Microsoft has responded to an experts' evaluation of the Xbox 360's heat problems, in which a major design flaw is claimed.
The evaluation, carried out by Japanese news source Nikkei, had a thermo design expert analyze the 360's heat radiation system. The test found that a flaw in Xbox 360's design means that it could achieve temperatures of over 100 degrees in the summer (that's hot enough to make a cup of tea).
The expert pointed out that, "the heat sink on the graphics LSI is so small, I wonder if it can really cool down the board." Apparently, Microsoft downsized the graphics LSI heat sink so that the DVD drive could be placed on top.
Worryingly, as well as a launch console Nikkei also tested a machine repaired in May 2007, and the heat sink was still the same downsized unit.
Responding to the report, a Microsoft spokesperson told CVG, "There is no single root cause or systemic issue with any of the Xbox 360 consoles."
With such a complex consumer electronic product that contains more than 1700 different components and 500 million transistors, there are obviously many things that can malfunction at any given time. The vast majority of customers who own Xbox 360 consoles continue to have a terrific experience. "As Microsoft didn't participate in the test, we cannot comment on any findings."
It'll be interesting to see if PS3s then, which also have plenty of transistors and technical innards, start breaking down in the same quantity as Xbox 360s. In the meantime, we're keeping an extra fan on our consoles until the autumn arrives.
I can't say I believe them at all. As much as I love my 360 (which, touch wood, hasn't broken down yet), it's fairly obvious that there is a problem with insufficient cooling...
Still think they left it too late before fixing the apparent design flaw. Come May time they must have known that these supposed 'fixed' machines had a large probability of being returned for further fixing. Which begs the question if you aint going to fix the problem first time round why bother at all.
The only thing Msoft was achieving by doing this was further damging thier relations with current consumers.
I have heard generally positive things about M$ support, so hopefully if I do encounter a problem in the future it will be solved.
True I do agree that their customer support is excellent and they do seem to be now handling the situation in the best way possible.
Surely the 'best way possible' to handle the situation would have been to
a) not let it happen in the first place b) Acknowledge the problem as soon as possible and fix it, rather than flannel for 18 months while giving people multiple replacement units with exactly the same inherent fault.
Asnwering the phone promptly is the bloody least they could do.
I have heard generally positive things about M$ support, so hopefully if I do encounter a problem in the future it will be solved.
As far as I'm concerned MS' customer service is an absolute joke. Know-nothing staff who don't speak English (surprise, seeing as it's been farmed out to india or somewhere) and don't know the first thing about the machine they're 'advising' on. `Conflicting advice. Reluctance to help. Plain refusal to transfer me to a Manager (more than one staff member)... It's a disgrace.
I feel a tad sorry for microsoft because I feel that they have a great machine with some great games coming out for it, but this issue has marred an otherwise positive venture. I find myself holding on until they bring out the 360 with the new chipset and HD connection.
well, a mate of mines 360 died (disc read problems) a month or so after his warranty expired. after several phone calls to microsoft and a few managers, they agreed to fix it anyway. they said it would take up to 3 weeks.
i think its been about 5 weeks now and still no 360!
I have heard generally positive things about M$ support, so hopefully if I do encounter a problem in the future it will be solved.
True I do agree that their customer support is excellent and they do seem to be now handling the situation in the best way possible.
Surely the 'best way possible' to handle the situation would have been to
a) not let it happen in the first place b) Acknowledge the problem as soon as possible and fix it, rather than flannel for 18 months while giving people multiple replacement units with exactly the same inherent fault.
Asnwering the phone promptly is the bloody least they could do.
I completely agree with your points in your post as you should be able to gather from my 1st post.
The point I was trying to make with the latter post was based on the situation that they are in Now, through every fault of their own, they are taking the best route possible. The points you mentioned are direct reasons as to why they are in this current position.
I'd just like to say to you guys who havent got a 360 yet and have been put off by all the reports of faulty ones, dont worry about it!
