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

makingmusic476 on 07 December 2009

The failure rates seem to be dropping steadily as the years go by. Good on Microsoft.

But keep in mind that all 360s tested for 2009 are at most eleven months old, unlike those for previous years. I wouldn't be surprised if the actual failure rate for consoles manufactured this past year is a bit more than 4%.



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smbu2000 on 07 December 2009
theprof00 said:

so what's the fail rate for the rest of the errors?

  • Sections 1, 2, 3, and 4 are flashing red

 ie: the E45 The E66, E65 and E64 The E67  The E74

Well if you have the 4 RROD it just means that your AV cable isn't properly inserted into the 360. I've had that happen to me before and it turns out that my component cable wasn't inserted all the way. (this was before I was using an hdmi cable)

OT: I thought it was confirmed that the RROD rate was 60%!!!!!!1

Anyway, good to hear that the failure rate has indeed dropped very low now. I've had 0 problems with my Falcon Elite (from early 08).




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Achilles on 07 December 2009

Did MS finally manage to pull out a stable and trustworthy console? That was about time though, lets see if sales will follow.



theprof00 on 07 December 2009
smbu2000 said:
theprof00 said:

so what's the fail rate for the rest of the errors?

  • Sections 1, 2, 3, and 4 are flashing red

 ie: the E45 The E66, E65 and E64 The E67  The E74

Well if you have the 4 RROD it just means that your AV cable isn't properly inserted into the 360. I've had that happen to me before and it turns out that my component cable wasn't inserted all the way. (this was before I was using an hdmi cable)

OT: I thought it was confirmed that the RROD rate was 60%!!!!!!1

Anyway, good to hear that the failure rate has indeed dropped very low now. I've had 0 problems with my Falcon Elite (from early 08).

I'm pretty sure that the "failure rate" was 60% from all total problems, not RROD alone.

Also, the 4 RROD is a problem with the AV. If it turns out that your AV cable is simply not plugged in properly, then consider yourself lucky. The AV port dying has been an issue for some.



elticker on 07 December 2009
Achilles said:
Did MS finally manage to pull out a stable and trustworthy console? That was about time though, lets see if sales will follow.


the original xbox was a trustworthy and very stable console unlike some other consoles of the same generation. the xbox was a tank.



 

 

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Reasonable on 07 December 2009

Sounds good, glad to see its improved. I'm surprised this has seen more coverage, but it is a small survey I guess, and I suppose that with many older 360s out there the general approach to reliability would still count them plus new models into a unified total, with the older models perhaps causing the average to skew higher than needed to get widespread coverage.



Try to be reasonable... its easier than you think...

Squilliam on 07 December 2009
CGI-Quality said:
Well, on the one hand it is good to hear that the problem has vastly improved, although I've thankfully never experienced such a situation. On the other hand, 500 consoles were tested, not exactly evidence that the problem is 4% everywhere, but just 4% of the 500 tested had an issue. Furthermore, this is pertaining to just one issue, others still plague the console.

Nevertheless, it's still always good news to hear an electronic device is improving in reliability. Hopefully, we see much less issues next gen from any of the companies.

So long as the sample is representative, then you could infer that actual failure rate for at least that batch would be close within few % margin of error.



Tease.

Squilliam on 07 December 2009
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.



Tease.

r505Matt on 07 December 2009
CASS1DY said:
I've had a 360 for over a year,and recently threw it against the wall(don't ask),but anyway,it still works.

Haha, but I want to ask!



d21lewis on 07 December 2009

This year was the first time my 360 didn't go belly-up in November! It's true!!!