Slashdot Mirror
Microsoft Insider Details Xbox 360 Red Ring Problems
kylemonger writes "A blogger at the Seattle PI has interviewed a Microsoft insider about the Xbox 360 project. The insider purports to have the background story on the 'red ring of death' (RROD) failures and why they are so common. 'RROD is caused by anything that fails in the "digital backbone" on the mother board. Also known as a core digital error. CPU, GPU, memory, etc. Bad parts, incompatible parts (timing problems) bad manufacturing process (like solder joints), misapplied heat sinks or thermal interface material, missing parts, broken parts, parts of the wrong value, missed test coverage. Any one or more, on any chip, or many other discrete components, would cause this. And many of the failures were obviously infant mortality, where they work when they leave the factory and fail early in use. The main design flaw was the excessive heat on the GPU warping the mother board around it. This would stress the solder joints on the GPU and any bad joints would then fail in early life. There are also other significantly high failure rates in other areas, like the DVD.'"
Because you just know it's going to fail.
At least their diagnostics were comprehensive enough to catch all those failure modes.
yeah lol
micro$oft 3
would you buy it had you known? Are you happy with it, with the games and online play and/or potential as media center and all that taken into account?
Or is it now an expensive doorstop, that you would buy NOW just to stick-it-the-man-oh-they-lose-money-with-each-unit-sold reasoning?
... that a common "fix" for RROD 360's is to wrap them in a towel. This causes the bad ROHS solder balls to expand and make better connections.
Even though I just sent in my third XBOX 360 for RROD repair after the great XBOX Live failure of 2007/2008, something about this interview just doesn't seem right. Why would a Microsoft "insider" risk their employment spilling well known issues about the XBOX 360 as "secrets" to a blog very read. That doesn't sound like a good career move.
Strange women lying in ponds distributing swords is no basis for a system of government.
I also don't think they considered that DVD drives generate heat, so putting and OEM-style DVD unit directly over a low-profile GPU heat sink wasn't too bright. Meanwhile, there's plenty of empty space in the corners of the box. I understand software companies aren't particularly good at making hardware, but really...
I've managed to avoid a RROD for over a year now, which makes me wonder if I'm perhaps treating my console better than some other RROD victims are. What sort of things would cause those different parts to fail?
...but is it art?
As recent as just a month ago in an interview with an Xbox exec and also statements from Bill Gates recently no definitive statement was made that any solution to the Xbox 360 hardware failures had been found and instead focused on what an amazing replacement program they had. That is shocking for a product that has been on the market for more than two years. With all of Microsoft's resources they still haven't been able to demonstrate publicly that a random sampling of whichever is their latest model can be operated with a staggeringly high defect rate.
Xbox 360s were dying in kiosks months to weeks before hitting the shelves in huge numbers.
Xbox 360s were dying at review sites in huge numbers around the time the system hit the shelves.
Xbox 360s have been dying for two years now and there is no sign that Microsoft will ever fix the fundemental design problems of the console.
Each new model is heralded as the one that 'fixed the RRoD problem'. And the failures continue. Each new model comes out and the very day they do owners start posting their RRoD problems.
It is common now for people to have gone through five to six Xbox 360s over the past two years. And people who have had to have their console replaced ten or more times is not rare.
Absolutely pathetic.
Microsoft has forever linked their name and the Xbox label with hardware failure and shoddy design. There never has been anything in the console market in the same league as the Xbox 360 hardware failure fiasco and almost certainly never will be again. No other company in the world has the necessary nexus of unlimited resources and incompetence that Microsoft posses to ever top this sad bit of console history.
Contracting the job to another factory/company?
Don't they burn them in? When I worked in manufacturing we always burned in newly
manufactured products for 24 to 48 hours. It drastically cuts down on infant mortality problems because only the survivors are shipped.
initial articles about the RROD had quite enough evidence. warm, sometimes hot machine, dead and stayed dead. had it pegged right away as heat not getting out.
