30 percent of Xbox 360s fail?

Sad but true.

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still made using the same process introduced for the console's launch in 2005.

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Sad thing is is that they have had two years to fix this.

LOL.....get a ps3 or a wii.... LMAO....

you should really take any survey information with a grain of salt. although the 3 rings of death is now as infamous as the BSOD, i find it really hard to believe that 30% of the units to be defective.

although if this is true, and microsoft have ignored the problem, it really tells you what they think of the consumer.

That's the whole problem . . M$ DOESN'T think of the consumer

M$ only thinks of the consumer's cash . . and as long as they can line Billy-boy's pockets with it, they could care less about us

argh freakin microsoft...
im only getting the 360 for Halo 3...
on sep 26th haha, so i hope theyve done something about since then

Not the correct # but its high

It's going to be so much worse when Halo 3 comes out, because people will be playing so much and for so many hours at a time, it's got to cause the failure rate to go up.

Shoudnt be as bad as launch

ive had literally, 4 consoles go bad.

given, the one i have that i bought to mod, still works, but it barely gets played. im mainly keeping it because it has the exploited dash version.

i just mailed the 360, that i just got back from MS about 4 weeks ago that was locking up in, AFTER custo service took my call, told me they were sending a box, and forgot to send the box, so when i called 2 weeks later, they finally sent it, just got it today and mailed it in.

hopefully ill get the updated heatsink version, and that will be that.

either way.. ive lost like $20 in gamefly costs, plus having 2 rentals from blockbuster, and the cost of xbox live while its out of service.

if i got reimbursed for that i would be happy.

/rant.

this one gave me the 3 lights after playing Forza 2.

I can't beleive people are still thinking the numbers are low, I beleive the article fully..I mean I went to so many different UPS store dropoffs and all the employees know about the 360's getting sent in for repair. I knew from the beggining when all the 3 red lights started getting reported that it was an major issue. I mean come on people the defect rate has to be extremely high as some people like myself have went through like 4-5 if not more! It's just too well known for it to have a low percentage defect rate.

30% should be more like 45% - 55% if not more. Those numbers are definitely toned down to make it not sound like a big issue.

It is really sad and true, I am currently on my 4th 360. 2 of my 360s had the ring of death while the 3rd one had disc eating problems. The reason the 360 failure is the highest of all the coonsoles is because the 360 has a small chance of surviving once it overheats. When the 360 overheats, the internal temperatures become too high for the hardware to withstand, and cause internal warping and burns. This was also the reason why folding@home wasn't able to be applied to the 360, because F@H uses the cpu and gpu to there fullest and would cause internal damages and render a 360 useless. The highest degree of damage seen when a 360 overheats is the areas were the soldering is done. Although its failure rate is really high, it is still a good system. If you plan on getting a console which can last long, a ps3 or wii is a better choice.

are the elites immune to this overheating crap? can a fan or water cooling mod help this? if Halo 3 is as big an improvement over Halo 2 as 2 was over 1 id probably still buy a 360 even if it shot me in the face every time i turned it on. i agree with Spenman, when Halo 3 launches the problem is going to get so much worse cause everyone will be playing so much and Halo 3 will undoubtably use the cpu almost to the max.

The elite is just a black 360 with a larger harddrive. All the other stuff is pretty much the same as the standard 360. So you would get the same performance as the regular 360.

I've been reading the forums at Xbox-scene for over a year and hearing all kinds of stories like these. Same with the forums at AVS forum too. The motherboard needs a serious overhaul. Whomever thought of the "X-Clamp" design should be fired. Its astonishing that Microsoft, with billions in the bank, can't afford (or perhaps wont pay for) damn good engineers? Do they go cheap in its hiring practices the way they go cheap in their building materials for their console?!

I thought about getting a 360 since Mass Effect is coming from my fav company..Bioware (baldurs gate, planescape, jade empire) but with microshaft's track record of unreliability...no way.

Not until they FIX their poorly-designed motherboard/solder points.

