30 Percent Failure Rate for the 360 - bit-tech.net Forums

Bindibadgi · 26th Jun 2007, 10:52

http://www.bit-tech.net/news/2007/06..._for_the_360/1

Anonymous sources suggest a massive 30 percent failure rate on Xbox 360s.

DougEdey · 26th Jun 2007, 10:54

Send it to Scotland if it's out of warranty. Guaranteed repair and a lot cheaper then MS

DXR_13KE · 26th Jun 2007, 11:13

is it that difficult to create an efficient cooling system for this console?

Bindibadgi · 26th Jun 2007, 11:14

They should ask us

Bursar · 26th Jun 2007, 11:15

My second one broke not so long back, and I'm just waiting to send it off to MS again.

And that Scottish company may be a bit cheaper (£50 vs £70) but I'd rather send my console to MS and have them give me a new 12 month warranty with it, rather than the 6 months you get from GT.

SNIPERMikeUK · 26th Jun 2007, 11:41

But this was an optical problem (Just 3 months from new my premium's laser went, Game replaced it no problems), the console throws out enough heat to heat a room to cosy....Microsoft should maybe look into a case for these things with a zalman contract or something, (and who knows chuck in a keyboard and a mouse)....lol

I am not a sony fanboy b4 anyone starts on me.....(PC, 360, DS Lite)

TheDean · 26th Jun 2007, 12:00

I have to say I am not a happy bunny. My 360 (bought March '07) has scratched my Gears of War DVD so badly it can no longer read it and MS want me to pay £10 for their 'Disk replacement programme'

Not happy at all...

JonDixon · 26th Jun 2007, 12:46

Forgetting the lets make it news worthy headline. When the two quotes in the article both state this was when released and both have seen a drop in returns. The heading hints at a level of 'recentcy'.

To fight the other side though and having cracked my 360 open, its understandable in terms of design why some fail. I'll assume that when developing it, they don't have a living room mockup to trial test units instead they're probably working in a air conditioned temperature controlled room. Living rooms are'nt normally like that (certainly not in the UK). I'm not an expert but the original heatsink does seem a little inadequate. Also having only 2 fans on the rear blowing hot air out with a very flimsy shroud does'nt seem to do the job. The whole unit gets quite hot even outside the shroud. It could really do with a fan to suck in cold air, but the problem is placement.

The front is solid and the slots for memory cards and power button. The bottom or one of the sides cant be used if you have it vertical and MS dont know which way you'll have it. The back is already full.

Basically leaves the horizontal top as the vertical top has the HDD mounted. If they used the horizontal top:

1) having a fan mounted wouldnt look all nice.
2) Only location would be front right off centred to any main components so I'm not sure it would provide any benefit.

As I type and think of a solution. My only thought is MS would have been better converting one of the fans to suck in cold air, have this enter a shroud which pushed cold air round the system through the heatsink and used the second top fan to blow the heated air out.

As hot air rises and if they could just separate the fans by 1/2cm or more this might work. I feel confident this would remove some of the ambient heat that builds up in the system.

kempez · 26th Jun 2007, 13:06

Quote:

Originally Posted by TheDean

I have to say I am not a happy bunny. My 360 (bought March '07) has scratched my Gears of War DVD so badly it can no longer read it and MS want me to pay £10 for their 'Disk replacement programme'

Not happy at all...

How did it get scratched? Did you move the console with it in?