I grew up as a broadcast brat with dozens of 7-foot racks of nice, hot, red tubes around all the time. the physics never changes. as the temp goes up 10 degrees, the life expectancy of the parts goes down 50 percent. batteries, capacitors, resistors, insulation... semiconductor power output, read your spec sheets. heat kills everything. the use of electrons generates heat. you have to get rid of it. a 10 degree Celsius rise from room temperature puts most equipment at its knife edge. a 20 degree rise is going to be statistically quite significant in early failures.
you don't need an insider, or somebody pretending to be one, to take that to print. somebody decided to rush the product, make it cheap to make, and not do any thermal profiling QC.
voila, mass manufacturing of electro-corpses. ain't the first time. won't be the last. a smart customer will put their hand on a display unit, and if it's too warm, decide to not be an early adopter.
if this is supposed to be a new economy, how come they still want my old fashioned money?
it's called 360 because of the trip it takes
from microsoft, to you, back to microsoft, to you again
http://bash.org/?806949
The insider purports to have the background story on the 'red ring of death' (RROD) failures and why they are so common
What background story? Cheap parts, not enough testing blah blah...Where are the specifics?...and the causes mentioned for RROD were already known ages back.
Maybe because whenever I purchase computing equipment (be it a desktop / laptop / console) that generates enough heat to scald my palms, I always buy those mini desktop fans and point it to the thing the whole time it's on...
So yeah, my HDD died and it's gonna cost $100 to replace, is there any way to force a RRoD so they'll fix my xbox under warranty?
You simply cannot trust a product from Microsoft not to screw up. I seriously doubt any of us Windows users haven't had to reformat at least once (of the Windows users here anyway). I bought a Zune and it was dead in a month. On top of that me and 3 friends got x-box 360's one way or another and 2 of them got the 3 RRODs(I honestly don't use my 360 much, this computer completely blows it away as far as gaming, it can boot 3 different OS's, it allows me to network myself without paying a forced subscription fee, AND it doesn't get hot enough to warp its own motherboard. Beat that Microsoft.)
Is why it's still hot when the fans sound like a 737 revving for takeoff. The PS3 is pretty much silent, has more stuffed into the box, and has a nearly flawless record!
The RROD makes me wonder if it would be cheaper to pick up a broken Xbox360 from ebay and fix it myself. I have read that a lot of repairs breaking out the soldering iron, and reapplying heating compound. I'd also like to know if anyone has purchased an xbox 360, and before using it, rebuilt/replaced the cooling infra structure. One common solution I have read about is using an antec usb laptop cooler underneath the unit as a precautionary measure. I'm not sure I want to spend $300 when I can fix xomeone elses with a dremel tool, some silver compound, and a soldering iron.
In other news, MS disclosed in a press report that internet pirates were the cause of the failures pirates were also blamed for the slow Vista sales, and how Microsoft Bob failed.
There is no "disagree" moderation, and troll, flamebait and overrated are not valid substitutes
The very first thought I had when I saw tear down photos of the 360 hardware around the time the console was first released was how idiotic it was to place the DVD drive directly over the GPU, which had a pathetically inadequate heatsink in comparison to the CPU. I am not any sort of engineer, but years of tearing apart and building computers led me to conclude that the particular arrangement of the GPU under the DVD was poorly thought out.
Sad but true. Also applies to Microsoft's operating system. Buggy, insecure, poorly designed, yet it gets sold over better offerings.
I'm no fan of Apple or Sony, but those two options are infinitely better than the garbage Microsoft offers. If Microsoft wasn't so insanely wealthy and in the government's pockets, they'd be out of business for selling defective garbage by now.
...is a vindaloo.
Look at the bright side: they admit the failure and going their best to replace the bad Xboxes... My brother just got his back last week from his RROD. ~Silver~
Hahaha yeah, so long as we pretend that Sony entered the console business last Christmas, this makes sense. You've made a fantastic argument so long as reality isn't taken into consideration.
Slashdot - where whining about luck is the new way to make the world you want.
This reminds me of the episode of Venture Brothers where they go to the space station and it has a single red light labeled "Trouble" that blinks when any problem occurs... :)
Not only that, but most hardware issues could be resolved by a) blowing into the cartridge slot or b) into the cartridge itself.
Are you high? Don't buy first-rev hardware, and don't buy add-ons for "next-gen" video formats that are (a.) only marginally better than current-gen offerings and (b.) are in the middle of a format war. Problems solved. The 360, a gaming console, sold itself to the crowds because it has good fucking games.