Till then I'll enjoy my dual core with 1 gig ram & x1900 Radeon which runs circles around ANY xbox360 game....just waiting for Mass Effect to come to PC. Sigh..

folding at home is so completely worthless. you know what all that data processing is going to accomplish? absolutely nothing.

I guess I'm one of the lucky ones. I have a launch 360, and it still works as good today as it did on day one. And that's after putting it through the paces as I use it to play games, watch DVD's, watch TV, stream music to my living room from my PC. It's on at least 4 hours a day doing something, if not more. My original Xbox still works too, as it's connected to my other TV for so I can watch recorded content there too.

Sony on the other hand, I refuse to buy their products anymore. I have purchased 5 Sony products in my life. All 5 either died, or had reduced functionality shortly after purchase. And, according to Sony, I was SOL.

Nintendo, I had good reliability. Three consoles from them and only one failure, which was easily exchanged. However, the N64 really turned me off Nintendo.

flanker: Not entirely true. Protein folding can potentially identify sequences that can cure diseases. It isn't the best way of doing so, but where no existing biological molecule is known or is naturally produced it could be the only option to synthesize from scratch. The whole idea is that a protein sequence folds up into a particular shape, which can act as a "key" to activate or deactivate another protein, but the folding mechanism isn't entirely straightforward, so necessary to try exhaustive combinations of amino acids to get the right shape in the end.

Long story short, it is THEORETICALLY useful, and it can accomplish SOMETHING. The bummer is that for all the time donated by people, the chances of any discovered drugs being given back to the public (who were largely responsible for its discovery) at a reasonable price is slim to none. Big biotech companies will just buy the patent and the consumer is screwed thanks to their monopoly on it.

I have a 360 and PS3 which I bought on day of release. So far so good but the PS3 is just sat there doing nothing. There's more games on and coming to 360 than PS3. Given the choice go for 360. Sony are too worried about Blu-ray failing than they are about games. If you want games its 360 or Wii if you want to watch blurry dvds buy a PS3.

Originally posted by nptwenty:

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I have a 360 and PS3 which I bought on day of release. So far so good but the PS3 is just sat there doing nothing. There's more games on and coming to 360 than PS3. Given the choice go for 360. Sony are too worried about Blu-ray failing than they are about games. If you want games its 360 or Wii if you want to watch blurry dvds buy a PS3.

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What that got to do with this tread??????

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Originally posted by nptwenty:

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I have a 360 and PS3 which I bought on day of release. So far so good but the PS3 is just sat there doing nothing. There's more games on and coming to 360 than PS3. Given the choice go for 360. Sony are too worried about Blu-ray failing than they are about games. If you want games its 360 or Wii if you want to watch blurry dvds buy a PS3.

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What that got to do with this tread??????

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only because it's like 7am here and only because I feel like playing devil's advocate for an otherwise rather out of place comment (lol)... he did say 'so far so good' which could mean that he has had no red rings of death experience with his xbox amd recommends buying one regardless of the concern made by this article

But then again I could just feel like throwing the poor guy a bone

**shrugs**

wow 30% thats high... Xbox 360 sold 10.4 million consoles worldwide... that means 3 million are bad... dang!!... I was thinking of getting x360 back then but I bought PS3... now i have PS3 and wii and no issues what so ever...

hehe i dont know if its just me but does anyone not see the irony in this.

Microsoft wanted a chips to compete with the cell processor, so they settled on IBM's Power PC cores.

And they get a 30% faliure rate due to the chips producing more heat than the maybe not so cleaver cooling path of the 360 can cope with.

Now heres the ironic but, IBM Toshiba and Sony worked closely to create the CELL chip, at the same time IBM sell microsoft, sonys competitor the older get power pc chips.

Anyone would have thought that IBM knew the chips would cook with that cooling system.

If you ask me microsoft should have either vented the box left to right or vica versa or there was previous discussions of using a water cooling kit.... but for fear of leacking games consoles the idea got shelfed, hehe its not looking suck a bad idea now.

They have some re-designed heat sink that adds a nother inch to the existing design, but is this really going to be the extra inch thats going to stop it cooking..... i dont think so :(

http://www.engadget.com/2006/06/20/xbox-...-water-cooling/

Theres a few after market mods to keep u cool and that has to be the coolest looking 360 ive ever seen.

