News Thermal analysts examine Xbox 360

[CardJoe]

http://www.bit-tech.net/news/2007/08...ine_xbox_360/1

Japanese thermal design experts take apart an old Xbox 360 and one which has been repaired this year to check just what's going on inside Microsoft's beige box.

(not)

[completemadness]

The expert also noted that the cooling fan was only half the size of most desktop PCs and speculated that this was because Microsoft wanted to reduce the noise made by the system.

Expert ? wtf ?

The fan is small because they want to make the console small, if the console is only 60mm high, there is only room for a 60mm fan
Larger fans shift more air at the same DB levels (and therefore, shift the same amount of air at lower DB levels)

Also, if the gfx heatsink is such a problem, why the hell didn't MS use a slimline DVD drive, which would at least 1/2 the space required for it ....

[DougEdey]

http://forums.xbox-scene.com/index.php?showtopic=580504

That shows what happens when you make simple mods to the 360.

[Bl4ckM0onk3y]

I checked the Videos on Youtube when some Japanese guys took the PS3 apart , and it was as shocking difference as Driving the Mercedes Benz Maybach and a Yugo, and i refer here that PS3 is the Mercedes ;F , the PS3 interior looks like it was build to last , while X360 was so messed up like i would see and poorly made DIY PC , the motherboard of X360 is only 5 or 6 layers thick , for such a hardware it should be at least 7 layer PCB. Also the solder points are poorly made , it simply looks like someone was running around inside with a hand solder. To simply put it i don't know a single person from my friends that had x360 and he didn't had to RMA it. Either the Dvd drive fails or the Ring of Death comes to play. Anyway i have seen some i486 based PC's back in my old days that had been better build then this plastic "toy" box.

[woodshop]

Originally Posted by DougEdey

http://forums.xbox-scene.com/index.php?showtopic=580504

That shows what happens when you make simple mods to the 360.

Oh and just to add, an xbox CPU / GPU and -8 degrees C doesn't work, so for those looking into extreme cooling in the minus, don't, i think you'd probably get away with a fully working machine at -4, but i wouldn't recommend it, especially unless you make some custom pads and retention brackets, condensation would be a major issue.

Yea.. thanks i'll remember that... feel sry for those in the Antarctic research station who wana play xbox after doing the whole polar bar club deal.

[Bl4ckM0onk3y]

Originally Posted by woodshop

Yea.. thanks i'll remember that... feel sry for those in the Antarctic research station who wana play xbox after doing the whole polar bar club deal.

but imagine an Xbox 360 as a life saving device, a person who felt into icy water on Antarctica , then he is wrapped in some blanket with xbox360' running, that way you can save 2 "lives" 1 is the one console suffering from Ring of death and the other is the person

[C-Sniper]

damn the Graphics LSI can get over 100*C. thats insane. and the fact that nothing changed with the repair is quite ridiculous.

[Emon]

Originally Posted by completemadness

Expert ? wtf ?

Seriously, how does a thermal expert arrive at the conclusion that small fans are ever quiet? Small fans have annoying high frequencies and need to spin faster to push the same amount of air as a larger one.

Also, the 100 C thing isn't necessarily bad as long as it's built to withstand that temperature. I'm not sure if it is, I'm just saying it's okay as long as its within specs.

[devdevil85]

My friend's 360 is seriously on it's last leg and we can't play it anymore without it freezing every 10 seconds and it doesn't matter what game we play it still does it. I would be so mad if I was my friend. He spent $499 on his Premium system in 2005 and for it to already be giving out and for him to now have to spend $100 and be w/o his system for a little over a month is just horrible. Not to be a fanboy (like everyone thinks I am, but am NOT) has the PS3 had any issues like this since its launch?

[Goty]

Originally Posted by devdevil85

My friend's 360 is seriously on it's last leg and we can't play it anymore without it freezing every 10 seconds and it doesn't matter what game we play it still does it. I would be so mad if I was my friend. He spent $499 on his Premium system in 2005 and for it to already be giving out and for him to now have to spend $100 and be w/o his system for a little over a month is just horrible. Not to be a fanboy (like everyone thinks I am, but am NOT) has the PS3 had any issues like this since its launch?

Only with the poorly ventilated demo kiosks. I run Folding@Home on my PS3 24/7 (well, when I'm not playing) and I have yet to have a problem.

[Pie_uk]

nope. even at currys, we have rammed it in a glass cabinet that is locked, and its on demo nearly 24/7. hasn't crashed once.

i wish MS would improve the cooling. its easily done.

