Hey all! I’ve had my Xbox series X for a year, it has always sat upright on my entertainment center. I just bought a house that the living room has a wood stove in it which is used to heat my house. Ever since we moved, when we start the wood stove the Xbox cannot run a game for more then 5 minutes without it running the error message for it being too hot. We have a large ceiling fan and a box fan moving hot air throughout the house from the living room, but the problem is not being fixed. I used computer duster to ensure the Xbox was sufficiently cleaned as well. Does anyone have any suggestions on how to keep the Xbox nice and cool on my entertainment center? I know those cooling docks are usually a scam, but I can’t run a game at all and I need to run my wood stove to keep my house warm all winter in Idaho.
I’ve had my series x in our living room for a few years and before that a ps4 for 4-5 years. We have a wood stove and both consoles would accumulate overtime some dust inherent to using the stove. I never had any issue with the performance of either but each situation is going to be different when dealing with wood stoves.
Interesting. Are you laying your series x on its side or standing it straight up? What is your entertainment setup like? I’ve been looking into this problem and I’m curious how the air is getting trapped possibly in my setup because the wood stove just generates a ton of heat centrally.
It’s on its side below the tv on a shelf. The shelf is uncovered - no door or anything. The Xbox and tv are about 15 feet from the stove. There is some furniture in between that buffers the heat.
The main issue for me is the dust that accumulates from the little bit of ash in the air that I get from cleaning the stove. However even with this building up on the Xbox it doesn’t seem to cause an issue. Long term who knows but the ps4, which I had for a while, was still working when I unhooked it
I’ve had my Series X since the first year on its side in my basement (nearish to woods). Nearing completion Starfield it started freezing badly. I followed TronicsFix walkthrough for cleaning which resolved it. https://youtu.be/dKJ2ATvKKAs?si=az954-g_NrhiaC_e
I’m guessing maybe the smoke might be clogging it, but depending maybe look at redoing the thermal paste. I didn’t do that for mine when I cleaned, but maybe (normally thermal paste is good for a long while).
If you go with the cleaning, definitely get some Dust off. Hope you get it working, maybe put it on its side and further away from the wood stove if possible and on a solid surface
Are you sure it’s not just Starfield? Because that game seems to freeze a lot as the savefile grows bigger.
I couldn’t get into Starfield too much because it just felt like a ton of fast traveling and I wanted more space action similar to No Mans Sky with more RPG elements. I will use starfield to test it out though in my room to see if something is wrong internally with it. How many hours into starfield until it started crashing on saves for you? I have around 20-30 but dropped off of it. Just want to make sure I am diagnosing the correct issue lol
I’m not sure, maybe around 70 hours until it started happening a lot, like every hour. I haven’t played much since the last update though so I don’t know if they fixed the problem.
Watched the tutorial and that looks really doable. I’ll go out and buy the screwdrivers and plastic pry bar tomorrow. I’m definitely going to give this a try. The wood stove is about 13.5 ft from the Xbox with a couch in between them. I’m hoping this will solve all my issues but will check back once I’ve given it a good cleaning.
Thanks for the video, he really broke it down and gave good instructions.
Let us know if cleaning it out helps. If not we can jump back on the case!
Well I followed the video, took it apart and it seems to be fixed! The only casualty is that the light on the front of the Xbox does not work anymore…but the wood stove is running and it is running battlefield 2042. I moved it slightly so I could follow the instructions noted by everyone and hopefully it has more airflow. I also purchased an air purifier off amazon so that the particles given off by the wood stove are gone. I will update if anything changes, but it definitely was super dirty. Thank you so much for your help!
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Yea it’s not an ideal scenario. My son and wife use the Xbox as well so moving it from the living room would be a bummer. I have a series s in my bedroom but have the X out in the living room for everyone. I’m gonna give a good cleaning like the other commenter said and I hope that fixes it. The Xbox is about 13.5 feet from the wood stove and there is a couch in between them.
Everything else works fine if the stove isn’t on at all. If it gets even a little warm in the room it cuts off. You mentioned some sensors that could be going off and that made sense to me. I hope it’s nothing too major and I can figure out what’s going on.
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I will move it tonight into my room and see if it can run starfield or battlefield 2042 without crashing…if 2042 ever runs normally anyways. When I do the cleaning of the inside I should be able to check out if any of the thermal paste is dry or if there is broken soldering. Will check back after I test it out and then do a deep clean of it.
If it is the thermal paste or broken soldering how would I go about getting that fixed? I don’t think I’m tech savvy enough to fix stuff like that, but I’m great at following along to YouTube videos.
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Fantastic. Thanks for the clarification and helping me out. I bought a little tech kit and some air duster do be able to take it apart tonight so I will update once I get in there and do some cleaning.