I got my 360 at lauch and it lasted, with absolutely no problems, untill last month when I got the three red lights. I mean thats almost two years with no glitches, problems or crashes (and I played Elder Scrolls III for about 300 hrs in total + many other games). Its being repaired as we speak and I should have her back soon, they did it for free because of the new 3 year guarentee. I mean no other company would (or could afford to) extend you warantee for 2 more years for free.
Am i the only one who has had the 360 from day one and never once had a problem?
Yes. Give it a couple more months and you'll join the club.
Just as long as it holds out until they stuff the 'falcon' chip into the hot body of the Elite,and then ring of death or not, it's goodbye white 360 and hello PS3 matching elite goodness (still with noisy disc drive though)!
I mean no other company would (or could afford to) extend you warantee for 2 more years for free.
That's rubbish. The only reason they're offereing the extended warranty, and the same reason they're still denying that there's an inherent fault, is to lower the chances of having to do a massive recall and face (and lose) a crippling lawsuit.
Am i the only one who has had the 360 from day one and never once had a problem?
Yes. Give it a couple more months and you'll join the club.
Just as long as it holds out until they stuff the 'falcon' chip into the hot body of the Elite,and then ring of death or not, it's goodbye white 360 and hello PS3 matching elite goodness (still with noisy disc drive though)!
A month or so back Microsoft admitted that there was a design flaw with the Xbox 360 which resulted in the three red lights hence the reason they extended the warranty to three years and put aside $1 billion for repairs.
Now they're denying exactly what they said in the first place?!?
<Bangs head against wall>
Here is the link to Peter Moore's open letter in which he mentions that, and I quote:
"We have been following this issue closely, and with on-going testing have identified several factors that can cause a general hardware failure indicated by three flashing red lights on the console. To address this issue, and as part of our ongoing work, we have already made certain improvements to the console."
That's pretty conclusive I think!
Forgive me for being stupid but isn't identifying things that can cause faults admission that there was something wrong in the first place? One of those factors is that excessive heat causes the motherboard to warp which results in the solder holding the GPU in place breaking and that is one of the causes of the red lights.
i love my 360 but there must be a design flaw in there somewhere. I have 5 other mates with 360's and every single one of us have had to send our 360's back. That's some statistic. Not all of us play them all day every day either.
i dread to think the number of returns they've had.
Am i the only one who has had the 360 from day one and never once had a problem? Unbelievably, it was my lovely Wii that died on me just after crimbo!
as i said in post one,i was having problems(power cutting out) so i moved the power brick,and never had a problem again
and a few different consoles scratch discs,the xbox 1 did it,and the PS2 did it,its from moving the console suddenly while you are playing a game...you get the 'halo' scratch
and yeah with the Wii am am always having to unplug it because it has crashed and the on/off button wont work
This isn't official but I've read that someone spoke to a Microsoft rep who let slip that they received 1,500-2,500 Xbox 360s back for repairs EVERY DAY! That probably explains why the waiting list for repairs has been increased from 15 days to over 25 days.
My 17 month old launch 360 died two months ago and I had to send it back for repairs. I got the original one back with a replaced motherboard (read my post above!!!) and so far it's been working fine but my games discs come out of the drive horribly warm even after only 30 minutes. That tells me how hot the internals of the 360 must get. Basically Microsoft cut corners in order to get the 360 out, it wasn't tested thoroughly and they stupidly placed the GPU under the DVD drive which cripples any ventilation it might have had. The fact that they're admitting to including extra heat sinks to repaired Xbox 360s tell you that yet they're STILL denying there's any major issue with the machine!
CVG said "It'll be interesting to see if PS3s then, which also have plenty of transistors and technical innards, start breaking down in the same quantity as Xbox 360s"
The only niggle in my mind about the PS3 design is the transformer is inside the unit. Didn't work too well for the original PS1 or the first batch of PS2's. Time will tell.
In microsofts quest to pay nickle and dime prices for the components,and squeeze them into such a small space ,with an insufficient cooling system, this is the end result !