And while I do know people that are MS-exclusive fans, I honestly have never met anyone who has said-- of virtually any product-- "I will buy a product from any random manufacturer as long as it's not X, Inc." Anyone who's that concerned about who the "Evil Manufacturer" is isn't going to just blindly choose any secondary option, especially not from Microsoft. They're not exactly a "warm fuzzies" megacorp.
When did the future switch from being a promise to a threat? -C. Palahniuk
"Digital backbone" and (my favourite) "core digital error". As usual, Microsoft having to come up with their own terminology for what the rest of the real world would refer to as "hardware flaw" or "engineering mistake".
We'd better start calling the RROD the "ruddy halo of definitive binary turkey washout".
Microsoft -- reinventing the wheel... into some kind of odd mix between a rhombus and a Moebius strip.
Buy a Playstation 3.
The Wii gets hot too. Especially, counterintuitively, in standby mode, so it's practically scorching 24/7 (because the electronics are on for WiiConnect24 but the fans stay off). And yet it doesn't have the pervasive reliability issues.
It would be more insightful to have break-out photos across revisions and versions.
I got the RROD in December and went through the process to get a replacement unit. I was okay with this but when I get the replacement unit, it had issues reading media. Any DVD would eventually freeze up a certain location and some games would have spots that were impassable. I contacted support and the experience sucked. I was pretty upset that they would not ship out a replacement without instead having me send back the unit (this time including power brick and cord when it was obvious it was a problem with the DVD drive). To make up for this, they offered me my choice of 4 bargain bin games and then sent the wrong one. The box to ship back my defective unit arrived about 1.5 weeks after I made the call. Now with Blu-Ray becoming the preferred format for hi-def DVD, I may just go PS3.
The biggest cause of failures that I've seen on the Xbox commmunity forums is from MS' flawed heat sink clamp design. Take off those damn x-clamps and 90% of the time the system will boot right up without a problem.
Here's a thread with more details, and instructions.
http://forums.xbox-scene.com/index.php?showtopic=595746
So you see the ring and your XBox dies...
There's a movie in there somewhere...
Chas - The one, the only.
THANK GOD!!!
Seriously, this is no different than any other game console out there in the CD era.
/.er aptly described as the "internet bullhorn effect." People bitch like mad about their problems online and the skewed sample makes it look like there are far bigger issues than there actually are. This article's 30% failure number simply doesn't match up with what anyone else has reported or what seems to be the case anecdotally for many.
I went through two dead PS1 consoles before I got to one that lasted. Go google about turning a PSX upside down; the original models (with discrete RCA jacks on the back) had serious overheating problems that caused FMVs to stutter and skip like mad. One of the most common fixes in that era was turning the unit upside down to allow more air to circulate. The same gen PSXs and the 1st major revision (when they went to an A/V Multi-out port) also had serious problems with failing laser "eyes" and scratching discs. During the PSX's popularity, it was relatively easy to find cheap replacement lenses from third parties because it was such a common failure point.
The PS2 had its own host of problems, and I replaced the first one I had after it scratched the crap out of two of my games less than a week after I camped out to buy one on launch day. Sony's kind advice, "take it back to the store and get another" was sort of worthless given that none were available immediately following the launch, and it took two hours of arguing on the phone before they agreed to replace it under warranty. Outside of my anecdotal evidence, the PS2's problems with CD-ROM games (google PS2 blue disc fix) are pretty well known. Apparently the CD laser, but not the DVD one, had a tendency to warp out of alignment after repeated use, but it wasn't as big an issue since most games were on DVD after the first year or so. It's an easy problem to identify since PS2 CD-ROM games have a blue-tinted surface.
Dreamcast? Well, it wasn't really out there in the same kind of numbers as the other two, but I do remember a lot of people having problems with the analog triggers on the controllers; the springs would fail and the trigger would depress in permanently or stay permanently out. Fixing it on your own wasn't too tough, but it's still a pretty fundamental design flaw. And as for controller failures...
PSP: The original japanese model had a button (triangle or square, I believe) that pretty much continuously failed. Apparently the mechanism inside was just off-center enough that repeated use of the button caused it to become permanently depressed.
