kill by using my mod chip to reduce the speed of the dvd drive (IIRC it went from 6x to 2x, but load times didnt change much tbh), and using some rubber etc to dampen the vibrations somewhat.

so it looks like the only option is indeed to take out the fan and use a larger fan with a duct, my poor wii is going to look very silly

wii's are inherently silly

?????

Does anyone ever fully understand what El Jefe writes?

Normally I don't. But this time I wholeheartedly agree

Wii's are silly, but in my opinion, their meant to be silly. A nintendo console that isn't silly would be creepy. This hasn't always been this way, was nothing silly about the NES, or the SNES, but the N64 was definitely kinda silly in my opinion, and then the gamecube.. Well, it's a purple cube, with a cute handle on the back.

Anyway, lets try not to hijack the topic.

Another option is to get a Zalman fanmate, then using a small screwdriver, pop off the connector on the Wii board, then plug then fanmate into it, and the fan into the fanmate. This will slow the fan and reduce the noise. Or you could solder a resistor inline with the fan. Either way you should be able to reduce the speed of the fan. Could this be dangerous to your Wii, yes, but as long as there is some airflow I would imagine that it would be okay.

Thought I'd add some info here for reference. I'm about to take apart our Wii to replace a noisy squealing fan, figured while I'm at it, I'll toss in a mod chip (DriveKey or Wasabi DX), and replace the standard case with either a clear case (Evolve Stealth Assassin), or clear-glowy case (XCM II-Crystal Chameleon or XCM II-Hot Rock).

I found a spec on the web that said the Wii has a 35mm x 35mm x 20mm fan. Which I find to be somewhat odd, since its a non-standard size. I'm hoping a 40mm x 40mm fan will fit -- since I found a nice 14dBA in that size (all the others are ~32-35dBA, which is flat-out unacceptable).

REPLACEMENT FAN INFO:
SilenX Ixtrema Pro 40mm x 20mm 14dBA 6CFM 3000RPM
.04Amp, 0.48watt, 8-14volt (Part Number: IXP-13-14)

My only concern is that the Wii's fan I think is a 5volt.

OTHER SILENCING
The mod chip slows the DVD from 6x to 3x, so that should cut some noise while it spins (might be able to sneak silicone washers into the drive mounting) . Our Wii sits flat (not vertical on the stand), so I'm going to see if I can fit some thin sound absorbency pad on the bottom, not sure how tight the fit is or how much clearance is between the guts and the plastic, I'm not too hopeful about this being able to fit. Planning on putting four soft silicone feet to help with vibration/noise, and for sure slapping some small amount of sound absorb pad around the fan. I heard the fan intake is pretty small, so I may Dremmel some additional holes in the plastic to increase airflow.


BACKGROUND
I'm pretty experienced with silent PC mods, i build PCs for my family and extended family, and for family use I'm always using sound absorbing material, replacing case and power-supply fans with ultra-quiet 7-9db ones, adding silicone anti-vibe gaskets, and looking for the quietest CPU coolers i can find that are still functional (i.e. no completely soundless/fanless nonsense here)