And before anyone starts to flame me, i agreed u shouldn't have to do an aftermarket mod to make it work properly, but look at it this way would you prefer a working box or one that cooks?

I'll never own a 360 again. I was happy with my xbox until I got the three rings of death.. Now I own a ps3 and I like it better, much better product

I'm on my third 360. Nuff said.

guys guys...

microzift (means microshit in my lang ^^) do great work really..

but there is no product without problem...

microzift has problem in overheating only...

to avoid this buy a seperate small FAN not aichocooler whatever...

place it behind 360

and one thing do not ever put 360 in drawer while playing...

do not ever put 360 in hot place while shut down....

do play while 360 on the floor only...

^_________^

I have been saying this all along the fail rate is more 30% than their touted 4%.


Now for me this impacts the price of the console its mroe liek a 300$ one than a 400$ one put I am silly with my whole price V cost thing,the PS3 is only worth 400 to me :P

at least nin and sony know how to build a console MS is sloping together a poor mans gameing rig complete with under spec parts >>


despite all the troubles the process refinement is goign well and by the end of the year we should have super 3.0 360s!!
0-o

No way it could be 30%... and why do the survey with retailers. Sure they'd get some of the units back but don't most people deal directly with MS? Call me crazy but I don't think articles like this should be posted based upon "an EB Games manager". Has anyone else here gone to an EB Games recently? They're always such a wealth of good information.

That said, I've had my 360 since launch and it's never had a single problem. I play it constantly. As others have said my PS3 sits there unused (except for the occasional BluRay rental). I'm frankly more than satisfied knowing MS has had a 1 year warranty on all 360s... gives me a lot more peace of mind than with my PS3. I fear that thing will die... it tends to get hot. Really hot. Somehow I don't think Sony will be quite as understanding as MS should anything happen to my PS3.

MS puts me on hold everytime i tell them my console overheats and got me the ring of death, and never pick up the phone AGAIN. So how would you say MS is more understanding, If they were more understanding THEY would have done something about their 2yr old problematic system. Sony and Nintendo are fixing up there systems in just a couple of months, unlike how MS fixes things, which took to 2yrs just for them to add a small cooling addon, AND THATS IT. MS also doesn't explain how my friends got XBL banned, and they did nothing wrong,it was this middle schooler that got my friends banned, just because the kid didn't like them. My friend have worst luck than i do, one is one his 6th 360, his 2nd elite. I mean come on, it takes MS 2 weeks to repair a console, when it takes Sony and Nintendo 3-4 days to repair and return, and Sony and Nintendo atleast talk and explain to me how to fix problems. If MS was so understanding they would have gotten their act together in couple of months that they have release the 360 and listened to the customers and fix the console.

Originally posted by jab1981:

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No way it could be 30%... and why do the survey with retailers. Sure they'd get some of the units back but don't most people deal directly with MS? Call me crazy but I don't think articles like this should be posted based upon "an EB Games manager". Has anyone else here gone to an EB Games recently? They're always such a wealth of good information.

That said, I've had my 360 since launch and it's never had a single problem. I play it constantly. As others have said my PS3 sits there unused (except for the occasional BluRay rental). I'm frankly more than satisfied knowing MS has had a 1 year warranty on all 360s... gives me a lot more peace of mind than with my PS3. I fear that thing will die... it tends to get hot. Really hot. Somehow I don't think Sony will be quite as understanding as MS should anything happen to my PS3.

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most of my friends my 15 or so friends that have had a 360 had to at elast have theirs replaced twice some as much as 4 times,I am sorry you dont believe it but tis pretty much 15-30%, as for "an EB Games manager" if anyone in the industry came out and said anything abotu it they would lose their job to much money is at stake,so that plus a ton of other reports lead me and others to believe the 360 has a high fail rate.

I have 2 friends that are PS3 junkies and they play theirs 5+ hours a day. that + no real reports of PS3 failures leads me to think the PS3 is better manufactured, we will find out by xmas of next year when at least 80 more games are out and the PS3s world wide are put threw their passes..

