Slashdot Mirror
Fix Your Crashing X-Box 360 With String
mkraft writes "A gamer fed up with his new Xbox 360 crashing every 20 minutes has fixed the problem by raising the power supply off the ground with some string. Goldeneyemaster over at the GameSpot forums indicates that the main reason for his Xbox 360 freezing up is the power supply overheating. The solution is to lift the power supply off the floor and allow the air to circulate better around it."
And sadly, it's probably a better quality fix than MS would provide on Warranty
Don't get me wrong, I love the Xbox, but my first one was one of those that cought on fire. Why am I not surprised that there are problems with the 360 at release?
Someone save me from this sanity.
. . . to tie some fins or something to it to raise the P/S off the floor and allow circulation. But then, I'm not in the market for one of these until it's cracked wide open. And probably not even then.
I too have felt the cold finger of injustice.
Windows PC users will feal right at home.
Well, at least you don't have to lift the console itself this time around....
Not having seen one, ( nor will i buy one ), but i would imagine that a set of LARGE rubber feet would raise it enough to get some air flow..
Oh, and keep it out of the carpet..
---- Booth was a patriot ----
Somebody patent this!
cat * >> sig
GOOD GAME MICROSOFT. You know, this REALLY is the sort of thing they should test BEFORE launching a HUGE product like the 360. Genius.
The string should be placed on around the neck of the user...
This reminds me of the massive original Xbox powercord recall...Seems like Microsoft has had some power control issues.... (hehe) ____________________-- Mirror for gamespot forums
A great, fast, good graphics gaming console! The XBox360! Yours now for only $399... no strings atta...
(a) G-string
(b) String Theory
If it requires complex physics to make that xbox work, be my guest !!
Hello,
Your string is on its way!
Thanks,
Microsoft Support
So go ahead and string up those power supplies. Just make sure you don't put them on your tree as it might catch fire.
I built an anti-gravity system for my Xbox 360 using magnets. Now if only I could figure out why the drives keep getting erased.
I'm wondering what will happen next summer, problems will get even worse.
What exactly was involved in the QA process for the 360? Were they in a refrigerated room for the tests? Did the not actually test the power supply? Were all of the components suspended from the ceiling?
Jerry
http://www.cyvin.org/
I can't wait for the official Xbox 360 Suspension Kit - $19.95 for 10ft of 20lb line.
/I thought of it first
"The first console with 360 degrees of ventilation!"
Now you can tell your girlfriend to keep blowing on your Xbox 360 power supply while playing.
How many more pieces of shit will Micro$oft drop? First DOS, then Windoze, now the disastrous Xbox 360. Goddamn you Micro$oft users love getting raped!
get Long wires, and place your XBOX inside the fridge...
/. HAVE ME ON THE NEWS!!!1!!1oneone
NOW PLEASE INQUIRER AND
i read the headline to mean an exploit was found. then i read the article. oh, not a literal string, it is literally string. nevermind...
Serenity now, insanity later.
And he's after the xbox These guys are smashing xbox's in front of gamers -- see the video
Autonomous Retard -- Is your camp safe? UnsafeCamp.com
"Improper suspension of the unit will cause overheating. Poor air circulation around the power supply will cause it to retain heat. Overheating may cause unwanted results such as system freezing, jerky video, slow performance, fire, violent and frequent bowel movements (an urgent need to have them, and an inability to control them), and sudden death. It is highly recommended that the unit be suspended a distance of at least 6" from any flat surface. Microsoft is currently developing technology that will levitate the unit without the need of any suspension device. Until research and development is completed, we suggest you elevate the unit using string, duct tape, corregated shelving, or your kid brother. We are certain that despite any minor inconvenienced listed above, you will enjoy your XBox."
And 'fixing it with string'? Sounds more like 'fixing it by allowing it to get some AIR'...
If you spend billions of dollars developing a third generation console, can't you afford to spend a little bit more in quality control by playing with the unit on its side in a normal house like almost EVERYBODY ELSE?!
Nothing to see here, just lack of foresight and the general MS stupidity.
If some power supplies are overheating during the cool season, we should expect even more problems next summer.
I can see cooling being a big issue for the CPU and graphics chips which have to dissipate quite a bit no matter what, but the power supply? A well designed switching supply should have very low losses and run cool.
I don't know how the x-Box 360 power supply is designed but I think it's strange if raising it off the ground really keeps it cooler since air doesn't conduct heat very well. I noticed that in practice myself when I tried to reduce noise from my computer by suspending the harddrives inside my computer case and hddtemp showed that they overheated quickly (they even exceeded the maximum temperature in the technical specifications). That was quite unfortunate since when they didn't touch the chassis they made virtually no sound at all.
BURNS:
Could you explain your model, young man?
GRIMES:
What's to explain? He's an idiot!
LENNY:
Pipe down!
HOMER:
Well basically, I just copied the plant we have now.
BURNS:
Mm-hmm.
HOMER:
Then, I added some fins to lower wind resistance. (pointing) And this racing stripe here I feel is pretty sharp.
"There is no time, sir, at which ties do not matter," Jeeves, (Jeeves and the Impending Doom)
I don't see what the big deal is about!
It's really an easy fix. All you need is a shot glass, some confetti, a little Valerian root, and tongue of newt.
Balance the Xbox on the shot glass. now take the Valerian root, mash it up and smear it along the outside of the case. Stay with me, this works. Sprinkle the confetti over the top, take out the hard drive and stick in the Newt tongue. Now, this is very important, chant this 3 times: "Begone, 360 demons, begone!"
I can only speak for myself, but this fixed my Xbox. No more artifacts!
.. that Microsoft hasn't licensed this?
no, it would be more like :
...
Dear suc^H^H^Hcustomer,
your 100% environnement friendly cooling enhancer unit will be sent free of charges soon.
Thanks for your money.
Microsoft support.
EULA :
by reading this email you accept to give your eternal soul to Microsoft corp. Microsoft cannot be held responsible yada yada yada
If you have an Xbox 360, read the label of power supply. Post who manufactures it, and where it was manufactured. Perhaps there are other consumer devices that use power supplies from the same manufacturer that we should check for overheating.
Cyric Zndovzny at your service.
You forgot to add the invoice for $100 of high-quality Microsoft super-string
We know they developed the software on different hardware. When they tested the hardware, did they use the power supplies that were going to ship with the units? When they did the tests in the oven ( I will assume they did testing at ambient temperature corners ) did they put the brick in the oven too?
I suspect a disconnect in the testing process. It looks like the developers were not eating their own dog food.
Religion is the main cause of atheism.
Typical Microsoft quality. Microsoft seems to have lost control of itself socially due to the stock no longer going up. People who can get jobs elsewhere, the most capable people, leave Microsoft because of the push to work long hours so that Gates and Ballmer can have even more billions.
It's nice that Gates gave millions of dollars to stop malaria, but that should not be allowed to be effective in public relations. The malaria money is a very small percentage of the losses due to the many Microsoft viruses and trojans and worms. The many, many vulnerabilities in Microsoft products make money for the company because many users with no technical ability simply buy another computer.
Just like Windows, Microsoft sell crappy stuff, potentially hazardous, but what we do is said ... fix it with stirng? Why don't we think that Microsoft is accoutable for "SELLING" inferior and dangerous? Why do we have to toerate that?
I don't buy XBOX 360, that for sure.
CHEESE! That's right. Just stick some string cheese in the power adapter and it'll work like a heat sink and draw the heat from your console, making some tasty nacho sauce all the while. Microsoft has done it again! And if they manage to find a way to encorporate their version of the George Foreman grill into their next next gen console then I'll have everything I could even need!
The eternal struggle of good vs. evil begins within one's self.
Back when I was in college I had a commodore 64 that tended to overheat. I ended up taking the power supply apart (the early ones could be opened) and C-clamping a big-piece-of-metal(tm) to it. This acted as a heat sink. My only thought here is that it seems that we should have come a way in product prerelease testing since then.
I bet people who follow the directions and put the thing in on a hard surface with ventilation around it don't have as many problems.
For many people, applying this solution would seem to require thousands of dollars to acquire additional real estate. Solution is to build a stand for the power supply, and this string is an example.