Hmmm... XBox: Certain models of DVD drives were extremely prone to failure, and MS switched suppliers three or four times looking for better sources. I replaced mine, but in fairness it was four years after I bought the unit.
So, (surprise!), once the game industry moved to the optical world with all of the extra moving parts, things started going downhill. This also happened to coincide with the point when game consoles started requiring fans and serious heatsinks to compensate for the heat output. Are we seriously surprised here that sub-$350 hardware fails? I mean, I'll definitely grant you that the RROD is more frequent than some of the older problems, but it also represents a myriad of failure scenarios. If the PSX had an "error" light that lit up for its various problems, there'd probably be more out there about the failure light than there is about the individual failings. And don't forget what one
But even if we grant the 30% number, MS has actually done the right thing here and extended everyone's coverage for RROD failures. There have been plenty of similar scenarios in game console history of common failure points, but thus far MS has been the only one who actually sucked it up and did something for people. As much as I dislike some of what Microsoft does and has done, they've gone a lot further in this scenario than any other company has been willing to. If you're super-concerned, just add $40 t
I read this a couple of days ago. Basically, the gist of the article is: 1. They didn't resource properly. 2. They figured they'd make up any problems that occurred on the back end. Typical Microsoft. They make crap, throw it out the door and when you complain they take you off to the side and try to make you happy (or at least shut up). I know I won't buy a 360 ever. Why roll the dice on that piece of crap. And you can bet I wouldn't take a Zune even if you gave it to me for free. At the end of the day, we all know that Ballmer is a fracking idiot and is killing what little good that company had.
PS. it's in a under ventilated wood/glass cabinet along with my digital cable box. Ironically the cable box gets hotter. I probably should remove the back to allow better air flow.
"There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio, than are dreamt of in your philosophy."
Red Ring Problems
I had no idea the goatse guy worked for Microsoft.
Anybody want a peanut?
Mine is a year and a half old now, still works like the day I bought it.
BeauHD. Worst editor since kdawson.
You'll know when it happens, all your electronic devices will turn to blue screens.
Ubuntu (Linux) is not going to fail. There are no problems with MythTv (Linux multimedia centre). It pays you in time.
Vladimir Botka
BGA:s have always been a pain to work with. Ericsson had similar problem during the 90s with some of their mobile phones.
If you think thermal expansion is hard think about the stress introduced in a SMA due to users pressing buttons.
Break the sound barrier - bring the noise.
I used to consider myself a Sony fanboy. All my computers run linux. I will never buy a HD-DVD player, although I do have an HDTV. I even own a Wii and plan to buy a PS3.
Still, the Xbox360 is a better product than the PS3 or the Wii. It has a better selection of games and xbox live is amazing. The only thing wrong with the 360 is that it breaks fairly often. Still, that doesn't happen to most people despite the few unlucky people you hear about who have it happen over and over. Even when they do break down, Microsoft will fix it for you.
Another thing... I've never met anyone who has a hatred for Sony but a love for Microsoft. I don't think that's possible.
Aside from people who have to use it for work, all you have to do is stop buying their stuff. (Yeah, it's really that simple)
Google confirms it:
421,000 hits for RRoD
1,670,000 hits for BSoD
Impressive considering the Xbox to Windows ratio.
That would make MS "Lord of the Rings". Bad joke, I know. Just had to say it :)
...coffee machine's got the same problem. almost every day there's a ring of red light flashing and it stops working, but then i refill the water and the RRoD disappears. Maybe you should try this with the Xboxes as well - i'm almost sure that the RRoD will disappear INSTANTLY!
That would only fix problems temporarily, but might cause worse one later since blowing into the cartridges corrodes the contacts a bit due to the moisture from your breath. Never had problems with SNES carts either way. Only the NES been the problematic of the older consoles.
I got RROD a few months back but since I heard microsoft was slow on repairs I contacted a local console mod store. I payed 80, they fixed it and I got it the day after. Even got 1 year warranty on the repair. They makes alot of these repairs and makes a good amount of money from it. Most of their costumers are ones that have no warranty or wants it faster than the weeks it takes for microsoft to fix it.
...though I always thought the 360 was referring to 360 degress of angle, it also aptly apply as 360 degrees celsius.