Im still going to buy another one(2nd) because of the games and will keep supporting the Xbox 360

Dang... I just bought an Xbox 360 Elite and (as I usually do) I turned down any sort of extended warranty.

If I'd known this, I might have considered the additional cost worth it.

This is why i don't buy systems when they first come out anymore. Well, that and the prices.

Originally posted by Dapsone:

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Dang... I just bought an Xbox 360 Elite and (as I usually do) I turned down any sort of extended warranty.

If I'd known this, I might have considered the additional cost worth it.

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shizzle man....they give you a 10 day grace period I go get oen NOA the elites are made with the same heat fail shizzle the normal ones are made out of ;_;
I hope it lasts

thats 3 in 10. not as bad as it sounds

Originally posted by drphilly:

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thats 3 in 10. not as bad as it sounds

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Ya it dose not sound insanely bad,not when a few people get 3 or 4 bad systems that means more people don't have any trouble( by laws of math),but still it kills my interest to spend top dollar on it ASAP.

its good they are overhauling it and expanding the warranty but they should have done all this sooner....

Assuming it were a random failure, then really there's less than a 1% chance of going through 4 systems. That's assuming that 30% failure rate is accurate, which I believe is a number well above the actual fail rate.

At that point, if you are onto your 4th system, don't you think it may be something you're doing? Like storing it in a location with zero ventilation? It is a PC after all, and who would put there PC in an airtight box?

3-10 is higher than the average game console. The gamestop here, has a lot of broken 360s in there storage room, they say that they had never had so much returns for one console. I had console ever since SNES and it is only the 360 that breaks done, not once but 3 times, the original xbox didnt even have sure problems, so i don't think i handle the system badly, it's just that the reliability of a 360 is just lower than average. All my other consoles are doing fine and haven't had trouble on them at all. And i don't think this applies only to me, my friends also have to turn in their 360s because of damages not cause by them. 360 is a good console, but MS has to get their act together, cause if my current 360 fails then i'm not going to get another one.

Originally posted by scors:

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Assuming it were a random failure, then really there's less than a 1% chance of going through 4 systems. That's assuming that 30% failure rate is accurate, which I believe is a number well above the actual fail rate.

At that point, if you are onto your 4th system, don't you think it may be something you're doing? Like storing it in a location with zero ventilation? It is a PC after all, and who would put there PC in an airtight box?

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I ahve 3 PC/gamer nazis as friends they dust their system weekly keep it in the best airflow spot,ect,ect,ect,1 even got a laptop fan for the DC later used it o the Xbox I dunno where ihe got it tho...I dont know how much he spent for it...LOL

and the others pretty much had theirs in the open on flat well ventilated stuff,no carpet baggers here and they all had issues with it, they all knew the Xbox got hot and the newer consoles since the DC and PS2 created a lot more heat more than the PSX/N56 or before, the 360 just seems to have bad cooling I am surprised it works in warmer climates 80+ ambient temp can't be good for it.

BTW everyone I believe 3-6% is the normal failure rate for tech, I dunno what the truth is but it feels like the 360 has a a 15% or higher fail rate, mainly because they recerted the returned 360s and not replaced them recerting a system that had heating issues in its cooling system is just stupid...saves you money but can't be good for the consumer.....

Raniofire, shhh, we all know ur a M$ hater! So i very much doutb u have a 360 and have been gettign the ring of death, callign them up and being put on hold! Stop making this BS up.

Anyway, i've got a launch consol, it works fine, never crashed or anything, been on for 3 days straigth, mines all fine. I've call M$ up and the free MS points i should ahve got, got straigth through were very helpful.

Elite, is alot better, with better chips, that make the 360 even more power efficent and produces a lot less heat, so elite is very unlikly to get ring of death. Frankly i don't see hwo 360's can overheat, mien hardly produces any heat, i live in the Uk so the weather is cooler then ppl in USA, so i would feel the change in temperature more. My 360 has been nothing but wonderful i ahve a massive games collect, with full of great games, unliek my brother who has a PS3 and has a massive 3 games!