Their cheap n chatty cooling plan,is as daft as trying to cool the sun with one of those battery powered ,handheld ,pocket size fans !
Brand loyalists will say otherwise,and blame customers for missusing the console (the really stupid ones,will moan about having to wait for their 2nd,3rd 4th ,5th,6th,7th,8th,9th repaired/refubished machine,instead of saying to themselves that enough is enough).
This has ,in my eyes ,made M$ worse than what sony have been,(they never caused their customers to be out of pocket to such a huge extent(multiple repairs)) !
Looks like there are two sides of the spectrum with this console war.... either buy an expensive machine with not alot on it at the mo, ala PS3... Or buy a cheaper machine 3 times over.... wii all the way baby
..not that i have one... ho-hum, am currently waiting for my 360 to breakdown, and i just broke my gaming pc
If the thing wasnt so unreliable im sure it would have sold more by now. I would have bought one just now, in fact the only reason i havent is because three quarters of the people i know who own one have had to send it back, some of them were launch consoles, but a couple of them are only a few months old.
there is actually no way i would pay for a machine, that i know will probably break in the near future. yes i know theres a 3 year warranty etc, but thats only for the red lights. half of the faulty 360s ive seen have been disc read problems, and as well as completley destroying discs a handful of people have had to pay Ł50 to get it sorted if there outside of the years warranty.
PS2's were just as bad with the disc read error, but it happened to mine years after i bought it, and sony replaced the console and games for nothing within 2 weeks without question.
Does anyone think these issues could be down to the disc trays? xbox, ps2 and now 360 all have disc trays......and all 3 have issues with disc reading at some stage.
I'm well p**sed off - my second 360 broke down with the dreaded 3 rings of doom a few weeks ago. Now I have to go through MS and wait a month for it to be fixed and returned. I've never had any problems with any of the Nintendo consoles I've ever owned. Apart from it being unreliable, the 360 is a great games machine, when the bloody thing works!
You get what you pay for, and unfortunatley with MS you pay for the quality of the software over the quality of the hardware
That's a joke, right?
I think Luna-C meant that was the case with the 360. In PC terms, however, it's quite the other way around; hardware such as joysticks and keyboards made by Microsoft seem to be quite robust, whereas their software is atrocious.
Well, I've had mine since December now with no problems at all.... But, there's definatly *something* up with them. You put your hand on one after an hour of gaming, and the heat coming off them is extraordinary... Of course, I don't have a PS3 to compare but it still seems a lot hotter than it should be.
Still... Until another console coughs up something as promising as Mass Effect... They could break down every month and I'd still hang onto mine!
I'd just like to say to you guys who havent got a 360 yet and have been put off by all the reports of faulty ones, dont worry about it!
I got my 360 at lauch and it lasted, with absolutely no problems, untill last month when I got the three red lights. I mean thats almost two years with no glitches, problems or crashes (and I played Elder Scrolls III for about 300 hrs in total + many other games). Its being repaired as we speak and I should have her back soon, they did it for free because of the new 3 year guarentee. I mean no other company would (or could afford to) extend you warantee for 2 more years for free.
Well i played my SNES for 14 years and it still works! 2 years out of a console is not good value and they only introduced the extra guarantee because of pressure from things like watchdog.
"There is no single root cause or systemic issue with any of the Xbox 360 consoles."
now I'm definitely not getting one, denying there is a problem when it is so widely reported. facts are facts the xbox360 has a problem with overheating which causes it to break its what killed my original xbox1, denying it is ridiculous and much more damaging to their reputation than owning up and trying to solve the problem. I say it time and time again but I would probably have a 360 now if it weren't for the problems it has.
I think Microsoft is a f-ing disgrace! How can they still deny the problems? I mean god! How come we dont hear any problems with Wii or PS3 then? You answer that microsoft!
I really hate your machine but love your games on it, so its all messed up. I would like this from XBOX360:
1) Silent
2) Blueray or HD-DVD ( I mean 5 discs of Blue Dragon, come on!)