Now if they'd fix the "economic problems" - the ones that show the need for good regulation against this kind of thing. Not to spoil it, but the free market that you think exists, is trumped by outright force. You may not be able to blot out the sun, but you can still block undesirable actions and sources of items/services with the degree of efficiency that the "free market" portrays.
This is where force exists, albeit hidden by some who think only of life/death issues when thinking of force. Save the string for something more useful.
For the record, I'm waiting it out - for the modchips.
Twitter supports and protects racists - by smearing their critics with the "Hate Speech" label.
Hardware is not easy. This is not say software is, but there are different issues. Even companies like Apple that has been doing hardware to over 20 years gets into trouble. At the beginning they had major issue. No one will ever forget that one had to lift then Apple /// up a couple inches and then drop it to reseat the ram. We can look at overheating batteries in laptops from Apple and other equally experienced designers.
Which is to say that MS can only buy so much experience. What is interesting is that people have little doubt that MS will eventually produce a quality product. Contrast this to say views on Linux that claim a perpetually inferior OS, even though in many Linux has made faster gains on MS Windows and Unix than MS made on Apple or Unix.
"She's a scientist and a lesbian. She's not going to let it slide." Orphan Black
I went back to report and had a very hard time from the product manager (it was in fact so bad that half way through the meeting I told him I had to switch out of the language we were using back to my native English because I did not want a grammatical error to turn into an "admission" in a court of law.) But in the end he gave up.
The engineers then gave me lunch and told me that everybody knew that the project manager had specified to the PSU manaufacturer that the unit had to work up to 35C free air - completely failing to allow for its being used on a carpet, on top of a hot TV, or even on top of the TV covered in magazines. Nobody could understand what sort of a house he must live in that he was unaware of how the box was actually likely to be used.
Pining for the fjords
Made in China.
It could easily have been a management problem too... As frickin' huge as the thing is, it's possible it was even larger during development, and the management word came down "the PSU must be smaller! Otherwise the japanese won't buy it. Consequences be damned!", and it turns out this was the smallest they could get it.
if something is leaking far more than normal it will get hot and its generally that heat that causes sporadic failure, if you can take that heat away you can generally keep it running.
before i replaced my laptop psu i was keeping it running by damping the surface and letting the water boil off!
note: i'm known as plugwash most places but i screwd up registering that here somehow in the past and now can't register
It's all Microsoft's fault and not one that's liable to be fixed with a software patch either. Personaly I'd call a console(or a PC for that matter) faulty if it requiered to be suspended in the air for it to work properly. I understand some means of heat exhaust is nessisary, but please...this is just...well, stupid. I just hope MS doesn't get away with this like they usualy do.
Instead of suspending the power supply with pain-in-the-neck string, just turn off the heat in your home. That way you will not have to worry about the 360 crashing, and you will save some money on heating bills. Plus, if you keep the power supply in your lap, you will be plenty warm anyhow. It's the perfect solution!
Made in China.
Enough said.
Microsoft Co., Ltd.
Some here would think that would be redundant to say due to quality.
Twitter supports and protects racists - by smearing their critics with the "Hate Speech" label.
come with the premium or core bundles?
Have you seen the size of the friggin power supply. You're more likely to need a crane to suspend that bugger, than a piece of string.
Ok, so the PSU overheats, someone merely helped fix this issue by getting more airflow on it. So why the big deal? Yes MS should have done a better job dealing with these heat issues, but does it really a super genius to figure out the best temporary solution is to take it off the carpet?
How about not putting the PSU on carpet. . . I bet that would fix 9 out of every 10 complaints.
If you bought a new PC, would you set your PSU on the carpet? no you wouldn't.
When I get an X360 I'm going to stuff it in a PC case (the whole console) and mount the PSU in the regular PSU alotted area. . .
disclaimer: I've been known to store numbers in my ass for which to dig out when quantities are required.
When you suspended the drives, their vibrations no longer got absorbed into the chassis, but remained internalized inside the hard drive. This can create lots of heat, as well as inefficiency due to the hard drive constantly having to fight and compensate it.
I suggest that correct this problem that you transform your "XBox" into the form it should have originally been in:
1) Buy MicroATX case (with powersupply)
2) Rip apart XBox
3) Rebuild your computer. err XBox.
Proof by very large bribes. QED.
A law against what? Moronic gamers with more money than brain cells? A law that states that people can't offer to pay more than what some government agency decides is a fair price?
Marxism is the opiate of dumbasses
Microsoft should ship the 360 with a string to hang the P/S with and just call it part of their new next-gen design. Everyone's happy.
I used to hang the power supply brick out the window in the winter to get more run time from a C64 about 20 years ago.
Sorry, a quick google search turned this up:
United States Patent: 5,960,411
A method and system for cooling down a device with gases from it's environment. The cooling is done by a novel application of a long piece of material consisting of intertwined fibres. This material is attached to the device by a novel application of fastening techniques covered by other patents. The other end of the material is then fastened to a point high enough to cause the device to stay stationary at a certain height. This results in a novel, non-obvious flow of gas around the device resulting in a interaction that cools down the device.
I recommend against fixing your Xbox360 crashes in this way, you open yourself up for litigation.
^H^H^H? Since when did Microsoft start using xterms?
-- 'The' Lord and Master Bitman On High, Master Of All
The technical/geek solution to an overheating brick (psu) is simple. Use some zip ties to attach one or two old slot a/1 HSF to the overheating brick. Don't forget to use a good load of Arctic Silver (or thermal pads if you are not l33t) between the HSF and brick.
Two HSF @ $7.49 - $14.98
Two Arctiv Silver tubes @ $8.99 - $17.98
A reasonable total of $32.96 to solve yet another MS oversight.
Dear Customer,
We have decided to deny your warranty request to replace the external power supply and deny your request for a complimentary Microsoft XPCool Strings(tm).
The reason for this is that you have not used your unit according to the specifications.
As per the instruction manual included in MS Word format on the XBox 360's hard drive, it clearly states in section 361.27.5a(iii) the following:
"As an additional winter bonus, we have provided you with a power supply that doubles as a personal block heater, this block heater must be set up by suspending over the cardboard box provided with the XBox360. Failure to do so can cause system instability or fire.
If your friend or family member has thrown away this box, please purchase an additional usage license for that friend or family member as you are clearly in violation of the EULA (as this the console is provided with a single user license); we will provide you with an extra box for power supply suspension along with the additional license upon request"
First of all, I want to mention I can run my Xbox 360 for a stonkin' forever without it crashing. I have taken a few steps though.
First of all, I separate the power supply from the 360. I have my 360 in a stereo cabinet, but I have the power supply behind the stereo cabinet on the floor. I did this because it was clear from the 24" power cable between the PS and 360 that MS intended this to be possible. Second of all, I cut some small holes in the back of my stereo cabinet for airflow. These are probably about 6 square inches total. Additionally, I don't close the cabinet completely, so I have some airflow out the front.
I also have been experimenting with fans just to see the effects. Here's a set of measurments I did with the front opening cracked a bit. This is the temperature in the stereo cabinet space (about 8 cubic feet) containg the 360.
0:00 - 73.4F (ambient)
0:30 - 89.4F
0:50 - 94.8F
1:10 - 98.1F
1:30 - 100.2F
1:50 - 101.7F
2:10 - 102.7F
2:30 - 103.5F
Then I turned on the fan in the cabinet and the temp dropped to 98.8F. With the fan on, I could close the front door completely and the temp still only rose to about 100F.
Clearly this thing is a heat monster! If I measure the temp at the output fan it, it has risen over 115F.
But, I have checked the power supply in back cursorily, and it just doesn't get all that hot on its own. This makes sense, given that if the PS is about 80% efficient, then only 50W is being dissapated by the PS back there, and 200W is being dissapated by the 360 in front.
So, although I haven't had any problems, my recommendation would be first of all, get your 360 out of that confined space. It just generates too much heat for that. Second of all, even in a semi-confined space, get the power supply away from the 360, preferably get it into its own "cooling zone".
For sure, do not put the power supply directly behind the 360 in any kind of smallish space! The 360 draws air in at the back, at the lower of the two fans (on the right if it is laying down). If you put the PS right there, it will not only block the airflow, making the 360 take in its own exhaust, but it will also heat up the intake air even further.
