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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.'"
... 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.
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...
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.
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 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.
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
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."
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.