Mine died and I got a replacement which (touch wood) is fine now

./^\.Ace./^\. · 26th Jun 2007, 13:57

It is easy to see that there is no room inside the 360's case for any effective cooling system to fit

But if they used a smaller optical drive like closer to a laptop's then they just might get the room they need to fit a proper sized heatsink

cereal_killer · 26th Jun 2007, 14:49

Had a friend living in the states who's launch 360 bricked after just under 14 months. After rmaing over the course of close to 3 months he went through 4 xbox 360's with life spans of 30 mins to an hour each. After a phone a convo with rep the person let slip that ms is just repackaging rma'd 360's and putting them in new cases and sending them back out.

mmorgue · 26th Jun 2007, 15:19

Yep, picked up a 360 last October (2006). Died this year in Feb -- 3 ring Circle of Death. As nice and fast as the service was when I sent it to M$, I got one back that was dated April 2006 as year of manufacture. Nice. Warrenty still applies to the refurbed one, but as a gadet sort of person, who likes them shiney and new and smelling of fresh plastic, getting an older machine back rather than your own replaced is a bit of a downer.

bloodcar · 26th Jun 2007, 16:11

Quote:

Originally Posted by mmorgue

Yep, picked up a 360 last October (2006). Died this year in Feb -- 3 ring Circle of Death. As nice and fast as the service was when I sent it to M$, I got one back that was dated April 2006 as year of manufacture. Nice. Warrenty still applies to the refurbed one, but as a gadet sort of person, who likes them shiney and new and smelling of fresh plastic, getting an older machine back rather than your own replaced is a bit of a downer.

You could have requested that they ship your console back to you, but it would have taken a considerable amount longer.

I've had mine since January or early February of last year and haven't had any major problems with mine. I've had the ocassional lockup (happened A LOT while playing Oblivion) and I've had red lights flashed at me (which went away after a reset) but no scratched discs or red ring of death. I think that 30% is way too high then the real amount as you're going to hear a lot more from the people who have had failures then from people who haven't had any at all. Too bad only Microsoft knows the exact numbers and they won't release them.

tuteja1986 · 26th Jun 2007, 16:22

This all could have been avoided if Microsoft would have let arctic cooling to do the design of 360 cooling system. The amount of money wasted they could have spent it on $10 extra better cooling and $10 extra on silent DVD drive.

PS3 cooling system design by Asus was done professionally.

devdevil85 · 26th Jun 2007, 17:36

Yeah, my friend's 360 continues to show the red color (not the whole ring thankfully) and it says to "contact Microsoft Technical Support" and it is doing it more and more whenever we try turning it on, but luckily it continues to work after we try turning it on again, but that still ain't good. Our Guitar Hero II saves better not get erased or I'll be so p***ed.

Cavedweller · 26th Jun 2007, 18:55

I work in retail, and can confirm that the failure rate of 360's is way higher than anything else we sell. I got 50% returned during this x-mas season.

All the while, not a single Wii or PS3 has been returned.

Givin how MS' treats RMA on both consumer and retailer side, I personally would _never_ buy a 360. Never. Whenever a 360 is returned to me, i have to spend 1 hour with MS support, only to be told it is my custumers (spellcheck...) fault. What the hell kind of an answer is that?
I've been pissed at MS more than once, and if I had any saying in this matter (sadly i don't...) I would'nt sell any 360's. None at all. The costs of repairs and hours is more than we make, selling the bloody thing.

I own a PS3 and don't feel it is too expensive in any way.
I _would_ own a 360, givin my position, if i felt it would have been even the slightest more reliable.

Sorry for my bad english... Not being english does that to you...

Neogumbercules · 26th Jun 2007, 18:56

My 360 has been fine so far but it still sounds like a mack truck when I have oblivion in the drive. It has frozen up on me before. My friend's 360 gives him the red rings.

alpha_prime · 26th Jun 2007, 20:52

Well, i went extreme and watercooled mine

Though, that's the reason i bought a 360, to mod and play prey and other games that my pc couldn't handle

.

Yeah, it ain't weird they die so quickly. A lot of there problems would be gone if they'd used normal solder instead of the lead-less crap. Plus i also think they should've invested a bit more and added a slim dvd drive. They might do that later on. The big problem to me is the gpu heatsink, it's just so goddamn tiny.