3) Larger and standard harddrives
wait, isnt that a PS3....?
Now before you all flame me consider this: I only have an XBOX360 and probably wont have a PS3 (expensive and bulls**t games). But imagine to play XBOX360 games on a console like PS3, i would pay the price of a PS3 if i had Halo, Gears and so on on it.
Am i the only one who has had the 360 from day one and never once had a problem?
Yes. Give it a couple more months and you'll join the club.
Just as long as it holds out until they stuff the 'falcon' chip into the hot body of the Elite,and then ring of death or not, it's goodbye white 360 and hello PS3 matching elite goodness (still with noisy disc drive though)!
And no blu-ray...
No i just meant in the looks department. It would look nice sat next to my PS3!
I think Microsoft is a f-ing disgrace! How can they still deny the problems? I mean god! How come we dont hear any problems with Wii or PS3 then? You answer that microsoft!
I really hate your machine but love your games on it, so its all messed up. I would like this from XBOX360:
1) Silent
2) Blueray or HD-DVD ( I mean 5 discs of Blue Dragon, come on!)
3) Larger and standard harddrives
wait, isnt that a PS3....?
hmm,larger hard drive is out at the end of this month,what i would really like is put your own HDD on the 360,like you can with the PS3(250gig thanks)
my 360 is silent,although i have heard a lot of people complain about the noise..so dont know whats going on there
3 discs for Blue Dragon not 5,lol...but i agree,i dont mind multiple discs,but i think DVD wont hold its own against the competition come a year or two
my mate has an early 360, and he plays it for hours on end all day everyday and its still going on strong.. so the early systems seem better than the newer ones.
anyway CVG whats happening in autumn? iam waiting to get a hold of a falcon 360 before i rebuy one, but how can i ensure i get the updated model???
since GTA4 was scrapped this year i will look to xbox 360 for big games. halo, PGR etc. ps3 isnt looking very promising
PS3 isn't very promising?? the only decent exclusives the 360 has are halo, bioshock, mass effect, and PGR!!!
PS3 has ratchet and clank future, haze, unreal tournament 3, Gran Turismo 5 Prologue, killzone, singstar, folklore, eye of judgement, heavenly sword, lair, uncharted: drake's fortune, and probably one or two more that i forgot!
also... i don't mean any offense, but i hope you're joking about your question to CVG... in the autumn it gets cold, so they wouldn't have to worry as much about their 360 overheating...
2) Blueray or HD-DVD ( I mean 5 discs of Blue Dragon, come on!).
Um, *three* discs for Blue Dragon. And the full game world is on all three of those discs, it's just the insane amont of space-taking cut scenes that makes up the three discs.
No need to make up faults just to make the Xbux look worse.
Am i the only one who has had the 360 from day one and never once had a problem?
Yes. Give it a couple more months and you'll join the club.
Just as long as it holds out until they stuff the 'falcon' chip into the hot body of the Elite,and then ring of death or not, it's goodbye white 360 and hello PS3 matching elite goodness (still with noisy disc drive though)!
And no blu-ray...
No i just meant in the looks department. It would look nice sat next to my PS3!
lol
i personally really like the 360s color scheme, though the green does make it look remarkably different from the PS3. i don't think i'm going to ever pick up a 360, unless the games on the PS3 don't satisfy me, which i doubt. especially with my university work load.
I'm not defending Microsoft or anything here but in the article the representative clearly states that "There is no single root cause or systemic issue with any of the Xbox 360 consoles."
Peter Moore said: "We have been following this issue closely, and with on-going testing have identified several factors that can cause a general hardware failure indicated by three flashing red lights on the console. To address this issue, and as part of our ongoing work, we have already made certain improvements to the console."
