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Forums - Microsoft Discussion - 360 failure rate now less than 4%

Domicinator on 08 December 2009
Squilliam said:
Mvp4eVa said:
Domicinator said:
My brother, two of my friends, and myself all waited until Falcon chipsets were in the wild before buying our 360s. 3 of us bought regular Pro models and one of us (not me, unfortunately) bought the Halo 3 edition. The only one left that hasn't failed has been the Halo 3 one. My console got the E74; my brother and one of my friends got the RRoD. The Halo 3 one is still alive, but probably only because it's the one that gets played the least out of the group of 4. So in my experience, the Falcon chipset was not the solution. Mine was broken in less than a year after buying it, and my brother's broke within 6 months.

When I got my replacement, I starting doing a little research and found out through some YouTube videos and some well written articles that the most dangerous time in a 360's life is after you've been running it at full load, aka gaming on it, and then you shut it off right away. The CPU/GPU are very hot at that point, and when you turn the machine off, there are no fans running to cool them off. They just sit there and bake in their own heat, the motherboard slowly warps, and the next time you turn the thing on, it's RRoD.

The best way to be proactive about this is to let the 360 idle on the dashboard for 10-20 minutes after playing. I am the only person I know who actually does this. Can I say that it for sure works? No. If this Falcon model lasts until the end of the gen, I will consider myself successful. But I saw some pretty convincing video showing that the 360's temperature actually goes UP after playing and then immediately turning the machine off, while it stays stable and then slowly cools back down to proper idling temperatures after letting it sit with the fans running for a few minutes.

Just a little advice....

I agree, but actually the problem arrises when turning the system ON and off after a priod time, believe it or not, its like a time bomb; When the 360 is ON the inside components heats up, what heat does to anything that gets hot it expands it, especially metal and contracts when cold.

  The solder (connectors) that connects the chip to the mobo together heats up and expands, Now this is when the damage happens, when the system is turned ON the solders (connectors) are getting very hot and expands; so, when turning the system off is doing is cutting the cool airflow drastically and not letting the solder (connectors) that connects the chip to the mobo cool and contract gradually that ends up warping or cracking..(rrod)

Remember this happens after frequent use in a long period time of turning the system ON and off and from bad solders (connectors) getting hot and cold, expanding and than contracting drastically by lack of proper cooling making it weak and from being in such extreme exposure it warps or crack.

Theory, when red hot metal is dipped into cold icey water it tends to warp or crack because of the drastic drop in temperture.

So what your doing is a good way to let the chip cool down gradually before turning it off and I agree, others that I've seen do is add an extra pc fan that it's powered separately with a 12v ac adapter.  So while the 360 is turned off the extra fan is still running thus making the system cool down gradually.

The new 360 models come with a better qualilty solder (connectors) and with smaller and cooler chips making them less prone to rrod.

 

 

Thats kinda ignorant. Don't you realise that the idle power usage is only a little lower than the power useage in game? Leaving it on to 'cool off' would simply be a waste of power. furthermore the heat output is something like nearly 40% less than the original Xbox 360 with beefier cooling still being applied. I doubt that its a heat issue anymore.

No, it's definitely not ignorant.  I have watched the temperature tests in action.  It's much better as far as getting heat out of the console to let it idle for awhile after you stop playing.  At full load the 360 runs at a significantly higher temperature than it does idling on the dashboard, and naturally so.  If chips didn't run hotter at load than they did idling, than there would be no need for a lot of the cooling we need in PCs and consoles.




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Adobo on 08 December 2009

good stuff.



slowmo on 09 December 2009

Idling is a very wise move before you turn a 360 off, its not even up for debate whether it helps or not. Think of it like the turbo on a car, after hammering it you don't pull up and switch the engine off, you leave it a short while to cool down first (unless your car as automatic cool down as a feature).

I still don't understand why Microsoft didn't patch the firmware in earlier revisions to do a 2-3 minute phase where the fans stayed running after the console had shutdown. Idling will not stop a console from eventually going the RROD route but it will help prolong its life I would add though.



Domicinator on 09 December 2009
slowmo said:
Idling is a very wise move before you turn a 360 off, its not even up for debate whether it helps or not. Think of it like the turbo on a car, after hammering it you don't pull up and switch the engine off, you leave it a short while to cool down first (unless your car as automatic cool down as a feature).

I still don't understand why Microsoft didn't patch the firmware in earlier revisions to do a 2-3 minute phase where the fans stayed running after the console had shutdown. Idling will not stop a console from eventually going the RROD route but it will help prolong its life I would add though.

EXACTLY--I never understood that either.  The fans stay on and run when you are charging your controller after shutting the system down.  I don't see why they can't stay on for a couple of minutes after shutting down in general.  Maybe MS perceives that as admitting the hardware problems.




NYANKS on 09 December 2009

The damage is done from this fiasco. This idea of the red ring of death is as embedded as Nintendo being for kids (given by Sony?) and the Ps3 having no games.



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dirkd2323 on 09 December 2009

I don't believe it for a minute, all things I have read for Dec of 2009, is the opposite.



geddesmond2 on 09 December 2009

Wow it only took them 3 years to sort that mess out. Maybe they won't decide to screw there customers next gen and wait until the machines ready to be released instead of trying to get ahead of there competition which hasn't working in there favour at all really.



slowmo on 10 December 2009
dirkd2323 said:
I don't believe it for a minute, all things I have read for Dec of 2009, is the opposite.


Change your homepage from SDF, just a hint.



PROK on 10 December 2009

http://www.ultimateps3.fr/news-ps3-3908-quand-les-marines-americains-detruisent-la-xbox-360.html



Domicinator on 10 December 2009
NYANKS said:
The damage is done from this fiasco. This idea of the red ring of death is as embedded as Nintendo being for kids (given by Sony?) and the Ps3 having no games.

I don't think we're going to see what real damage has been done until the next Xbox launch.  The first gen 360s stayed running just long enough to get everyone hooked on Xbox Live and I think the numbers prove that people were not quick to abandon the system even after 2, 3, 4 failures.  What I think might actually happen is a weak launch for the next Xbox.  People will feel it out and see if the launch models all die before throwing down the money on one.