Windows XP and later reboot instead of show a BSOD when it bugchecks. This can be disabled, but only a small percentage even know about it. Sneaky Microsoft marketing tactic there.
"Screw Sun, cross-platform will never work. Let's move on and steal the Java language." - Visual J++ Product Manager
*FUD Alert!*
BSOD, RROD, what's next, the TROD(Technicolor Ray Of Death)? *eyes MS Natural MultiMedia Keyboard...Rabid Keyboard Of Death?!?!?!?....picks up hammer...*
As I look around, I am so glad this basement has no Windows!
Down With Slashdot BETA!!! I've been around the corner and seen the oliphant; you can only abuse me from your perspecti
Ubuntu is Linux?
Now I know where that term comes from... it's not crashing computers, it's M$'s ulterior motive - to take over the world!
"it's Pinky, Pinky and the brain brain brain brain brain brain brain brain brain brain brain brain"
The number of cycles and the amplitude of temperature change from low to high determine how quickly it will fail. Certain games will consume more bandwidth on the GPU, which has the most substandard thermal solution on the mother board, making it a lot hotter, warping the mobo and flexing the solder joints. Weak joints fail quickly. The better the game, the more often it will be played, again accelerating failures.
WHAT
THE
FUCK?!?!
Only a certain amount of bandwith should be used, or else? I don't know if it's just me, but shouldn't it run for as long as I want? With whatever game I want? Without breaking I mean
Another little gem:
I imagine the next big outrage will be when some of the folks who waited till Falcon to buy a console for reliability reasons, and has to send it in for service, gets a Xenon back!
Come on, an insider should be able to give us manufacturing metrics and failure rates beyond just a percentage (which we don't even get here). What is the expected, targeted failure rate on each of these subsystems? C'mon, don't bust in like you're an insider without putting inside information on the table. Let's hear about costs, let's hear about changing vendors during the project life cycle. Let's see comparisons between your failure and your competitor's.
Has everyone forgotten the old wisdom regarding microsoft products? Never buy before they release version 3, everything before that is alpha.
Translation table:
rest of the world - MS
pre-alpha - version 1.0
alpha - version 1.0
beta - version 3.0
release - version 3.1
v1.1 - version 4.0
v2.0 - Name/Year
Assorted stuff I do sometimes: Lemuria.org
I can tell you now that mine, while only a month old doesn't get tooooo hot and hasn't broken,... THE NOISE PROBLEM IS ANNOYING.
Yes, I said problem, it's simply un-acceptably noisy, sure if you're playing Sporty Mc Loud cheer 09 or Explosion masher 12 that's fine but for an RPG or or any adventure style game, ugh!.
I got my PS3 and 360 within a week of each other (good deal here in Australia at the time) and the 360 is almost not being used at all due to the noise, it's just frustratingly loud AND it can't easily be fixed.
The PS3 is quiet for 2 fantastic reasons,
1: the developers can COUNT ON there being a hard disk inside it, so they use it, infact all games install 300 to 1000mb to the hard disk, increasing load times on the repetetive data and dropping laser wear / noise
(not so the 360, thanks 'core' and 'arcade' models... sigh)
2: the data per square inch on the blu ray disks is substantially more, meaning it can spin lower and still deliver data relatively quickly.
I was playing Crackdown the other night and my g/f* called me, so I paused the game, then muted the home theatre system, I'm trying to talk to her but all i can hear is the whirr of a 16x dvd rom spinning at full speed,... big big sighs
I own the premium ffsake Microsoft, FORCE the developers to code in, if there IS a HDD found, to utilize it properly - because right now all i'm hearing is dvd's spin, how that's going to go on the disc spin motor over the years who knows?
While I'm on this topic:
Everyone has likely heard that GTA4 will be better on the 360 due to better game engine code, the PS3 is running it slow (or was?)
Problem is, one thing GTA is RENOWNED for is the constant disc access, chirp chirp chirp on PS2 and Xbox 1, HDD flash on PC - through GTA 3/ VC and SA
Do I really want the disc thrashing about on the 360 version when I could get it for my PS3 and (likely) have the developers utilise the HDD a lot better?
Decisions decisions.
Infanty mortality is a perfect description how many pieces of electronics die these days.
