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."

Comments

Re:Rubber feet

[mkraft]

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.

Re:Quality Repairs

[letxa2000]

Wouldn't it be easier and more reliable to buy a power supply that functions without overheating? As long as it provides the correct voltage and is rated at the correct number of amps, there's nothing special about a given power supply.

Re:Quality Repairs

[ZorinLynx]

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

Chances are they bought the supplies in....

[Ellis D. Tripp]

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.

They've done worse before...

[garagekubrick]

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.

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.ph p

http://www.llamma.com/xbox/Repairs/xbox_dvd_repair .htm

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; en-us;8167

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/t 215.htm

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-an d-pgr3-crashing-like-mad-138978.php

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.

Re:MS has built hardware before

[King_TJ]

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.

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 ... 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.)

Re:Quality Repairs

[mkiwi]

As a both a Linear and Switching Power Supply Designer, I can say that if the supply is faulty in any way it will lead to catastrophe. If the supply gets so hot the the feedback loop (the thing that keeps XBox 360 from going nuts) is unstable, there are going to be bad consequences. A power supply also depends mainly on two types of engineers: Electrical and Mechanical. If the EE's did their job, then the ME's messed up when choosing how to place a fan or heatsink. A power supply should be able to work on carpet, bare floor, on top of a building. There is no excuse for having a bad supply on the 360.

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.