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Xbox 360 woes

Strange seeing this technical stuff in a national newspaper today

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Where the Xbox 360 went wrong

Whoops, there is a problem with the console failing in significant numbers after all, said a reluctant Microsoft this week. So what is the cause? Charles Arthur investigates

Thursday July 12, 2007

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So what are the causes? Owners and analysts have made their own investigations. The most obvious suggestion is that parts overheat; the Xbox

360 draws 160 watts, which has to be dissipated via two large heatsinks and two fans. One suggestion is that when the machine gets hot, the motherboard warps and pushes the graphics processing unit (GPU) off its board. Another is that some of the soldering is imperfect and so cracks at high temperature. A Microsoft support document also suggests, improbably, that surge protectors and extension strips contribute to the problem by preventing the current surge needed for the fans to turn on; this seems unlikely, since that surge would be too small to trip them.

In desperation, some owners have turned to home-grown cures - including wrapping a towel around the machine, blocking the fan vents. This may - depending who you believe - either cause the solder to reflow or the GPU to reseat. (Microsoft has not commented.) The fixes sometimes work, at least temporarily.

We can deduce some of the reasons from the fact that Microsoft is declaring that the problems are sorted out - just as it is moving from 90-nanometre to

65nm chips, which should reduce its power consumption significantly, and using a two-part heat sink in the new designs.

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-- Diverse Devices, Southampton, England electronic hints and repair briefs , schematics/manuals list on

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Reply to
N Cook
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Bad thermal design.

I hate to think what'll happen when the fans get worn out and the heatsinks get full of fluff too. They could be fixing these for a long long time.

Graham

Reply to
Eeyore

What beats me is how these problems don`t show up in early pre production units! They get hundreds of thousands of units on the market before anyone notices that they overheat!

Ron(UK)

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Lune Valley Audio
Public Address Systems
Hire Sales Maintenance
www.lunevalleyaudio.com
Reply to
Ron(UK)

get

I rather imagine they didn't do any proper testing.

Of course an experienced designer would have been looking out for this. Either they're not using experienced designers or the suits decided they knew better, which is entirely possible.

Graham

Reply to
Eeyore

My roommate has one, which is still working thankfully. When it heats up, it sounds like a jet engine, and it will raise the temperature of the room by several degrees if it's left on long. Amazing how much heat it kicks out.

Reply to
James Sweet

^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^

*Guffaw!*
Reply to
JW

Quite.

220C internally ? I think not.

Graham

Reply to
Eeyore

What do you expect from anyone who would buy an Xbox, in the first place?

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prove it.
Member of DAV #85.

Michael A. Terrell
Central Florida
Reply to
Michael A. Terrell

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