So it's not that Microsoft are flat out denying that there are problems - they're actually backing up Peter Moore's previous statements that there are indeed several issues, and not one single fault that can be attributed to the breakdowns, such as the one single heat sink LSI problem attributed by the Japanese expert dude in the article. There is no deniability here.
my mate has an early 360, and he plays it for hours on end all day everyday and its still going on strong.. so the early systems seem better than the newer ones.
anyway CVG whats happening in autumn? iam waiting to get a hold of a falcon 360 before i rebuy one, but how can i ensure i get the updated model???
since GTA4 was scrapped this year i will look to xbox 360 for big games. halo, PGR etc. ps3 isnt looking very promising
PS3 isn't very promising?? the only decent exclusives the 360 has are halo, bioshock, mass effect, and PGR!!!
PS3 has ratchet and clank future, haze, unreal tournament 3, Gran Turismo 5 Prologue, killzone, singstar, folklore, eye of judgement, heavenly sword, lair, uncharted: drake's fortune, and probably one or two more that i forgot!
also... i don't mean any offense, but i hope you're joking about your question to CVG... in the autumn it gets cold, so they wouldn't have to worry as much about their 360 overheating...
Are you serious?? I have a Wii, 360 and just got a free PS3 through a works thing. Up until recently my 360 was fine and then it died RRoD out of the blue so there is definitely a problem with an otherwise fantastic console, but I am willing to stick with it for the time being. However for you to list a number of games that barely appeal, SingStar and Ratchet are hardly going to get people to pay Ł425 quid for a PS3 are they. Haze and Unreal are both due on 360. Killzone is still not a proven franchise, Heavenly Sword (admittedly I only have the demo to compare with) is a great looking clone of Ninja Gaiden.
I hope that MS can sort the 360 out asap as right now, ignoring any potential hardware problems, it is the best games console, the games are what matters and it has the better games old and new. This situation may change in the next year, but PS3 doesn't have the best line up in the foreseeable future.
At metallicorphan: If you think the XBOX360 is silent, maybe because you point of reference is a vacuum-cleaner. Now, dont get mad. But i have come across alot of XBOX360 and all make more noise then a standard computer let alone other nextgen consoles. Also about the harddrive i wrote larger AND standard. By standard i meant just that standard IDE or SATA OEM HDD.
At Artificial Idiot: Cant believe im answering. 0kay maybe i got carried away, but still 3 discs are 2 too many. In my opinion that IS a fault in the year 2007. On a side note they should make realtime cinematics instead of crappy prerendered videos.
My first 360 stopped playing games, gently offering the advice that I should put the disk in a 360 console. I had only had it 2-3 months. Instead of bothering with Microsoft I went back to the retailer and demanded a new one.
After paying that much money for such a ridiculous fault, I was not going to be inconvenienced further. Now my second console has outlasted the first.....but then again, I've hardly used it down to the severe lack of quality software. I bet it breaks when Halo's out just to spite me.
How many broken 360s do you think MS will have to fix in october along with letters begging them to ' Please fix it as soon as possible! Find enclosed a fiver, my gift to you '
With them admitting to the problem of breakdowns being high and setting aside money to cover it, the next step would be to admit, that the heatsinks are toosmall, the flow direction of air of the boards is limited, due to the concave design of the console anyway, and the tiny fan they put on to the graphics chip, right underneath the dvd drive was a problem waiting to happen.
everyone knows this is why the RROD (red ring of death) happens in 360, not enough heat being sucked away from the graphics chip, which causes the motherboard to warp, and the pins connecting the chip to board to losen overtime, which = failured xbox 360.
The newer dvd drives which run cooler and quieter have helped with the heat problem, but untill they put a better heatsink and fan on it, along side better thermal cooling compond, then this problem will still be here, but with the reduced size of the chips helping in the longer run, it wont be too much of a problem in the future.
At metallicorphan: At Artificial Idiot: Cant believe im answering. 0kay maybe i got carried away, but still 3 discs are 2 too many. In my opinion that IS a fault in the year 2007. On a side note they should make realtime cinematics instead of crappy prerendered videos.
Still loving the games tough!