Originally posted by flanker22:

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folding at home is so completely worthless. you know what all that data processing is going to accomplish? absolutely nothing.

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I just had to ask... what the heck does the folding@home have to do with the price of tea...????

Originally posted by Riotard:

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Raniofire, shhh, we all know ur a M$ hater! So i very much doutb u have a 360 and have been gettign the ring of death, callign them up and being put on hold! Stop making this BS up.

Anyway, i've got a launch consol, it works fine, never crashed or anything, been on for 3 days straigth, mines all fine. I've call M$ up and the free MS points i should ahve got, got straigth through were very helpful.

Elite, is alot better, with better chips, that make the 360 even more power efficent and produces a lot less heat, so elite is very unlikly to get ring of death. Frankly i don't see hwo 360's can overheat, mien hardly produces any heat, i live in the Uk so the weather is cooler then ppl in USA, so i would feel the change in temperature more. My 360 has been nothing but wonderful i ahve a massive games collect, with full of great games, unliek my brother who has a PS3 and has a massive 3 games!

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NONONONONO!!!!!!!!
the elite uses the same CPU and chips as the 360 only it has some newer chips and might have some better design to it it still uses the basic heat dispensation of the 360,meaning its a death trap for tech,only the systems with the refined cooling system will do better and the new CPU/GPU will be best whenever they start putting them in ,face it the 360 is just haphazardly made.

BTW what do you keep your room temp at? I try and keep mine under 70.
but even at 90 degress any console should function "normally".
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xrams
beyond the data thats processed folding@home can show a benchmark of what the system can do,it would be interesting if a 3rd party made benchmarking discs for the PS3 and 360 and wii a 3 disc set for 30 or 40 $ would be fun to play with.

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[quote=Riotard]
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xrams
beyond the data thats processed folding@home can show a benchmark of what the system can do,it would be interesting if a 3rd party made benchmarking discs for the PS3 and 360 and wii a 3 disc set for 30 or 40 $ would be fun to play with.

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I have a PS3... I know what folding@home does... I just can't understand why some like to still take shots at the PS3.... when this thread is about the 360....

I understand that most folks bought the 360 b/c of the low price tag.. but you get what you pay for... Microsoft knew it had to get to market before the PS3.... this is the result of rushing a half down product to customer just to gain market share....

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[quote]

Originally posted by Riotard:

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xrams
beyond the data thats processed folding@home can show a benchmark of what the system can do,it would be interesting if a 3rd party made benchmarking discs for the PS3 and 360 and wii a 3 disc set for 30 or 40 $ would be fun to play with.

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I have a PS3... I know what folding@home does... I just can't understand why some like to still take shots at the PS3.... when this thread is about the 360....

I understand that most folks bought the 360 b/c of the low price tag.. but you get what you pay for... Microsoft knew it had to get to market before the PS3.... this is the result of rushing a half down product to customer just to gain market share....

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I would not say that,the plant they picked messed up and they them selfs would not correct the error first BWC(not their fault since nvinda pulled out/didn't let them use the full emulation setup they were goign to use) then cooling issues(not directly MS's fault but the clean up was and it was sloppy),the 360 is a mixed bag but with the PS3 being almost twice as much and having less games on it plus some ship jumpers its not really out in the waters either,the 360 might be takign water but at its its far from shore....the WII can fly....0-o.

Well, the only experience I have is the 20some guys I know with 360's. Out of all of them, only one guy has had a failure, and he's on his third or fourth. He also happens to be the one who married a woman who is bound and determined that there's a place for everything, and everything in it's place. She still is adamant that it belongs inside their entertainment unit and can't quite understand the whole ventilation thing. She also used to hide the controllers on him, as she considers video games a huge waste of time. Didn't quite catch on that he'd just go buy more. Poor guy, we make fun of him incessantly.