The PS3 is doing very well. There have been sporadic reports of issues, but consensus overwhelmingly suggests that the PS3 is a quality piece of kit that is reliable, quiet, well designed and of good quality.
I will buy a product from any random manufacturer as long as it's:
All BS. They are well made, but electrolytics with heat, will leak.
That puts noise on the bus, and to dumb it down - the static and glitches do lots of unpredictable things.
Not helped by illicit substitutions of the lost price supplier.
I'll be impressed when I see an analysis, that lists by rank, exactly what part fails first.
Same as motherboard issues..
"Everyone has likely heard that GTA4 will be better on the 360 due to better game engine code, the PS3 is running it slow (or was?)"
Did you read that on teamxbox.com? LOL!
Rockstar is being forced to focus on the 360 since that is the system that is gimped relative to the PC and PS3. With the 360, Rockstar is faced with:
1) A disc medium on the 360 that is only 7.1 GBs - around 1.5 GBs smaller than the space last gen's GTAs were able to use. And since dual layer DVDs have a huge seek penalty for transitioning across layers they are forced to keep the game data to just one layer. So GTA4 is being squeezed into only 3.5 GBs of space - an entire city being squeezed into a space that is significantly smaller than just one level on many next gen PC and PS3 games
2) No standard harddrive on the 360. So Rockstar is faced with having to limit their streaming of the cities detail to the transfer rate of the 360's DVD and not harddrives. Which means they will most likely have to limit vehicle speeds or aircraft travel and ramp down the amount of graphics and world data to a level the 360's DVD drive can handle.
3) The 360 has the weakest graphics hardware by a huge amount. A huge number of 360 can't even run at 720p nor keep up with PC and PS3 exclusive title's graphics in games like Crysis and Uncharted.
Rockstar begged Microsoft to let them require a harddrive to make working with the 360 less of a nightmare but Microsoft refused and so the game had to be delayed another six months to try to overcome the massive hassles it has been causing for Rockstar's developers.
Work on the PC and PS3 versions is going to always delayed since those two platforms are trivial to work with. No disc storage problems, standard harddrives, and they can run whatever graphics the 360 version has with ease.
It is too bad Rockstar didn't put out a real next gen version of GTA for the PC and PS3 and didn't gimp the game just to support the 360. They could have just come out with a downgraded 360 port a few months later.
...the morning after a few beers and a dodgy curry.
Donte Alistair Anderson Roberts - hi son!
Karma: Chameleon
Well, be careful what you wish for as I certainly wouldn't like falling chairs instead of snowfall/rain !
Maybe people smoke a lot of cigs that cause the fans to slow down reducing the cooling?
I do not smoke indoors, but theres a lot of traffic nearby that could have small particles. Any way, I have had two devices, one kitchen and one dvd that died
due to the fans slowing down by 50% caused by gunk in the fan bearings.
These were ofcourse fans made in Shenzen or something province, probably cheap ass armatures that make crud shit that looks good on day one but wont last 12 months, bring back
the german engineering where shit lasts 50 years!!.
Lesson learned, check the movement of fans every 3 months, if theres significant friction, replace quickly, send an email to the non existant companies that cannot read english.
Its not just china, taiwan does it too, factory managers replacing parts with 10cent cheaper parts that have lower tollerances but improves their bottom line. I hope one day those
cheap components cause their cheap $2000 cars to fall apart while driving.
Liberty freedom are no1, not dicks in suits.
For cooling an AV cabinet, I find using a 120mm computer fan (manually switchable, ideally) and an old wall-wart in the 6-12 volt range works quite nicely if you don't mind cutting a round hole in the back of your cabinet. Run it at a low speed and it's almost silent.
Manufacturers are still learning how to deal with lead-free solder, and until they do, you can expect your shiny electronic gadgets to turn into bookends and doorstops with grim regularity.
there are 3 kinds of people:
* those who can count
* those who can't
Annually now for two years I had to send mine back in. This last time it started as lock ups, and the support said it wasn't covered under the extended warranty since I didn't have three red lights. Luckily for me the lights came on a few days later. There are only two more years to the extended warranty, and I wonder what will happen after that. The support guy told me 99% of the time they will just give you a new box as they are trying to take all the old ones off the market.
it's the Seattle PI...take the story with a very small grain of salt.