Why can't you believe you're answering? It's a fair point. The entire game world is on every single disc, so if you want to go back to a previous area you're free too without changing disc - One game, being on three discs because it uses huge, space-sapping videos is a none issue, or at least a fault with the game not the hardware.
True, it *may* become a fault in the future... But right now, it's hardly a major fault. If they can fit Mass Effect onto one disc, that's a good sign right?
Am i the only one who has had the 360 from day one and never once had a problem?
Yes. Give it a couple more months and you'll join the club.
Just as long as it holds out until they stuff the 'falcon' chip into the hot body of the Elite,and then ring of death or not, it's goodbye white 360 and hello PS3 matching elite goodness (still with noisy disc drive though)!
And no blu-ray...
Mark240473 = PS3 FANBOY OF THE YEAR!!! LOL I have to be honest, we have three 360's in my house, 2 being launch consoles and only one of those have broken. Broke a few months ago and was out of warrently so we were abit gutted but MS shocked us all by extending the warrenty's which is costing them an arm and a leg. I do have to say though that so far 360 has been more reliable than PS2 for me. I owned 4 PS2's due to them breaking over a short period of time. I'd say Nintendo have always been the most reliable when it comes to hardware.
My original xbox just died at the weekend. Apparently my cousin thought it was a good idea to leave halo on pause while he went to the beach. Red ring of death!
I know Haze isn't, but Unreal is a PS3 exclusive isn't it???
Also I think microsoft are a terrible company.... games rock... bill gates sucks c**k!
Theyre both timed exclsuves expect approx 3 month gap, ps3 1st, then 360/PC
As for the whole 360 fault thing, the current retail reurn rate on Xbox360's is circa 20%, the "industry standard" for similar electrical goods is around 5%. The Wii and PS3 have nowhere near the same rate of faulty returns as the 360, but I have to say thumbs up to Microsoft for extending the warranty for three red light failure to 3 years, its just a shame all those people with 360's that chew up discs 13 months after purchase aren't eligible for it. It's only the 3 red rings fault tha gets a 3 year warranty. All other faults are standard 12 months (UK). On that note, its a shame they didn't build it properly in the 1st place instead of rushing it out...
I got mine fixed after it went wrong for the fith time! Then went straight down gamestation and traded it in for a PS3, to be honest I was massive fan of it and the original console but the 360 clearly does not work!
Putting the power supply away from the console hasn't stopped my newly repaired unit from going pop again, i only got it back from microsoft three weeks ago.
I always wondered if the egg timer shape of the console contributed to the overheating/general problems and it wouldn't have surprised me seeing as it's from the same company who designed the Controller S with appauling placement of the black and white buttons.
I know Haze isn't, but Unreal is a PS3 exclusive isn't it???
Also I think microsoft are a terrible company.... games rock... bill gates sucks c**k!
Theyre both timed exclsuves expect approx 3 month gap, ps3 1st, then 360/PC
As for the whole 360 fault thing, the current retail reurn rate on Xbox360's is circa 20%, the "industry standard" for similar electrical goods is around 5%. The Wii and PS3 have nowhere near the same rate of faulty returns as the 360, but I have to say thumbs up to Microsoft for extending the warranty for three red light failure to 3 years, its just a shame all those people with 360's that chew up discs 13 months after purchase aren't eligible for it. It's only the 3 red rings fault tha gets a 3 year warranty. All other faults are standard 12 months (UK). On that note, its a shame they didn't build it properly in the 1st place instead of rushing it out...
I don't think Microsoft deserve a thumbs up for extending the warranty on this issue. It is the least they can do, and they should really replace everyone's console with one that isn't doomed to failure.
I think it's a sad state of affairs that anyone thinks an electrical item costing Ł300+ should only have a shelf life of a couple of years.
Their customer service is awful, I have had to deal with them five times and sent consoles back on 4 occasions and been on hold for up to an hour with the ridiculous message playing " you may be on hold for more than 2 minutes".
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