Ms should give every 360 owner 250 bucks credit to buy wc stuff at newegg

themax · 26th Jun 2007, 20:55

I recently replaced my 360 but not because of any defects (the thing fried when it shorted out due to my apartment's bad electrical wiring). But the thing was having problems. I would be playing Oblivion and then the console would suddenly tell me I have no disc in the drive which was annoying as hell because I'de lose any progress up to that point. My sister's 360 Red Halo'd right out of the box. The very first time it was turned on it wasn't working, which to be honest was pretty sad. A friend of mine is on his 2nd 360, another who has purchased an Elite, is due to exchange it (it freezes alot) for a new one.

And off-topic a I am also on PS3 #2. The thing had a 50/50 chance of turning on (it would turn on and then beep at me 3 times before going back into standby). Although I do have to give it cudo's, when I did get it turned on, I left it on for an entire week (I kid you not) and the thing didn't crash once, didn't over heat, and when I felt the back it wasn't hot at all.

docodine · 26th Jun 2007, 21:07

I'm on Wii #1 since December, and the only problem was one lockup during Need for Speed: Carbon.

Only one of my friends Xbox 360s are still working, two of them got the red halo. And PS3s... only one friend has that, and his fails to start 1/2 of the time. I'm glad that I got a Wii. :P

26th Jun 2007, 11:13	#3
DXR_13KE Madeira's banana is the best!!! Join Date: Sep 2005 Location: Madeira ; Portugal Posts: 6,461	is it that difficult to create an efficient cooling system for this console? __________________ *Renegade X - 0.40 Release!* <---- CLICK!

26th Jun 2007, 11:14	#4
Bindibadgi Richard Swinburne bit-tech Staff Join Date: Mar 2001 Location: Omnipwntent Posts: 28,226	They should ask us __________________ Made you look, made you stare, made you clicked this in your underwear! Den of Geek!

26th Jun 2007, 11:15	#5
Bursar Hypermodder Join Date: May 2001 Posts: 700	My second one broke not so long back, and I'm just waiting to send it off to MS again. And that Scottish company may be a bit cheaper (£50 vs £70) but I'd rather send my console to MS and have them give me a new 12 month warranty with it, rather than the 6 months you get from GT. __________________ www.philspcmods.com - a rough guide

26th Jun 2007, 11:41	#6
SNIPERMikeUK Multimodder Join Date: Feb 2006 Location: Notts, UK Posts: 134	I have had one console die!!! But this was an optical problem (Just 3 months from new my premium's laser went, Game replaced it no problems), the console throws out enough heat to heat a room to cosy....Microsoft should maybe look into a case for these things with a zalman contract or something, (and who knows chuck in a keyboard and a mouse)....lol I am not a sony fanboy b4 anyone starts on me.....(PC, 360, DS Lite) __________________ SNIPERMikeUK

26th Jun 2007, 12:46	#8
JonDixon Decking is the new modding Join Date: Mar 2002 Location: In The Night Garden Posts: 695	Forgetting the lets make it news worthy headline. When the two quotes in the article both state this was when released and both have seen a drop in returns. The heading hints at a level of 'recentcy'. To fight the other side though and having cracked my 360 open, its understandable in terms of design why some fail. I'll assume that when developing it, they don't have a living room mockup to trial test units instead they're probably working in a air conditioned temperature controlled room. Living rooms are'nt normally like that (certainly not in the UK). I'm not an expert but the original heatsink does seem a little inadequate. Also having only 2 fans on the rear blowing hot air out with a very flimsy shroud does'nt seem to do the job. The whole unit gets quite hot even outside the shroud. It could really do with a fan to suck in cold air, but the problem is placement. The front is solid and the slots for memory cards and power button. The bottom or one of the sides cant be used if you have it vertical and MS dont know which way you'll have it. The back is already full. Basically leaves the horizontal top as the vertical top has the HDD mounted. If they used the horizontal top: 1) having a fan mounted wouldnt look all nice. 2) Only location would be front right off centred to any main components so I'm not sure it would provide any benefit. As I type and think of a solution. My only thought is MS would have been better converting one of the fans to suck in cold air, have this enter a shroud which pushed cold air round the system through the heatsink and used the second top fan to blow the heated air out. As hot air rises and if they could just separate the fans by 1/2cm or more this might work. I feel confident this would remove some of the ambient heat that builds up in the system. __________________ Jump in, we'll take you for a spin, and show you round the Wheelie World Rizeon S97V-GT - Awesome Gaming Laptop