My guess is people who are having this problem, and don't have the 360 in a small, sealed space are mostly just putting the PS in a bad place, and putting it on strings, is just a complicated form of relocating it so it isn't there heating up the 360 intake air.
http://lkml.org/lkml/2005/8/20/95
I had a laptop power supply that kept overheating. I simply put it on a 12"x12" piece of ceramic tile left over from my kitchen.
The tile would get just a little warm, and it kept the power supply from getting hot.
Actualy the pictures look like a normal "brick" power supply for a laptop or a portable printer. I wouldn't be suprised if the just weren't ordered from an industrial cataloge of stock parts and had a xbox360 lable stuck on. Most likely if microsoft is at fault for anything it's more along the lines of not specing enough saftey factor and not testing that the PS's actualy preformed in spec's.
Apocalypse Cancelled, Sorry, No Ticket Refunds
For those out there who are acutally working on this solutions... http://www.spacemagnetics.com/hovercraft/faq_hover craft.html
I found the link, "Microsoft Xbox burnt our house down...", from the original Inquirer article to be much more interesting. See http://www.theinquirer.net/?article=27873> for details.
to prevent the xbox360 from hanging you gotta hang it?!?!
Sorry, but that horse has bolted
Back in the old days when I had my Atari 800XL, I upgraded it to 256K of RAM. The extra power draw was enough to cause the power supply to overheat and fail. The power supply was encased in hard plastic and had no ventilation. My solution was to place the power supply in a zip-lock baggie that was obviously open at the top to allow the cables to go out, but then the lower half was submerged in a pot of water. Worked perfectly until I finally came across a power supply that was ventilated.
All this to play 14 sports sequels, 23 racing sequels and 19 FPS sequels without crashes because MS couldn't be bothered to do basic themal analysis which is in the top three Very Important Things To Do before releasing any enclosed electronic unit into the wild.
Seriously, the has the gaming world become a bit... undemanding? I was going to buy a 360 (I was planning on getting all three of the next gen consoles) until I got a gander at the game release schedule into next April. Meh... Maybe it's me. Maybe I'm burning out on gaming.
And never conducted real testing, because they relied on the QA from their power supply vendor.
The main reasons for the prevalence of external power supplies or "wall warts" are that they shift regulatory compliance (UL, CSA, TUV, or whatnot) onto a third party (the power supply vendor), and enable the same basic product to be sold worldwide with different external supplies provided to accomodate local variations in line voltage/frequency/receptacle type.
Remember "News for Nerds, Stuff that Matters"? Help make it a reality again! http://soylentnews.org
they came with a fan ...
Better watch out for those pesky backspaces!
English is easier said than done.
did the string come with the xbox or did he have to buy his own.
Would someone who has one please photograph the XBOX 360's data plate and post the image? And is the data plate a hologram? A few of these would be helpful, since there may be more than one maker of power supplies. I'd like to verify the UL certification numbers. Thanks.
This absurd situation is the direct result of buying a sysphisticated piece of electronic hardware from a software company. And not just a software company, from a huge software monopoly.
This kind of thing, and hell, this precise situation, would never happen in a company that is run by engineers. Real engineers, not software engineers or sanitation engineers. People who have been rigorous trained in the behavior of physical materials when acted upon by systematic application of an energy source. People in hardware companies don't sell stuff that gets fixed right out of the box by hanging the power supply by a piece of string. There are lots of other people with experience and scars from past mistakes that ensure that this doesn't happen. And if by some circumstance it does occur, the engineers in other companies don't forget about it and managers don't rehire the engineers who were responsible at that same level. Like Deng Shao Ping, they must first spend some time on the pig farm to contemplate the consequences of their mistakes.
But not designers in a software company. Real world hardware doesn't exist, in theory. If you put 100 volts across a eighth-watt 10-ohm resistor, you get 10 amps. My super calculator says so. Actually what you get is a bad smell. Couple this with the atmosphere of upwardly-mobile incompetence found in any large corporation. Lock it in place by the office politics of having "yes men and women" generally promoted over innovative corporate in-house entrepreneurs and you have a situation where your customers are hanging your new state-of-the-art showcase product by a piece of string in order to get it to work.
All this is worse in a monopoly corporation, because they have already reached the maximum possible business goal through past operations. Anything new and innovative can't improve the situation. Therefore managers have nothing to gain by encouraging and rewarding competence and innovation. Add the generalized hubris of 5000 pampered 30-year-old grade-point-angels who have spent their entire lives becoming the best in class at passing tests and pleasing the teacher, drop in a pinch of clinical psychotic behavior in the upper levels of management, and you've created the perfect Frankenstein organization.
Microsoft.
See it's always the software.
Is it a bird? No. Is it a plane? No. It's XBoX 360 on a string !!
Since anyone who would pay those insane prices for a Game system obviously don't have a sex life (non virtual) anyway
Diplomacy is the art of saying "Nice doggie" until you can find a rock. Will Rogers
This absurd situation is the direct result of buying a sysphisticated piece of electronic hardware from a software company.
;-)
... a huge software monopoly
... nope never could happen. For the flamers reading: Apple is primarily a hardware company, they are merely most famous for their software (well until iPod) and that software is the hook, the justification, for buying their more expensive hardware (have to cite the Mini as a break in that historical trend - not in a literal sense but in a practical sense). This is why they will not offer Mac OS X for the standard PC architecture.
Microsoft has produced sophisticated hardware before, for example Z80 coprocessor cards for Apple IIs. This let Apple II users run CP/M back in the day.
OK that was a while ago, more recently we have keyboard, mice, joysticks. Not quite sophisticated, even when you toss in force feeback
The above may not qualify as sophisticated by it does show that they are also a hardware company to some degree.
And, uh, you are aware that the XBox360 is a followup to something called the XBox? I think that little piece of hardware may fall in to the "sophisticated" category.
Irrelevant. Apple enjoys an equally monopolistic position over *it's* customers and Apple is able to design some very nice hardware.
This kind of thing, and hell, this precise situation, would never happen in a company that is run by engineers.
Like a hardware company named Apple, a company that has been producing sophisticated hardware for nearly 30 years? Oh yeah, they've never shipped with bad power supplies, bad batteries that could catch on fire,
If use of Apple offends you we could use HP (pre-Compaq), Intel, or a host of other companies to prove the same point.
I feel like a dunce. I thought the 360 was for 360 degrees in a full circle. But clearly it is for 360 degrees, the operating temperature of the power supply (you get to choose Fahrenheit or Celsius).
...until one of these power supplies burns someones house down and nearly kills them? Is that burning I smell?
I used to have a better sig but it broke.
Be serious, that could have driven up costs by two cents per unit.
:-)
Have you forgotten the new MS business model introduced at GDC: incremental sales / micro sales.
Apparently it was not just for in game items, customizing your race car for example. I expect aftermarket kits to be available from MS with new rubber feet. Perhaps as the CPU or case thermometer detects an unsafe temperature level they can pop up a dialog advertising the kit.
You should contact the legal firm of Spiro Moss Barness, etc... They are one of many firms united in a class action lawsuit about the Thompson DVD drives that were used in the Xbox. Microsoft seem to have been aware of the lack of quality in these drives as later models used different manufacturers. Despite this, if you talk to their customer service reps, they continue to ask you if your discs are dirty despite the fact you tell them you just bought the damn game.
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I don't give a rat's ass about Sony's problems. I'm here to ask about the awful consumer experience I had with my original Xbox and what exactly is the truth about this new product. Here are links that show what a known issue those drives were.
http://sentientcreations.com/xboxIssues/problem.p
http://www.llamma.com/xbox/Repairs/xbox_dvd_repai
Now there's an entire market based upon replacing your Xbox's DVD drive with a better one such as Samsung.