[Renoir]

Originally Posted by Emon

Seriously, how does a thermal expert arrive at the conclusion that small fans are ever quiet? Small fans have annoying high frequencies and need to spin faster to push the same amount of air as a larger one.

As I understand it for a given rpm a smaller fan will be quieter in terms of db but the subjective nature of the noise is more objectionable (high pitched as you say). As you mention smaller fans need to spin faster to push a given amount of air but the key is how much air is required. If the components in the 360 were cool running enough then having small fans would be okay due to them not needing to spin too fast. Problem is the 360 components are not cool running.

Originally Posted by Emon

Also, the 100 C thing isn't necessarily bad as long as it's built to withstand that temperature. I'm not sure if it is, I'm just saying it's okay as long as its within specs.

QFT. Take GPUs vs CPUs for example. The reference 8800 gtx cards tend to run fairly quiet whereas if a cpu were to consume as much power as the 8800gtx it would be diffucult to cool it quietly on air. The difference is the 8800gtx can get a lot hotter while still staying stable than current cpus and therefore doesn't require as much noisy airflow to keep withing specs.

Just some thoughts...

[Bl4ckM0onk3y]

Originally Posted by Emon

Seriously, how does a thermal expert arrive at the conclusion that small fans are ever quiet? Small fans have annoying high frequencies and need to spin faster to push the same amount of air as a larger one.

Also, the 100 C thing isn't necessarily bad as long as it's built to withstand that temperature. I'm not sure if it is, I'm just saying it's okay as long as its within specs.

Well 90% of small fans need to spin faster then the large (lets say 92mm and 120mm) ones, if you look at the very VERY poor quality of components used in the xbox360 you will know that even does the ATI Xenos vga chip is designed to withstand the lets say "90-100C" then the solder points of the chip and the low layered PCB of the motherboard does not have to ;] , so you have it, low quality and excessive heat can lead to small failures that lead to global console crash (such as the dreaded Ring of Death )

Originally Posted by devdevil85

My friend's 360 is seriously on it's last leg and we can't play it anymore without it freezing every 10 seconds and it doesn't matter what game we play it still does it. I would be so mad if I was my friend. He spent $499 on his Premium system in 2005 and for it to already be giving out and for him to now have to spend $100 and be w/o his system for a little over a month is just horrible. Not to be a fanboy (like everyone thinks I am, but am NOT) has the PS3 had any issues like this since its launch?

As far i read the PS3 had some minor issues with the Blue Ray drive , SONY states that failure rate is as high as 1% , people sometimes report random squared dots in games (probably bad shader unit in graphics chip) , also there might be some Hard Drive failures but they are presumed to be low since PS3 uses the Seagate Momentus portable drives (witch are reliable so far)

[mikeuk2004]

Touch Wood mine is ok apart from the random crash with certain games.

[Bungle]

Was hoping to get an Xbox 360 at some point but the thermal issue keeps cropping up. Is there any noise from microsoft that they will address this problem in a future release?

[leexgx]

the Xbox is noisy full stop them fans are to noisy to start with

if M$ say yes it was an fault with the Xbox thay will probably get sued allot (if not many USA peeps have already tyred to)

dono why thay have not resoved this problem by makeing an new Xbox 360 that does not have these problems, Xbox 360 is the most unrelible console ever made and i not buy one untill its resoved with an revsion Bigger heat sink mite lower the temps an little bit

but that Revew of an Xbox was an little lame due to the fact he did not bother to test the New Xbox 360 heat sink as well

[devdevil85]

/\ Why would they waste their time testing out the "new" 360 when "to [their] surprise, the composition of the repaired Xbox 360 looked completely the same as that of the Xbox 360 purchased in late 2005. It turned out that Microsoft provided repair without changing the Xbox 360's thermo design at least until May 2007."

[DougEdey]

The reports of the modified cooling didn't come till June/July anyway.

[Bladestorm]

Hrm, bit-tech paraphrased the bit about the fan being made smaller to reduce noise ? the actual comment seems to be :

The cooler fan's maximum wind speed was 1.1 m/s, only 1/2 to 1/3 compared with general desktop PCs. It may be partly because the fan rotation was reduced to lower noise.

Which would seem to make more sense coming from an expert.

[landi_uk]

Well after my 360 being returned from repair for ring of death, it has a new second HS installed so MS are addressing this issue.

It appears that this is only being done after June, so it would be interesting to see a re-evaluation of the article with the new HS, which is now being installed.