As a Brit, I'm genetically predisposed to being unable to deal with warm weather. The merest hint of sunlight breaking from behind a cloud forces our entire nation to excitedly run around shopping centres shirtless, pale and gelatinous, before spending the rest of the day wallowing around in paddling pools full of ice, adding to our terminal dehydration with tearful sobs of "I'm melting, I'm meltiiing..."
I feel then, only the deepest empathy imaginable for the overheating issues suffered by the poor Xbox 360. Those little fellas are probably the only things in the world less well-equipped for heat than myself, and their red ring o' death is the glowing externalization of the August clobberings our broken weather system inflicts upon me every year.
Just how ill-equipped they are however, has always been a gray area. Of course Microsoft is more open about the problem these days and is taking steps toward dealing with it, but just how severe were the design problems in the first place? Japanese tech magazine Nikkei Electronics has given a late 2005 machine a thorough going over to find out, bringing in a thermal design expert to frown thoughtfully and make ponderous noises at all the right moments.
Said expert's findings? Definite problems with the running temperature and the sizes of both the fans and the heat sinks. Perhaps not surprising, but it's very interesting to read a proper breakdown of exactly what's going on in the machine to make it so prone to meltdown. Hit the jump for the details.
The first problem found was the difference between ambient room temperature and the temperature of the 360's exhaust air. With consumer electronics, a temperature gap of 10ºC is usually the target, but the 360's exhaust more than doubled that, coming in at 22ºC higher than the air outside while running the console's DVD equipment. The machine's fan was also found lacking, with a maximum air speed one half to one third that of an average desktop PC, though given the 360's smaller size, the amount of air movement was only considered "slightly in short".
Next up, the case was cracked open for an inspection of the heat sinks. Upon checking out the sink for the graphics LSI, the expert commented "The heat sink on the graphics LSI is so small, I wonder if it can really cool down the board". The report speculates that an under-sized heat sink might have been used to allow Microsoft space for the DVD drive.
After that, the testers rigged up a thermocouple to the microprocessor and graphics LSI heat sinks and closed up the box to get a reading for standard gaming temperature. After five minutes play, the graphics heat sink was at 70ºC, and then at 80ºC ten minutes after that. The microprocessor's sink levelled out at 58ºC. While pretty hefty increases over the room temperature of 23ºC, the real fun comes when you consider the report's suggestion that in mid-summer heat the graphics LSI could hit 100ºC or more.
To round off, the testers pulled open a second 360 which had been put in for repair in May of this year, to see exactly what had been done to fix its particular case of RRoD. While the machine had been fixed, it seemed nothing had been done to prevent the problem happening again, as the thermal design layout inside remained exactly the same as in the tested model.
[Thanks Justin]
The Elite's motherboard is covered in clear goop, which is supposed to slow down the heat warping process.
Not solving the problem.
I guess I should get a god damn intercool (fuck I hate the look of those things)
O kek, let's hope that Falcon chip systems include lots of other fixes too.
Yeah, I am just waiting for them to mainstream those Falcons and then I will send mine in (freezes up every few weeks due to heat problems).
Dammit, Microsoft! KHAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAN!
80c is mega hot, my 8800GTS was idling @ 81c and was unable to run games without locking up, Evga sent me a brand spanking new one that idles at 47-55c depending on room temp and has never gone above 59c @ a full load.
@Agent Chieftain
I had heard that about the Elite.....how lazy and cheap can a multi billion dollar company get?
@Soul00
I cant remember where I saw it (somewhere on here I believe)but someone modded the crap out of thier launch 360 and have had no issues with it. They replaced the heatsink inside and added thermal compund glue (I think it's called that( and added a bigger and better fan.......an intercool will do pretty much crap all seeing as how the fan that is in the 360 will be pulling the air out and the intercool will be blowing that air further away. It shouldn't add to the amount that the stock fan is exhausting.
I have red hair, so I'm basically Irish even if i have no Irish blood in me. And when it hits 90 degrees outside I weep a little on the inside, as i turn bright red on the outside.
The Intercooler may not be safe either, since you plug the power cable into the Intercooler, the power used to operate the Intercooler takes power away from the Xbox 360 itself. That may not be such a good idea in the long run, to deny your console all the power it needs to run.
I'll give the Xbot purchase serious thought once we see how the Falcon operates.
Till then you can keep the burning death-trap to yourselves, my Dear Microsoft.
aside from the whole dissasembling your 360 and probably voiding the warranty thing, couldnt you just go to your local computer shop and buy some better heatsinks and some suped up fans to replace them?
Go go gadget fuckup.
been wondering the same thing, but it would be ideal if microsoft did a "return, and we'll make your system run better' deal. Although it could cause a scare, its the defiant truth, your console is gonna burn itself out. Might as well raise the flags.
When the sun expands the black people shall take what is rightfully ours and reign over all, I shall sleep till noon and mow foot tall grass at noon! JK, it's getting too hot in D/FW even for us black folk. So how long till the new chipsets are in full swing? I was hoping to have a 360 by christmas.
So...when exactly is Falcon coming out?
All you people waiting on the Falcon are kinda missing the point. It's not the CPU that is running severely hot, if their testing is accurate. 58°C is not CPU-killingly hot. Therefore, replacing the CPU with a cooler 65nm chip (in the absence of other thermal improvements that I won't rule out) isn't necessarily going to fix the big problems.
Ideally, they need to rearrange the layout of the mainboard to allow a larger GPU heatsink. Obviously, short of major case redesign, the DVD drive isn't moving.
Swapping the position of the CPU and GPU might be feasible. Cooler 65nm CPU could be sustained by the smaller heatsink beneath the DVD drive. Perhaps with a better sink made of copper; I swear, my old 486 had a better heatsink than that aluminum hunk in those pictures. GPU would have a higher clearance for a sink with more fin surface area as the CPU currently does. Fans could probably stand to pull more air through... They need some of them fancy $20 case fans that move 70 cubic feet per minute at like 20db.
Just my armchair ideas. With a billion dollars sunk into this problem, I'm sure they have better people than myself working on a long-term solution. I want to see how they do it, I love witnessing hardware evolution.
Addendum: My mistake. Falcon will be good-er than I thought. The GPU is also being shrunken, apparently. So, disregard most of the above, although a taller heatsink is still a good idea for the hotter part.
Aequitas: Don't forget that it's mostly the warping board itself due to heat that creates 3RLOD's. If you are interested in the tech side, there is a homebrew guide for fixing your own 3RLOD 360. It appears to have some success.
Cornetto?
Did... Did you just make a European ice cream joke?
If so, congraturation. A winnar is you.
I always thought it was funny how I'd visit Brighton, and there'd be these stupid ass chavs walking around like it was an oven, when it'd only be 65 degrees outside. (shoot, what is it in centigrade.....20.....18....?)
of course northern californis right now is just as bad as London, and it's putting me in a bad mood. At least it's not raining like in merry old england.