Microsoft's support solution: clean the disc. No matter how many times you tell them the disc is brand new, they say it's a dirty disc.
http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb
Then there was the power supply issue. A recall in which power cords were issued to cover up shoddy circuitry that could and did cause house fires. Mostly due to bad soldering. In the recall, older Xboxes were given power cords with breakers, so in the event of a short, you may burn out your Xbox but at least your house won't burn down.
http://s4.invisionfree.com/Popular_Technology/ar/
So a few weeks ago we started to see Xbox 360s in demo retail models showing the dreaded Error 74. Photograph of it here.
http://joystiq.com/entry/1234000480066825/
Now we have reports of crashes that yes, are online and could be from a vocal minority, but I have never heard of or owned a console that crashes the way photographs show us is happening to the 360 - and let's remember the people complaining about it are the ones who braved the cold and the nuisance of picking one up.
http://www.kotaku.com/gaming/xbox-360/hours-old-a
Now apparently there is a fix in the form of suspending the power supply. People are finding it's working. Ergo, the power supply is defective. Just like the one on the original Xbox which was RECALLED.
Whatever marketing spiel Microsoft want to give, I want for them to answer one thing. What exactly is Error 74 and Error 79 - what does it mean is happening to the box. They have refused, as they did with the Thompson DVD drive, to let us know what is going wrong. Even if it isolated. Does it bode poorly for the future? Why is there a SPECIFIC error message already in the box's OS that is happening to people?
Now we know for certain that the machine is not only prone to overheating, there is an inbuilt error message related to it.
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/907533/
And did you hear about how the tech support person told that guy to "wipe his video cables with a soft cloth"? Too rich.
** http://www.nkhumanrights.or.kr/ ** Human rights in North Korea. 1 million estimated dead from starvation.
Isn't the 360 the button u press on it to reboot.
I have contacted each of the cooling device manuafacturers and they are on this already. There is a new water cooling solution being produced specifically for the X-360 power supply and it will be at the affordable rate of $199.99.
Q: I am short, useless and provide no value. What am I? A: a sig
The 1700-th piece! How will they ever get this to the market?
Seriously though, they must have done almost NO testing with this thing, because this couldn't have gone unnoticed unless they ran it only while suspended in an anti-gravity field. I doubt they'd have that kind of foresight though.
I admit that I'm not into gaming, but from all I read about the 360, I think water cooling the Power supply by submerging it in a bathtub would be the best long term solution. Don't get in the tub with it though!
Trouble, a mistake or fun, your choice
"Sir, I suggest you put the brick into your lap, very hard."
I don't really own an Xbox, but I consider that less than friendly advice. Nor do I see how it would help the brick dissipate heat.
The DIY string is much better.
Friends don't help friends install M$ junk.
If they've been able to insert such a subtle bug into the PSU, we all waiting to see the jewels that have been stuffed inside the box!
By the way, this also means that at MS they have never tested the units longer than 20 minutes. Or maybe they never succeded to.
Cool!
Maybe Computers will never be as intelligent as Humans.
For sure they won't ever become so stupid. [VR-1988]
Why are there so many volrages needed for a pieve of kit. Even the ones that take four AAs need, variously, 4.2V 4.3V 4.5V 5V 5.5V 6V.
WHY!!??!??!
Hmm. Tape takes care of DRM...
String solved overheating problems...
Does Staples or Office Depot sell stock? I have a feeling they could help me become very rich, soon...
what's the problem people? just dunk it in a bowl of water and all your troubles are over!
shanegrant.com
string moral="Don't buy Microsoft products.";
What the hell are the people doing by buying the XBOX while there is other better consoles!
The human is the only animal who fall twice with the same stone.
I bet MS did not test the power supply sitting on a carpet. And, I would bet that the failing units are either sitting on a carpet, or sitting somewhere else where they collect a lot of heat.
Now that we know the crash is a heat problem, this one is an easy "fix" until MS reworks the power supply.
I have a mini fridge, so I drilled holes and leave the power supply in there. Works PERFECTLY!
In a related story, Bill Gates, chairman of Microsoft, has sworn to crack down on Xbox modifying or "modding". According to Gates, "These rogue hackers are going to be punished. We will prosecute those unlawfully ignoring the DMCA". Microsoft's CEO added "I'm going to fucking kill string". We contacted fibre-deviant "Goldeneyemaster", but he failed to comment.
Clearly you never tried Microsoft's wireless routers. I've had a few friends/customers with them and not ONE of the 4-5 lasted more than 4 months! After that it would lock up (need to be unplugged and re-plugged) about daily or fail entirely. M$'s support is non-exstent. Not to mention they shortly after discontinued any atempt at making networking hardware.
And yes- a mouse and keyboard are pretty simple technologies. Yippie.
-M
when you see the word 'Linux', drink!
I mean, come on, fixed with string? What's next, over-clocking with baling wire & bubble gum?
If Microsoft start calling it iString I swear I'm gonna snap!
Why not just make a U shape with the cord and lay the power supply on the U shape of the cord which in essence would leave a small gab beneath it, this solution works without any need for extra supplies.. Just my two cents!
"If I was smarter I could rule the world!"
Answers on a postcard to: http://www.microsoft.com/xbox360-fires
I've seen this mentioned elsewhere. My 360 sits in a closed cabinet with little airflow and the power brick is behind the home theater under a pile of cables like all the others. No problems or crashes yet and I've been playing it a lot.
Hm, I've opened the PC, unscrewed the PS from the frame, suspended it on a string from the side of the desk, but the bloody Windows continues cras!@#$%^.....
to an overheating regulator was to stand a frozen carton of milk over the place on the box that got hot... that's what I had to do until I got around to hacking the box and installing a bigger heatsink on the regulator chip. Perhaps the milk carton trick could work here?
Donald 'Duck' Dunn: We had a band powerful enough to turn goat piss into gasoline.
The XBOX 360 is a typical product where the weight on design, was put over
..
usability, or customer satisfaction and therefor the overheating PSU only remains a symptom,
but its the point that it even happens, dont they have a Quallity Management,
to test this device under several circumstances, with orignal equipment,
and not with the super stabilized PSU from the laboratory.
And when heat is a problem what also can happen, a fire, babies
with hands burned touching these PSUs accidently while crawling on floor.
Despite what can happen, its a shame that Microsoft is unable, or
has no will, to build a fully functioning device, which works
under normal circumstances,
might be they wanted to be the first, but in consequence they are the very last in quallity,
you cant put it in your common 19" media rack, only with a plate placed on ok,
but its like if car-radios wouldnt fit into the ISO-slot, because sony thinks it needs to be a bit more designed, curved or anything
why not making it more like the normal 19" HIFI devices,
2 - 3 Height Units a good aircooled and embeded, but silent PSU,
detachable mounting plates for rack installation, connectors to your amplfier or dolby-receiver, there placed where it makes sense, and not where
a designer thinks it looks good
My prediction for the next heat wave, go to the store and say,
"I need an A/C to run my XBOX/2*pi".
Has anyone else noticed the little rubber feet on the PSU?
;)
Clearly it is meant to be placed with those facing down, yet all
the pics I've seen of problematic PSUs they are resting on their sides with
the feet sticking sideways. PEBXB360....and, uh, the couch??
that the Xbox360 power supply was sponsered by Duraflame logs as part of an intentional relief effort to combat the rising costs of heating oil for homes.
You are who you are, let no one tell you different. But, never close your mind to a new point of view.
On the plus side, the 360 has a much warmer sound.
Atlas Shrugged : Thematic Story
Perhaps skimping out on the power supply -- an arguably easy item to replace via warranty -- instead of other internal components was a worthy risk, all things considered. I'd say this was a calculated cost-cutting measure, IMHO.
body massage!
What exactly was involved in the QA process for the 360?
Well you see, first there was a big launch with people lining up outside Best Buy... then all the "QA" people paid for the opportunity to QA and so on an so forth.
QA's going pretty well it would seem, only a few issues so far.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
Their manual should explain in large print that you simply cannot put this device into an enclosed space unless it is very well ventilated. And that if you do, you should separate the power supply if at all possible, and definitely not put the power supply directly behind the device.
The first part of the info is in the manual, but it isn't made clear enough, IMHO.
Honestly, the 360 should monitor its own intake and output temperatures and if it senses it is taking in hot air that might be coming from the exhaust or power supply, it should give an indication on screen and a good explanation of what to do about it. Until they can get onto a smaller process, and thus generate less heat, this is really the best they can do, explain how to get around it.