Appended to the end of comments you post. 120 chars.
http://greenobyl.com/ please.... think of the children!!
--- Do you believe in the day?
... that a common "fix" for RROD 360's is to wrap them in a towel. This causes the bad ROHS solder balls to expand and make better connections.
This problem should be known as "XBOX menstruation" with the fix being "tampaxing":
Person1: "Damn my XBOX is now showing the red ring and is refusing to work properly".
Person2: "Have you tried tampaxing?"
Person1: "Eh?"
Person2: "Your XBOX is suffering from XBOX menstration. Tampaxing deals with the flow issues"
Person1: "Thanks, your right tampaxing has fixed the issue!".
When I took MCSE courses several years ago, even the course materials were full of marketing speak. And some of the technical terminology was different from what I knew from my time at university.
It seems that even when people have already decided to go for something Microsoft-based, those guys feel the need to persuade the customer further. Often at the expense of clarity and concise style.
C - the footgun of programming languages
The air coming out of my PCs exhaust is quite cool & quiet.
It must be the white paint job and shiny silver face. (^-^)
thx e
The frustration inspired me to create a squidoo lens where I can complain about my experience with this stupid XBox 360 red ring of death problem.
http://www.squidoo.com/Xbox-360-Red-Ring-Problems/
Should we all simply expect any and all new Microsoft products to break?
I guess when you design something to lose money you go all out.
When the axe came to the forest, the trees said, "Look out - the handle was once one of us."
"core digital error"
It sounds like a prostate exam gone horribly wrong.
Red ring? digit? core? eww.
Because when you see it youll turn 360* and walk away!
Amirite?
---- The real Slashdot is still here. You just have to browse at -1 to read the comments.
Actually, some blame has been placed on the lead-free solder used in the 360--it's more brittle than 63/37 tin-lead solder.
..in video game forums but NOTHING in this blog is even remotely new news. This is all well known and well documented. I'm a first gen 360 owner who bought an external fan day one and who has been fortunate to have had no problems so far. Reliability has been the one key issue with the 360 which is very unfortunate because it is hands down the best console of this generation in terms of its library.
I used to get the "red ring of death" from time to time; I thought it was due to overheating, so I moved it somewhere with better ventilation. Turns out it was a problem with the wiring in my house. Apparently the 360's external power supply is _very_ sensitive to brownouts. I've got the power supply in a place where I can see the colored light now - the "red ring of death" doesn't just apply to the XBOX 360 itself :)
I plugged the 360 into my UPS with AVR, and the problem's completely gone. I always thought the AVR stuff they try to push on people buying home theatre equipment was a scam (considering the things can cost $500+ and don't even provide uninterruptible power), but apparently some consumer electronic devices really are anal about line voltage.
Even numbered Explosion Masher at last! I thought the crappy Explosion Masher 11 had killed the franchise. Did they bring back "Rover, the incredible disposer dog"?
I don't have an XboX360, but I have a lot of temperature-sensitive equipment in a very tight A/V cabinet.
I have managed to keep all this very cool with a pair of Nexus 120mm fans and a generic 6V A/C adapter.
I hung the fans on the shelf above the equipment with a simple 1/2" bend and the rubber mounting, ehm, rubbers.
It also helps if you put something between the devices you stack to increase airflow.
(YOU try stacking something small on top of a classic XboX!)
Amongst other things in that one (cramped) compartment:
Linksys NSLU2 NAS with:
- 320GB USB drive
- 320GB USB drive
Asus WL500gP NAS with:
- 500GB USB drive
- (The other ons is on top of the rack)
Digital TV receiver
Cable modem (not one of those cool Surfboards, but a big, warm one)
XboX (regular, not 360))
Obligatory Pictures (front) (back)
Two of the (LaCie) USB drives are stacked on top of eachother,
but they are both only slightly warm to the touch
"I was in love with a beautiful blonde once, dear. She drove me to drink. It's the one thing I am indebted to her for."
