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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."
The power supply for the XBox 360 is almost as large as the XBox 360 itself. Maybe the power supply should be stood on its side, but I doubt people are considering that when they go to use the XBox 360.
I fail to see why this would be considered 'misuse' of the Xbox. It really ought to be able to live anywhere your stereo does. Especially with an external power brick that is dealing with much of the heat.
If Jesus wants me it knows where to find me.
Any decent power supply shouldn't have these problems.
If a power supply gets hot enough to fail under normal conditions, it's not a very efficient or well-designed power supply.
Modern switching power supplies should be able to function at temperature extremes without failing. Power supplies are mature technology; there's really no excuse for this.
Maybe MS should have gone with a well known high quality PSU maker like ASTEC for this.
-Z
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
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.
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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.
Yep, no mod points right now, or I'd give you one. Honestly, these days, it makes no difference who a company consists of for judging the relative quality of a hardware product they might produce. All that really matters is if they've got the money to bring it to market.
... just as they caused motherboard problems for Asus, Abit, and most others last year. All a result of a Chinese capacitor company trying to save money by using inferior electrolyte in them.)
You can bet that the XBox 360 power supply was produced over in China, Taiwan, Korea, or another nation like that, where everyone else's power supplies get built too. Why does Apple have all of these well-known hardware screw-ups despite being primarily a "hardware company" full of engineers doing R&D? Same reason! When you hear complaints of inconsistent color and "pinkish edges" on the new 23" Cinema displays, exploding batteries on one model of older Powerbook, failing backplanes on revision A iMac G5's, and much more - they're primarily due to failures due to lack of quality control on shipments from these 3rd. world countries. (EG. Faulty capacitors caused the backplane problems
Yeah, this just proves that MS doesn't get it when it comes to consumer electronics. Consumer electronics are used in the real world. That means they get used on carpet, the get crammed into cramped stereo cabinets, etc. You have to know how the product will be used and design it for that use, not try to design the use to your product. People just don't work that way. I think the more Sony sees, the less scared they are. MS can afford to continue to lose money on the consumer electronics sector, but at some point the shareholders are going to demand that they stop.
There are 4 boxes to use in the defense of liberty: soap, ballot, jury, ammo. Use in that order. Starting now.
The value of clean power is grosely exaggerated these days. Constant voltage is the real problem. An insufficiently rated (W) power supply will have trouble maintaining voltage expecially under varying loads. This is usually seen by crashes during games and random power downs.
The internal power circuitry of the cpu/mobo can easily "clean up" noisy power with a simple network of capacitors, however if the voltage is too low it can do nothing.
Probably what the engineers did was "think" they had a thermally stable supply when in fact the lab bench acted like a big heatsink. The thermal resistance from a lab bench would be much less compared to carpet. Finally, lab supplies are regulated so well that even if you do place them in high heat, they maintain constant power even though they are hot. The process this uses is negative feedback, and given the correct choice of chip material for the power supply controller, should never be an issue. If it is an issue, go back to Asia and yell at your designers for giving you a crappy supply.