Mine's never messed up, even though It reaches 104F ambient in there and the intake air reaches 119.1F under the condtions I've used it. So the system is pretty tolerant of heat (well, mine is), they just need to explain better how putting it in an enclosed space thwarts all the work they did.
After doing experiments on it every day since Tuesday (when I got it), I now have settled on what I am going to do. I'm going to put at least one 120mm fan in my stereo rack, blowing air in. I think this will do it, but if necessary, I'll have a setup with one blowing out too. Turning it on and off is a problem, since the 360 can be turned on and off from the remote (wireless!) I don't want to mess that up. So I ordered temperature-sensitive fan controller that can turn itself completely off under the right conditions. I'll put one of its temperature sensors by the output fan of the 360 and tell it to turn the 120mm fan on starting at 110F. Then it'll turn on and off with the 360 automatically.
A system like this could be very affordable and simple, if made specifically for 360, and made in quantity. I wonder if I should make one and try to sell it? I figure I could perhaps sell the whole thing with a fan and temperature probe for $50-$60, including my profit.
Wow, my system is really spiking right now. I guess PGR3 generates a lot more heat than Kameo. It was 112.1F and dropping when I switched from Kameo to PGR3, now it's 113.9F and rising, and that's with the fan on (but very constricted).
http://lkml.org/lkml/2005/8/20/95
Cast:
Adrian Wapcaplet: John Cleese
Mr. Simpson: Eric Idle
Adrian Wapcaplet: Aah, come in, come in, Mr....Simpson. Aaah, welcome to Mousebat, Follicle, Goosecreature, Ampersand,
Spong, Wapcaplet, Looseliver, Vendetta and Prang!
Mr. Simpson: Thank you.
Adrian Wapcaplet: Do sit down--my name's Wapcaplet, Adrian Wapcaplet...
Mr. Simpson: how'd'y'do.
Wapcaplet: Now, Mr. Simpson... Simpson, Simpson... French, is it?
Mr. Simpson: No.
Adrian Wapcaplet: Aah. Now, I understand you want us to advertise your washing powder.
Mr. Simpson: String.
Adrian Wapcaplet: String, washing powder, what's the difference. We can sell *anything*.
Mr. Simpson: Good. Well I have this large quantity of string, a hundred and twenty-two thousand *miles* of it to be exact,
which I inherited, and I thought if I advertised it--
Adrian Wapcaplet: Of course! A national campaign. Useful stuff, string, no trouble there.
Mr. Simpson: Ah, but there's a snag, you see. Due to bad planning, the hundred and twenty-two thousand miles is in three
inch lengths. So it's not very useful.
Adrian Wapcaplet: Well, that's our selling point! "SIMPSON'S INDIVIDUAL STRINGETTES!"
Mr. Simpson: What?
Adrian Wapcaplet: "THE NOW STRING! READY CUT, EASY TO HANDLE, SIMPSON'S INDIVIDUAL EMPEROR
STRINGETTES - JUST THE RIGHT LENGTH!"
Mr. Simpson: For what?
Adrian Wapcaplet: Uuuh..."A MILLION HOUSEHOLD USES!"
Mr. Simpson: Such as?
Adrian Wapcaplet: Uhmm...Tying up very small parcels, attatching notes to pigeons' legs, uh, destroying household pests...
Mr. Simpson: Destroying household pests?! How?
Adrian Wapcaplet: Well, if they're bigger than a mouse, you can strangle them with it, and if they're smaller than, you flog
them to death with it!
Mr. Simpson: Well *surely*!....
Adrian Wapcaplet: "DESTROY NINETY-NINE PERCENT OF KNOWN HOUSEHOLD PESTS WITH PRE-SLICED,
RUSTPROOF, EASY-TO-HANDLE, LOW CALORIE SIMPSON'S INDIVIDUAL EMPEROR STRINGETTES, FREE
FROM ARTIFICIAL COLORING, AS USED IN HOSPITALS!"
Mr. Simpson: 'Ospitals!?!?!?!!?
Adrian Wapcaplet: Have you ever in a Hospital where they didn't have string?
Mr. Simpson: No, but it's only *string*!
Adrian Wapcaplet: ONLY STRING?! It's everything! It's...it's waterproof!
Mr. Simpson: No, it isn't!
Adrian Wapcaplet: All right, it's water resistant then!
Mr. Simpson: It, isn't!
Adrian Wapcaplet: All right, it's water absorbent! It's...Super Absorbent String! "ABSORB WATER TODAY WITH
SIMPSON'S INDIVIDUAL WATER ABSORB-A-TEX STRINGETTES! AWAY WITH FLOODS!"
Mr. Simpson: You just said it was waterproof!
Adrian Wapcaplet: "AWAY WITH THE DULL DRUDGERY OF WORKADAY TIDAL WAVES! USE SIMPSON'S
INDIVIDUAL FLOOD PREVENTERS!"
Mr. Simpson: You're mad!
Adrian Wapcaplet: Shut up, shut up, shut up! Sex, sex sex, must get sex into it. Wait, I see a television commercial - There's
this nude woman in a bath holding a bit of your string. That's great, great, but we need a doctor, got to have a medical opinion.
There's a nude woman in a bath with a doctor--that's too sexy. Put an archbishop there watching them, that'll take the curse
off it. Now, we need children and animals. There's two kids admiring the string, and a dog admiring the archbishop who's
blessing the string. Uhh...international flavor's missing...make the archbishop Greek Orthodox. Why not Archbishop
Macarios? No, no, he's dead... never mind, we'll get his brother, it'll be cheaper... So there's archbishop Macarios, his brother
and a doctor in the bath with this nude woman, two doctors and a dog....
fail under normal conditions
:)
Now, obviously MS probably should have expected some people to play the XBox360 non-stop since they got it, but I doubt they considered 72hrs straight as a normal condition when they designed and tested it
(that being said, it's silly that they're having so many problems)
Returned Peace Corps IT Volunteer
Microsoft is just trying to give the third-party component manufacturers a jump-start. LED, carbon-fiber, transparent, or USB-powered string will soon be available for the 10-16 year old male demographic who are all ready to trick out their 360's. Monster will release "gold-plated quadruple shielded" string for a mere $79.99 for 3 feet of string ("but it comes with a lifetime warranty!!"). :)
Do not taunt happy fun power supply!
Weaselmancer
rediculous.
Has anyone had any POSITIVE experience with contacting MS about the over-heating issue?
If no one has, then the silence is truly deafening.
It seems at the very least Tech Support should be suggesting PSU suspension as a temporary fix...but what about the long term? Are there promises of replacement? Or--in the worst case--refund?
adlib24
p.s. I don't own an console system (alas) so I have nothing against (or in favor of) MS consoles.
Wow, if they're having these kinds of overheating issues now, in the middle of the winter, imagine what kind of hell will occur come summertime! No amount of string will help that issue; in order to use the 360, people will have to have box fans blowing on the damn things almost constantly in a "cool" (for the summertime, at least) room - at best.
One has to wonder what exactly MS was thinking (or not thinking, as the case may be), and how they planned to make these consoles last long enough to get their money out of them through game purchases.
~/ssh slashdot.org ssh: connect to host slashdot.org port 22: too many beers
Dell
One ring to bind them - should probably have more fiber and less rings in their diet.
have you got a source for this?
copyright © 2005 Flamsmsmark the ravings of a melancholly i
The 360 power supply is big...we all know why its big and there isnt much that can be done, there is alot of hardware in that box and it needs juice to run.
The problem here is there is no vents on the PSU to let air in or out of it so of course its gonna get hot, its thick plastic so its not like it will disapate heat very well.
didn't ya'll know? the xbox 360 special edition air conditioner shoul dbe available in early 2006!
from the gods?
copyright © 2005 Flamsmsmark the ravings of a melancholly i
I am very familiar with consumer products, thanks. I am involved with a major consumer product that you might even own yourself!
0 93938
The MS brick converts 120V AC to 12V DC (plus 5V). It's a 240+W PS. That means it is running 20A of 12V power. No one runs 20A farther than they need to, because you need very large gauge wire. Even with solid wire (like in your house) you need a large gauge wire. In your house, you would use 12 gauge or 10 gauge. MS had to use stranded wire, so the wire would be flexible. That means they need even larger gauge wire than otherwise.