26th Jun 2007, 10:52	#1
Bindibadgi Richard Swinburne bit-tech Staff Join Date: Mar 2001 Location: Omnipwntent Posts: 28,226	30 Percent Failure Rate for the 360 http://www.bit-tech.net/news/2007/06..._for_the_360/1 Anonymous sources suggest a massive 30 percent failure rate on Xbox 360s. __________________ Made you look, made you stare, made you clicked this in your underwear! Den of Geek!

26th Jun 2007, 10:54	#2
DougEdey I pwn all your storage Join Date: Jul 2005 Location: Southampton Posts: 13,933	Send it to Scotland if it's out of warranty. Guaranteed repair and a lot cheaper then MS __________________ Burnout: Paradise Stats!XBL: DougEdey Bindi PSN ID: DougEdey Twitter

26th Jun 2007, 12:00	#7
TheDean What's a Dremel? Join Date: Oct 2006 Location: Newcastle Posts: 12	I have to say I am not a happy bunny. My 360 (bought March '07) has scratched my Gears of War DVD so badly it can no longer read it and MS want me to pay £10 for their 'Disk replacement programme' Not happy at all...

26th Jun 2007, 13:57	#10
./^\.Ace./^\. Multimodder $./^\.Ace./^\.'s Avatar$ Join Date: Jun 2007 Location: Toronto, ON Posts: 150 $./^\.Ace./^\. is on a distinguished road$	It is easy to see that there is no room inside the 360's case for any effective cooling system to fit But if they used a smaller optical drive like closer to a laptop's then they just might get the room they need to fit a proper sized heatsink __________________ CPU: Intel i7 920 \| RAM: 6GB OCZ Reaper DDR3 1866MHz \| Mother Board: Asus P6T \| Graphics: Dual BFG GeForce GTX295 rev.B Quad SLI \| PSU: Antec TPQ-1000 \| CPU Cooler: Cooler Master V8 \| Hard Drives: 500GB Seagate Barracuda, 500GB WD Caviar Black, 1TB WD Carviar Green \| Optical Drive: Pioneer DVR-216D \| Case: Cooler Master HAF 932 \| Monitor: LG W2343T 23" \| OS: Windows 7 Pro 64bit \|
$./^\.Ace./^\. is online now$

26th Jun 2007, 14:49	#11
cereal_killer Minimodder Join Date: Oct 2005 Posts: 45	Had a friend living in the states who's launch 360 bricked after just under 14 months. After rmaing over the course of close to 3 months he went through 4 xbox 360's with life spans of 30 mins to an hour each. After a phone a convo with rep the person let slip that ms is just repackaging rma'd 360's and putting them in new cases and sending them back out. __________________ unless i grip the sword i cannot protect you, while gripping the sword i cannot embrace you

26th Jun 2007, 15:19	#12
mmorgue Supermodder Join Date: Feb 2005 Location: Mos Eisley, in the bar... Posts: 378	Yep, picked up a 360 last October (2006). Died this year in Feb -- 3 ring Circle of Death. As nice and fast as the service was when I sent it to M$, I got one back that was dated April 2006 as year of manufacture. Nice. Warrenty still applies to the refurbed one, but as a gadet sort of person, who likes them shiney and new and smelling of fresh plastic, getting an older machine back rather than your own replaced is a bit of a downer.

26th Jun 2007, 16:22	#14
tuteja1986 Minimodder Join Date: Sep 2005 Location: Sydney Posts: 48	This all could have been avoided if Microsoft would have let arctic cooling to do the design of 360 cooling system. The amount of money wasted they could have spent it on $10 extra better cooling and $10 extra on silent DVD drive. PS3 cooling system design by Asus was done professionally.