While crossing my fingers, I'm happy to say that since getting my Xbox360 in early 2007, I've not had any RRoD problems with it. In fact, other than a few crashes while trying to join MP games in COD3, I've not had any real problems with the unit EXCEPT:
The drive tray sticks badly. I have to leave a disc in it at all times, or it becomes impossible to open. Even with a disc in, it can take 3-4 attempts to get the door to open, with some well-placed tapping (and I really mean tapping).
It used to do it only occasionally, but now that the device is out of warranty (the extended only covers the RRoD AFAIK), it seems to be doing it all the time.
It's still usable, so I haven't gone out of my way to get it fixed or replaced, but I think it's day is coming.
Message contains 1 attachment: spam.gif
http://www.cafepress.com/redring
Certainly if the AI has conquered the world it has by definition succeeded. Maybe you meant *trys* to conquer the world.
That's why I did not buy a 360 yet. I always wait at least 6 months to a year before buying a new console, since I refuse to buy it at the early adopter price. When I was going to pony up the money, from Canada for a pre-hacked version one too, I found out just how many problems this POS had, and STILL has.
I remember hearing a few months back that Microsoft posted billion dollar losses on their gaming division to cover these problems too. I still have not heard anything has changed really. Still a crappy crappy product. The parts, not the console.
I'm not a Sony fanboy or anything, but my PS1 from 1997 still works..... maybe Microsoft should try to higher some of those guys responsible for arranging the manufacturing of their product.
Understand that the Red Ring of Death (RROD) is just a failure in the treacherous computing chain of trust. Everything must be safe and secure because any minor problem along the way could introduce a "security risk". It's important to distinguish between a security risk (for example: XBOX 360 giving away your credit card details to a Russian mafia hacker) and a "security risk" (for example: someone is able to run Linux on the XBOX 360, take advantage of the hardware, and not buy any Microsoft games).
How do you set up a treacherous computing chain?
In software, it starts with protected areas of the CPU, memory, and cryptographic keys. No other programs or processes can see what this special software process is doing, otherwise all the security falls apart as the keys are divulged. To do this, you hide the chip that performs this function somewhere where it's VERY difficult to get at (like inside the CPU itself). From that point, you've got to carry that protection forward in hardware; otherwise a hacker hooks up the probes and gets a clear read on that HD-DVD movie intended to be encrypted until it gets inside the HDTV itself.
So, the RROD originates with the media industries and their broken Digital Restrictions Management (DRM). Treacherous computing is the hardware way of enforcing their restrictions in the hardware you spent your money to buy. (So, who really owns that Xbox 360?) Well, apparently Microsoft does, because any little thing that goes wrong, your fault or not, gives you the RROD; it's Microsoft's way of saying:
PWNED UR XBOXOR!
Spend your money on freedom, or don't complain about how heavy the chains lay on your wrists.
Thank you for your kind consideration.
Were you paid to write this?
You're going to buy a ps3, have a wii, but 'the xbox 360 is the best product'? Why would you buy inferior products (two of them!) given 'ms are great guys and they'll fix it, and it doesn't happen to most people anyway'?
_
\\/ are accustomed' - First Lensman
Hi, I'm Mr. Timeline! by using time, you can contradict yourself through the concept of CHANGE! :) :)
Step One: Microsoft sky.net passport 3.0 takes over the world
Step Two: sucks to be me, you, etc
Step Three: Red Ring of Death in the eye of the terminator, John Conner gets away, Kirk can use silly "I always lie" tactics. Turn up your thermostat and big brother can't watch you.
I think its great they're blaming a lack of testing for i too have sent my 360 to texas twice the only problem is it DIDN'T work when i got a new one. if they have a problem and blame a lack of testing and send me an untested machine something is seriously wrong.
I have a 60 gig PS3, and I ran Folding @home consistently for 3 weeks (as a burn in test) whenever I wasn't trying Demo's or playing Motorstorm (the only game I felt worth buying when I picked it up), and it never overheated.
I wouldn't call the system fan "silent" though (as some have). "Quiet" yes, but in the times I wasn't running anything else I could hear the PS3 before I entered the room; in fact it was louder than my 360 (with the DVD going full tilt), but still "quiet enough" that it isn't an issue. My baseline is the projector in my set up. Currently it is the noisiest thing in the room (~28 decibels) and if that remains the noisiest component (with sound muted) then I'm happy.