Given all of this, you would normally make the wire very short, so you can use thinner wire and less of it. The only reason to spend extra to make the wire as long as it is so you can keep the power supply farther from the unit.
Have you seen the size of the connector? It gives you an idea of the currents involved. And the wire is quite thick.
I dunno about the brick being what turns off, since mine isn't having such problems. I do know that I talked personally to a person who was having the "two red lights" on the 360 main unit, which means the main unit overheated. This wouldn't happen if the brick shut off, there would be no lights on, obviously. And when it rebooted, it wouldn't know it had been shut off due to heat instead of being unplugged.
As to the main unit not being an issue, you think that the space my unit is in hitting 104F is "not the issue"? What happens in the summer when the ambient in my house goes to 100F (I don't have A/C)? The space containing the main unit will hit at least 120F. By my measures, that means the exhaust temp from the main unit will be over 140F. Not a problem?
The intake temps in my regular running conditions (when the unit doesn't shut off) hit 119F. And ambient was 68F. This obviously wouldn't happen if it weren't in a cabinet, the intake would be close to ambient.
So, I've investigated, and I cannot agree with your conclusions. In fact, I'm going to return to mine. If you put the PS brick directly behind the main unit, the unit will suck its own air, and it'll heat up the PS too! Relocate the PS so it isn't behind the main unit, but you don't need to suspend it from strings.
And to those who respond and say this heat stuff is way out of hand, I am way ahead of you. http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=169069&cid=14
But now that I have it, and I like the games, I simply have to make the best of it. And don't think PS3 will be any different. The amount of gaming power these two consoles have means they will take a lot of power and inexorably turn it into heat. And no matter how effectively they move the heat outside their own box, if you put them in another box (a stereo cabinet), it will heat up the cabinet.
http://lkml.org/lkml/2005/8/20/95
I was just hoping that Active Death moved out of prototype and was implemented in the Xbox 360... oh well...
No, post the UL number on the bottom. That number can be used to find out who really manufactures the PSU.
In all likelyhood, it's FSP Group, Delta, or LiteON.
Now we know for certain that the machine is not only prone to overheating, there is an inbuilt error message related to it.
Kind of like the BIOS shipped with every PC nowadays? They'll even shut your computer down for you if it gets too hot. Man, all of those PC manufacturers must KNOW their PCs are defective because there's built-in thermal error message, right?
It's called fault-tolerance.
paintball
... will that solution work?
...this comes to mind:
Adrian Wapcaplet: Aah, come in, come in, Mr....Simpson. Aaah, welcome to
Mousebat, Follicle, Goosecreature, Ampersand, Spong, Wapcaplet, Looseliver,
Vendetta and Prang!
Mr. Simpson: Thank you.
Wapcaplet: Do sit down--my name's Wapcaplet, Adrian Wapcaplet...
Mr. Simpson: how'd'y'do.
Wapcaplet: Now, Mr. Simpson... Simpson, Simpson... French, is it?
S: No.
W: Aah. Now, I understand you want us to advertise your washing powder.
S: String.
W: String, washing powder, what's the difference. We can sell *anything*.
S: Good. Well I have this large quantity of string, a hundred and twenty-two
thousand *miles* of it to be exact, which I inherited, and I thought if I
advertised it--
W: Of course! A national campaign. Useful stuff, string, no trouble there.
S: Ah, but there's a snag, you see. Due to bad planning, the hundred and
twenty-two thousand miles is in three inch lengths. So it's not very
useful.
W: Well, that's our selling point!
"SIMPSON'S INDIVIDUAL STRINGETTES!"
S: What?
W: "THE NOW STRING! READY CUT, EASY TO HANDLE, SIMPSON'S INDIVIDUAL EMPEROR
STRINGETTES - JUST THE RIGHT LENGTH!"
S: For what?
W: "A MILLION HOUSEHOLD USES!"
S: Such as?
W: Uhmm...Tying up very small parcels, attatching notes to pigeons' legs, uh,
destroying household pests...
S: Destroying household pests?! How?
W: Well, if they're bigger than a mouse, you can strangle them with it, and if
they're smaller than, you flog them to death with it!
S: Well *surely*!....
W: "DESTROY NINETY-NINE PERCENT OF KNOWN HOUSEHOLD PESTS WITH PRE-SLICED,
RUSTPROOF, EASY-TO-HANDLE, LOW CALORIE SIMPSON'S INDIVIDUAL EMPEROR
STRINGETTES, FREE FROM ARTIFICIAL COLORING, AS USED IN HOSPITALS!"
S: 'Ospitals!?!?!?!!?
W: Have you ever in a Hospital where they didn't have string?
S: No, but it's only *string*!
W: ONLY STRING?! It's everything! It's...it's waterproof!
S: No it isn't!
W: All right, it's water resistant then!
S: It isn't!
W: All right, it's water absorbent! It's...Super Absorbent String!
"ABSORB WATER TODAY WITH SIMPSON'S INDIVIDUAL WATER ABSORB-A-TEX
STRINGETTES! AWAY WITH FLOODS!"
S: You just said it was waterproof!
W: "AWAY WITH THE DULL DRUDGERY OF WORKADAY TIDAL WAVES! USE SIMPSON'S
INDIVIDUAL FLOOD PREVENTERS!"
S: You're mad!
W: Shut up, shut up, shut up! Sex, sex sex, must get sex into it. Wait,
I see a television commercial-
There's this nude woman in a bath holding a bit of your string. That's
great, great, but we need a doctor, got to have a medical opinion.
There's a nude woman in a bath with a doctor--that's too sexy. Put an
archbishop there watching them, that'll take the curse off it. Now, we
need children and animals.
There's two kids admiring the string, and a dog admiring the archbishop
who's blessing the string. Uhh...international flavor's missing...make the
archbishop Greek Orthodox. Why not Archbishop Macarios? No, no, he's
dead... nevermind, we'll get his brother, it'll be cheaper... So, there's
this nude woman....
What is Xbox?
So there's archbishop Macarios, his brother
and a doctor in the bath with this nude woman, two doctors and a dog....
Archbishop Macarios's brother
You fail it!
Am I the only one who thinks this is a lame hack to be on a tech forum's front page? Admittedly, I don't follow console news and had never seen an XBox before, so initially I thought the guy cranked up the voltage of the (internal) power supply of this machine. Would have been nice.
Soon it became clear that he apparently just took it out and hung it to strings. Rather lame.
Ultimately I discovered that the power supply is external. While it was a good idea to suspend it in the air this is not the kind of hack I am impressed with as front page news. Seriously.
Guess someone finally found a good use for those audiophile cable lifter thingies...
Jw
But is it big enough to, like the original xbox, warrant a warning in the manual that if it falls, it may injure small children?
This whole thing is getting blown out of proportion. Mine has had absolutley zero problems, mostly by just keeping both the console and the "power brick" as they are starting to call it on hard surfaces with reasonable ventalation. sure it gets a little warm but nothing to warrant hanging it by a string. I hate that a few people's stupidity and isolated problems get blown out of proportion like this. People should settle down a bit.
MadCatz could sell the string as an Xbox 360 accessory, it's brilliant!
How much power are we talking about here? Sheesh...
Are there any other consumer electronics that have had external PSUs even close to this in capacity??
You can't do that! That's Pritchard's Instant Custard Powder Ad!
The reason people buy a console as oppsed to being a PC gamer is for the turnkey solution to gaming. They are the people who dont want to design and build a PC or even make sure they have the latest patches and updated drivers for a pre-built one. They want to turn it on, sit down and play. Now most of you would say "any idiot would know that a piece of equipment like this needs proper ventilation." I agree with this myself, but the demographic that consoles are marketed towards contain lots of the type of people who just want it to work without any hassles.
Microsoft should have thought in advance that people were going to sit in on the floor, put it in cabinets, stack junk on it etc. They should have a bright yellow flashing sticker that warns against the cabinet idea, but when they overheat sitting on carpet? Thats just poor design plain and simple.
The best argument against democracy is a five-minute conversation with the average voter.
- Winston Churchill
That's not a bug, its a feature.
