Q: Seriously. I went to a friend's house to play Bioshock, Halo 3, and GTA 4 last night. I was amazed at how loud it sounded. Microsoft, why not include a jet engine with the Xbox 360? It sounds that bad. All the 360's that I have played have this problem.
A: There is stock fan on the Xbox 360 that makes unwanted noise which is comprised of two brushless motors, and one optional moving part, the hard drive. The main component of the jet noise is the dual cooling fans. As the unit ages these fans will only get louder. Also, a cheap modification, done to out of warranty boxes is to rewire this to the 12v source to speed it up for better cooling. Any Xbox with the stock fan speed mod will sound like a jet engine without fail. Any additional fans added as an aftermarket kit or warranty voiding modification will also add decibels to the operating noise profile. Replace or remove the fans down to the minimum if this noise bothers you. The sound from the hard drive is nominal and should not bother anyone. If it sounds like a ball in a shaken paint can than the drive heads are hitting the platter; unrecoverable drive failure is imminent. Any data left on the drive will most likely stand up to one read only. Final word: Cheap, old fans.