26th Jun 2007, 17:36	#15
devdevil85 Hypermodder Join Date: Nov 2006 Location: US of A Posts: 884	Yeah, my friend's 360 continues to show the red color (not the whole ring thankfully) and it says to "contact Microsoft Technical Support" and it is doing it more and more whenever we try turning it on, but luckily it continues to work after we try turning it on again, but that still ain't good. Our Guitar Hero II saves better not get erased or I'll be so p***ed.

26th Jun 2007, 18:55	#16
Cavedweller Minimodder Join Date: Sep 2005 Location: Denmark Posts: 24	I work in retail, and can confirm that the failure rate of 360's is way higher than anything else we sell. I got 50% returned during this x-mas season. All the while, not a single Wii or PS3 has been returned. Givin how MS' treats RMA on both consumer and retailer side, I personally would _never_ buy a 360. Never. Whenever a 360 is returned to me, i have to spend 1 hour with MS support, only to be told it is my custumers (spellcheck...) fault. What the hell kind of an answer is that? I've been pissed at MS more than once, and if I had any saying in this matter (sadly i don't...) I would'nt sell any 360's. None at all. The costs of repairs and hours is more than we make, selling the bloody thing. I own a PS3 and don't feel it is too expensive in any way. I _would_ own a 360, givin my position, if i felt it would have been even the slightest more reliable. Sorry for my bad english... Not being english does that to you...

26th Jun 2007, 18:56	#17
Neogumbercules Ultramodder Join Date: Aug 2004 Location: Connecticut Posts: 1,494	My 360 has been fine so far but it still sounds like a mack truck when I have oblivion in the drive. It has frozen up on me before. My friend's 360 gives him the red rings. __________________ Abit AB9 Pro, Intel Core 2 Duo E6400 CPU, 2GB Corsair DDR2 6400, nVidia 8800GT, Seagate 160 GB HDD.

26th Jun 2007, 20:52	#18
alpha_prime Multimodder Join Date: May 2007 Posts: 70	Well, i went extreme and watercooled mine Though, that's the reason i bought a 360, to mod and play prey and other games that my pc couldn't handle . Yeah, it ain't weird they die so quickly. A lot of there problems would be gone if they'd used normal solder instead of the lead-less crap. Plus i also think they should've invested a bit more and added a slim dvd drive. They might do that later on. The big problem to me is the gpu heatsink, it's just so goddamn tiny. Ms should give every 360 owner 250 bucks credit to buy wc stuff at newegg __________________ Hmm, slow roasted goodness...

26th Jun 2007, 20:55	#19
themax Hypermodder Join Date: Dec 2005 Location: Tampa, FL Posts: 925	I recently replaced my 360 but not because of any defects (the thing fried when it shorted out due to my apartment's bad electrical wiring). But the thing was having problems. I would be playing Oblivion and then the console would suddenly tell me I have no disc in the drive which was annoying as hell because I'de lose any progress up to that point. My sister's 360 Red Halo'd right out of the box. The very first time it was turned on it wasn't working, which to be honest was pretty sad. A friend of mine is on his 2nd 360, another who has purchased an Elite, is due to exchange it (it freezes alot) for a new one. And off-topic a I am also on PS3 #2. The thing had a 50/50 chance of turning on (it would turn on and then beep at me 3 times before going back into standby). Although I do have to give it cudo's, when I did get it turned on, I left it on for an entire week (I kid you not) and the thing didn't crash once, didn't over heat, and when I felt the back it wasn't hot at all.

26th Jun 2007, 21:07	#20
docodine Ultramodder Join Date: Feb 2007 Location: Illinois Posts: 1,493	I'm on Wii #1 since December, and the only problem was one lockup during Need for Speed: Carbon. Only one of my friends Xbox 360s are still working, two of them got the red halo. And PS3s... only one friend has that, and his fails to start 1/2 of the time. I'm glad that I got a Wii. :P