Just like Son'ys XPC DRM protection.
oh... you meant "XP Cool" I guess Sony won't be suing MS
[Fuck Beta]
o0t!
I've seen crappy power supplies wreak havoc on many devices. SonicWALL had a nasty episode a few years back. (My company is a reseller.) I called in a problem on one of my customers' units and SonicWALL had a box of two dozen new power supplies fedexed to me the next day.
So you save 18 cents on some wack-brand power supply.... It'll cost you dearly in support costs.
My Nintendo 64 always overheated after I installed the memory upgrade. I had to keep the little door off, and once had a fan blowing on it because I didn't want Golden Eye to freeze. It had plenty of space to self cool it just couldn't do it.
To fix the xbox over-heating problems, update the xbox software over the "Live" service, and make sure to keep the machine on a flat surface in a well ventilated area and you should be ok. Lots of these heating problems are ventilation issues.
Horns are really just a broken halo.
In Soviet Russia, the Revolution waits for YOU! Wait now, did I win anything?
A World in a Grain of Sand / Heaven in a Wild Flower,
Infinity in the Palm of your Hand / And Eternity in an Hour.
The amount of heat generated by anything goes up as the volume, but the ability to dissipate heat only goes up as the square. Which means you can only make heat-generating things up to a certain size vefore they require cooling.
That's why internal-combustion cylinders can only be made so big-- somewhere around 3-4 liters each there's too much heat generated to be carried away by the limited wall space.
Same thing with power supplies-- you can nowdays build them to generate lots of watts per cubic inch, but then getting rid of the heat is a problem.
In a floor-mount power supply you really can't use a fan-- it would get clogged up very quickly by your house dust and cat hairs. They could have used an extruded aluminum case with heat-sink fins on it, but that would have added a couple dollars to the cost. Plus requiring a three-wire line cord and extra certificationh.
So they went with some marginal convection cooling vents and a lot of finger-crossing.
Not too surprising if they were the same floks that designed the old xbox power supply, with its bound-to-break power connector.
I was hoping I could just install .NET on the power supply and adjust its heat with a string .
I would've thanked Microsoft for their proactive thinking.
You can hold down the "B" button for continuous firing.
Underwriters Laboratories tested and certified the XBox360 as being safe, why shouldn't they share some of the blame?
It's a custom power supply, it's not oversized. I do agree it might not be running 240W all the time, but if it can run 240W, you have to size the cables such that it can do so safely.
My computer's power supply doesn't have thick wires because the wires are shorter (power dissipated in the cable goes down with the resistance of the cable, which goes down with length). It also has multiple parallel conductors. The Xbox 360 PS has 6 conductors, and produces two rails (+12V, +5V). It probably has parallel conductors too, but that doesn't make the overall cable size smaller. Look at your PC power supply, see the total size of the wires exiting the PS? The bundle is about 1" in diameter, and again, it usually has a 12-16" wire, not a 24"+ one.
I don't know what kind of electrical engineer you are, but the voltage on the wire doesn't change the size of the conductor unless you are having a problem with total flux through your wire. I can tell you that your home wires aren't even close to having problems with that. The voltage also changes the insulation (breakdown voltage), but that's not technically the conductor.
I do agree that the wattage rating of the power supply is the total of all the rails. However, you must realize that all 12V is the BEST case for current. Any +5V output means even more current required to make the total wattage than my example at +12V.
Understand this, whether you use thick wires or more parallel conductors, extra current (not extra watts) means you need to increase the amount of wire you are buying. Extra length also means you need more wire, because you not only are making the cable longer, but you need to have more conductor cross section to keep the resistance down too.
So, in short, extra length costs more. Thus, I return to my assertion that MS wouldn't be paying for extra length for no reason, not when the speced the power supply themselves anyway.
I'm sorry to hear you designed a product I use. With your lousy grasp of total flux and current versus conductor size and saying that you would use average or typical current to size cables instead of maximum, I am genuinely concerned now. I hope you have EE backup for whatever you designed.
http://lkml.org/lkml/2005/8/20/95
I have a carpet, therefore my home does not meet the minimum specifications for owning a xbox360, how idiotic is that...I love carpeting it keeps my feet warm. But the worst part is that idiots will still line up to buy this engineering fiasco, that out of the gate doesnt work properly...you think they would have tried it out at somebody's house since its a HOME CONSOLE.
Nintendo : Apple :: Microsoft : Microsoft.
It's been out 6 days, that's about 140 hours.
I know of a quite reputable company that ships consumer products with far less burn-in than 140 hours.
Why would you burn in a device for 140 hours? How many problems do you think you find after the first 8 hours but before the 140 is up?
I guess I agree with the idea that it isn't proven in the field yet. But there's nothing you can do about that. You can't wait until it's proven in the field before shipping it, that's a catch-22.
Also, note that MS shipped a lot of debug/development units before the first customer ship. So there are a lot of people with more than a week on theirs. And that's if you don't count the Mt. Dew contest winners, who started getting them a week ago last Friday.
http://lkml.org/lkml/2005/8/20/95
According to Marketplace on Thanksgiving, the failure rate of the Xbox 360 is about 15%.2 4/PM200511242.html
http://marketplace.publicradio.org/shows/2005/11/
I'm sure few people in the US remember this, but the same exact problem plagued the Playstation 2 launch. Difference is that the launch occured in Japan so Sony had two months to "fix" the problem. The fix? A secondary fan that only kicks on occasionally and will shake the television out of the entertainment center.
steve
Maybe they should market it as a free heater instead.
"Buy the new Xbox 360 now and get a stylish living room heater at no additional cost!"
The release date for Australia will be March/April of next year. After the heat of summer. Anyone find that funny?
actually theres a sue to microsoft about this
http://www.theinquirer.net/?article=27873
Why would suspending the power supply in mid-air fix this? Air is an excellent insulator! Better to conduct heat to a heat sink, like the floor.
I wasn't trying to make an argument that "core competencies" don't exist or matter! My point was, in today's electronics and computer marketplace, all of the serious "contenders" are sub-contracting out product manufacturing to the same people, overseas.
Some people still seem to believe the illusion that because Dell has a facility in Round Rock, Texas, or because Apple is headquartered in Cuppertino, California, that their products are assembled here in the United States.
Many others are savvy enough to know this is NOT the case at all, yet they still operate under the flawed idea that quality of product is directly related to the abilities of the engineers at the firm. As soon as you give up your manufacturing to a 3rd. party, you lose a large measure of control over the product's outcome. (EG. Your own engineer can specify that he/she wants X and Y out of a component, but who's to say that corners aren't being cut on the assembly line that will cause early failures down the road?)
I haven't ever seen a shred of evidence to support the notion that because Microsoft's "core business" is software, that they're unable to build a quality piece of hardware. I have one of their keyboards on my PC right now, and it's very high quality, balanced with a very reasonable retail price (about $24.95). I've used several of their mice, which I'd rank up there with the best the industry has to offer. When you have as much money as Microsoft, there's simply no reason you can't hire on the type of talent you need if and when you want to undertake a hardware project.
Everything I heard about Xbox 360 crashes led me to the most blatently obvious answer - keep that machine cool. It's such a common problem nowadays. If only the 360 came with a hydrolic cooling system...
Well, you're half right. Nintendo of America has its headquarters in Redmond. Nintendo (the parent company) has its headquarters in Kyoto, Japan.
In a couple of weeks Microsoft will release a hotfix (no pun intended). It will consist of a package of floss, with the xbox logo on it.
In a month, you will see a Service Pack which includes the above floss, plus a sticky zip-tie thingy to stick to the ceiling to help with the suspension.
So.... can you use a standard PC power supply (with a custom connector) to power the damn thing?
--- sig moved for great justice.
MS Flunkie: Mr Gates, the new Xbox power supply is overheating when placed in customers living rooms.
Gates: Strange!! The beta unit worked perfectly in my platinum / gold tiled media room.
[Insert pithy quote here]
You spelled "democratizing the marketplace" wrong.
