Swivel Stand

The Xbox 360 pushes gaming technology to the limit and that unfortunately always has a negative side. One of the problems the 360 has experienced, since launch, is overheating. This problem seems to be exclusive to only some Xbox 360’s, and most of them overheat due to their location. Where as most people have their 360 in a wide-open living room, my 360 is running off my computer’s LCD monitor; therefore I had to place it in a tight spot where it gets little to no ventilation. Due to the design of the cooling technology inside the 360, air flow is crucial to keeping the 360 running cool. As soon as I saw the Pelican Fan Stand, I knew that this is exactly what I need to keep my console from overheating.

Packaging

The fan stand comes in a nicely designed, and easy to open, package. The package itself only contains the fan stand itself with no other goodies. Not even a manual. Although, does it really need one? Opening the box takes 10 seconds and you are ready to install it in no time.

Installation

The fan stand consists of the stand itself and a small USB wire. The wire plugs into the back of your 360. I quickly noticed that the USB connector is double sided, so you can still use your 360’s USB hole if needed.

Installing the actual fan stand is no big task. Just simply lift your 360 up, (preferably while it’s off!) and place it on the fan stand. Line up the 4 feet on the bottom of the Xbox 360 with the 4 craters on the fan stand. Once the 360 is in place, you’re done!

In order to turn the fan on, you will need to move the fan switch (located on the back of the fan stand to the On position). The fan does not turn on/off automatically. There’s a warning sticker on the back that recommends you leave the fan Off when the system is not running a game.

Results

My first task was to measure the fan’s noise level. I am happy to say that this fan is virtually silent. Many people who are sensitive to loud noises have complained that the 360 is very loud while playing a game, so luckily this doesn’t add any more noise. The fan can only be heard if you put your head right next to the stand, on the other hand it is pretty much impossible to hear it when the DVD drive is working.

Next task was to measure the temperature, with the fan on and off. One of the reasons I bought the fan stand is because of the lack of air flow in the location where my console currently stands. The Xbox 360’s heatsinks are made of aluminum and cool passively, and while the GPU relies on air flow to keep cool, the CPU heatsink has an air duct that goes out to the 2 fans in the back. What the Pelican Fan Stand does is push air through the 2 heatsinks, letting them transfer hot air faster from the system. This reduces the amount of hot air idling inside the system.

Here is a graph representing the temperature of the hot air being pushed out of the system. In each of the three different “states” detailed below, an Xbox 360 game was played for an extended period of time in order to ensure an accurate reading for each. The temperature reading was taken of the hot air just where the fans on the Xbox 360 are.

Conclusion

Overall, I am pretty happy with the Pelican Fan Stand. It provides the extra air flow that my Xbox needed and at the same time can store 1 Game, a memory card and a remote for the 360 on it. The only downside for me was the fact that you manually have to turn on/off the fan every time you play. The switch itself is pretty small and it would be nice if there was some kind of a status light of the fan stand to tell us if the fan is on or off.

So, if your 360 is in a spot that has little to no air flow, I would suggest picking up this great accessory.

You can pick up a Pelican Stand for yourself from Amazon.