If there is as big a heat problem as gamers are describing, then the folk who designed the box seriously screwed up. When I studied electronics (a 2 year college thing, years ago before getting a BSc. in Comp.Sci.), the circuit design was the first part. It had to be electrically correct and functional. Amps, volts, ohms first. Then you had to calculate (calculate!) the heat load in terms of power (heat in watts), and sink the power with either passive or active cooling. Resisters had to be large enough to sink the voltage drop they provided to the circuit. The power supply bridge rectifier has to have diodes big enough so handle (at least) half the circuit load. The capacitors have to be able to clean up the ripple reasonably well, and you need a regulator heavy enough to clean up the rest (digital circuits like fairly clean DC with picofarad capacitors between the power and ground of each chip). The voltage regulator, and bridge rectifier need heat sinks heavy enough to dissipate the heat, and the sinks have to have adequate ventilation to work properly. If you have to hack up the box in order for it to be cooled properly, then there is too much heat in the box. Also if the boot prom (with bootloader and OS) are in the CPU core, heat can start doing wacky stuff to the prom (initially thermal stress). The excessive heat can also screw up the CPU and GPU (not to mention melting the DVD). Every circuit has to have proper cooling (unless you want a fire). Its part of the design. Apparently Microsoft sacrificed UL standards for vanity. Oooh what a kewel game (well, you know, until it burns your house down). I offer this product the KrustyBrand(tm) Seal of Approval: "It's not good, it's good enough!"
Power supplies overheating when not in the right position seems like a problem that Microsoft should have noticed when they tested the machines.
I think that they probably did test them....in their air-conditioned laboratories.
They should test the boxes like they will be used. On a shag carpeted floor, in a small cabinet, in direct sunlight, etc.
I quite personally would not be surprised if the wires that connect the xbox to the controllers start breaking within 2 months. They probably tested those by leaving them straight the entire time they weren't used. Not wrapped up around the controller and thrown into the back of a cabinet under the T.V.
One last note: people who wait 12 hours outside a store for an xbox are crazy.
-1 disagree is not a modifier for a reason. -1 troll, flaimbait, redundant, overrated are NOT acceptable substitutes.
I dont own a xbox360, nor will I since I have carpeting and Am afraid the thing will burn my house down or singe my cat. I cant even imagine how much electricity that power supply must eat compared to my gamecube or playstation 2...probably more than both of them combined! That thing is big enough to be a game system unto itself.
I am curious as to when Microsoft will begin to admit they have a problem with the 360 and will take responsibility for the problem? The first step to recovery is to admit you have a problem. :)
you might think that some of us by now would realize that PSUs create heat, and heat is bad for dense, synthetic materials like carpet. MS would have to make them all with two inch posts in every direction to satisfy every such condition that is not recomended in their own written materials. Imagine that, they even warn against it because it can over-generate heat...
It's over. Microsoft has failed. If they can't make a video game that doesn't crash, they're going to have to stick with mission critical software.
Sounds like a job for the empty can of corn heat sink and some thermally conductive RTV and maybe a fan.
I'd go on a Vegan diet but the delivery time from Vega is too long. --brownkitty
Typical Microsoft: Looks good Runs Bad And it costs a whole crapload of money. GNU all the way
Amid all the string jokes, there is some good in this to be found for those who dropped the wad of cash on this sucker (early adopters... will they NEVER learn?).
:)
Given that Microsoft used multiple manufacturers for various system components (presumably the PSU as well), it probably means that only one of them produced a bad batch. And at least it's just the PSU, which means it'd be easier and cheaper to replace. That, and be thankful the thing shuts down instead of arcing, melting, and causing fires.
It's not a great situation for gamers, but it could be worse
"I'm a leaf on the wind. Watch how I soar."
-Hoban Washburn
I so hate my PSPs dead pixels. After three returns I settled on two dead and two half-dead. It didn't bother me too much until now. Now that there is a couple of games to play on the thing. Stating that the dead pixels were a normal part of the process I found the biggest insult yet. Nothing informative here, just one guy's bitterness.
-- I have fans? Wow.
I stay clear of Sony. And when I preached that to my friends, they laughed, but now realize I was right. No exaggeration, between my friends and family, all of the Sony products I have encountered are broken. And they have the WORST warranty coverage.
Approximately 4 months after I bought my PS2, I notced my games were getting scratched up by the console to the point they were unplayable. I went to bring it in for warranty and noticed that you only get a 90-day warranty. Seriously, shouldn't you expect a $300 piece of equipment to last a little longer than 90 days? So, after a little photoshop magic, I brought it in for warranty repair. I got it back about 5 weeks later, with replacemnet discs for my ruined games. After about a week, same problem again. I brought it in for warranty again, and they fixed it again. It worked for about 6 more months before breaking again. This time the controller port was messed up. Since I'd have to fix it on my own or pay to get it fixed, it is now a useless pile of junk sitting next to my tv.
Two of my friends also had defective PS2's. Their units would generate disc read errors. I performed some photoshop magic for them as well and they got warranty service as well. Neither console works anymore.
None were modded.
Between friends and family, I've also run across a CD car head unit, DVD player and CD changer that all broke (either out of the box or in less than 1 year).
People who say "money does not buy happiness" are just people without money trying to make themselves feel better.
And if "Apple is primarily a hardware company" and "they will not offer Mac OS X for the standard PC architecture". . . then why are they releasing OS X for x86 (which is generally considered the "standard PC architecture")?
An architecture is far more than a CPU, far more than a CPU and a PCI chipset. The development systems that have been currently released are *not* using the final design, Apple has been pretty clear on that. The differences in the final design will be more than a DRM chip.
... Well that wouldn't be very fair, seeing as how all the debree from the WTC was hauled off to China and India for recycling before any failure analysis could be performed...
Learn the rules so you know how to break them properly.
www.teslabox.com
I'm sure there's SEVERAL acutions currently labeled as "Xbox 360 *BOX ONLY*"
Phew! That was a close one!
I'm not scared of anonymous cowards.
http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item =8238034794
A motorcycle mechanic once showed me a Honda manual full of precautions for working with the motorcycle battery. It began with straightforward things like preventing acid from dripping on the chain. But it went on. I've forgotten the exact wording but it was quite close to
"Do not drink the battery acid.
Frankly we cannot understand why anyone would want to drink battery acid. Acids in general have a terrible sour taste. But our legal staff told us we should include such a warning.
In the same spirit we would like to caution our readers against biting the tires, particularly while the vehicle in is motion.
We watch our legal staff closely to be sure that they do none of these foolish things"
Isn't Underwriter Laboratories supposed to test these things in a dozen different scenarios? I bet it doesn't have a UL sticker on it. Can anyone with a xbox 360 confirm?
quote from goldeneyemaster:
"I just think very creatively when it comes to technology things like this for some reason."
Get over yourself buddy, you're about as creative as pulling your hand away from a flame to avoid burning your flesh.
In other news, properly installing a heatsink/fan solution drastically increases CPUs lifespan...
Microsoft marketing designed the XBOX. They chose the
vendors to make the parts, they established some rather
bizarre goals, and they threw out at least one vendor
at the last minute because of said iffy goals. This
wasn't an engineering fiasco, it was a corporate
management fiasco.
I don't know the actual names involved, but I have to
wonder if XBOX-land isn't where the Cairo management
team ended up.
I have excellent reason to believe they spec'd the PS before
they had the finished product. The finished product required
more power than the PS could reasonably deliver, but MS went
with what was spec'd. Marketing and the bean counters had thus
decreed it.
String! I knew I was missing something there all along! Who would have thought a $400 computer could be fixed SIMPLY by knotting a piece of string about the power supply? Why didn't _I_ think of that!?!?
I suppose the only real reason I hadn't thought of that was because I don't have the luxury of sitting in a fluorescently-lit room with the air conditioner pushed down to 64F. I live in freakin' TEXAS you dolts! The only cold weather I experience is from my mother-in-law when she visits on holiday! The rest of the year is plagued by blood-sucking mosquitos the size of a Boeing 737 aircrafts, triple digit temperatures, and over one thousand percent humidity.
When one of you God-forsaken engineers at Microsoft comes up with a worthwhile solution to this lackluster power supply design defect, let us know. Until then, my bit of string and perhaps a square of cork are all I need to prop up my unit for optimum functional pleasure.
-- Game Developers: Stop porting badly-textured games from crappy console systems!