I'm on my second system, and I bought it last september. I have to say that MS's customer support did their job and replaced my unit in a couple of weeks. I realize that I live in one of the hottest places within Puerto Rico (we get temps. over 90 degrees very often)with no air conditioning and that the 360 suffered electrical abuse(I had it connected to a UPS believing it would protect it and when the power failed the piece of trash couldn't keep up with the 360's power demands, summoning the Ring of Death for the first of many times); but the Xbox 360 still has to be the most fragile game console I have owned.

So far I guess I like the 360 a lot and don't see myself spending any cash in a Wii or PS3 anytime soon. But, if the 360 breaks down and warranty no longer covers the repair costs, then I will sell my controllers, games and other accesories and discard MS as a console manufacturer for good. Also, I got a month of Xox Live Gold with my replacement unit, and I have to say I'm hooked. Smackdown VS Raw 2007 is great fun online.

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most of my friends my 15 or so friends that have had a 360 had to at elast have theirs replaced twice some as much as 4 times,I am sorry you dont believe it but tis pretty much 15-30%.

I have 2 friends that are PS3 junkies and they play theirs 5+ hours a day. that + no real reports of PS3 failures leads me to think the PS3 is better manufactured, we will find out by xmas of next year when at least 80 more games are out and the PS3s world wide are put threw their passes..

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Again, forgive me if there's a little doubt behind an internet post stating that 15 of your friends all bought 360s and that all 15 had to replace them. Not exactly scientific evidence and it sound highly suspect to me. Personally I only know about 8 people with 360s and thus far no one has had a single problem with any of them. And that's with at least 3 launch systems.

As for your PS3 comments, it's a tad hard to base a comparison on your 15 friends who obviously have trouble with electronics... and the two who own PS3s. I'd suggest that this hasn't been brought up in regards to the PS3 at this point simply because it isn't the market leader. I remember the PS2 was plagued with complaints all through it's life. This is probably due to the fact that the market leader makes a bigger and much more satisfying target.

But again, this isn't anything more than anecdotal evidence. As I've said I've got conflicting reports in my own personal experience and that doesn't make either one of us wrong, it simply has no bearing on a broad comment like saying there is a 30% failure rate. That is simply ridiculous. To be blunt this would have been a major news story by this point. Think of last year, people were ready to run MS out with the problems the original batch of 360s had and had there been any merit to the claims a class action lawsuit would have been filed at the least. But instead it was largely internet folks like you and I who were making ridiculous claims about defective consoles and in the end it actually didn't happen.

Had I known baseless nonsense spouted by EB Games employees counted as news I would've submitted the claim that my local EB Games passed along to me shortly after the 360 launch when they claimed that the 360 was being recalled due to fault power bricks and that all consoles would have to be returned and it would be relaunched a year later. That was obviously untrue... as is this ridiculous claim. If the failure rate was really 30% we'd simply have more evidence than the constant claim that "20 of my friends had to replace their consoles".

Originally posted by rainofire:

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MS puts me on hold everytime i tell them my console overheats and got me the ring of death, and never pick up the phone AGAIN. I mean come on, it takes MS 2 weeks to repair a console, when it takes Sony and Nintendo 3-4 days to repair and return, and Sony and Nintendo atleast talk and explain to me how to fix problems.

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I'm not going to comment on most of this post as it's obviously flame-bait. It doesn't even make much coherent sense and some of the claims are too incredible to be believed(XBLive banning people without legitimate reasons, come on...).

I will respond to two points. I called MS after reading your post to test your theory. I called in using my system with the original claim that I had the dreaded ring of death. Was talking with a specialist within 10 minutes, I proceeded to the point where an RMA would've been started. Perhaps you should try 1-800-4MYXBOX instead of whatever number you obviously dialed by mistaken. It's apparent by previous posters who have claimed 15 friends have returned upwards of 4 360s each that MS has no problem replacing consoles. (sarcasm) Or perhaps ZIppyDSM and his 15 friends and their insanely destructive use of the 360 caused a temporary shortage in supply... (/sarcasm)

And as for Nintendo returning products in 3-4 days, I don't know personally if this is true... but if it's not it should be. The Wii isn't much more than a Gamecube and should it take more than 2 weeks to process a return something has gone horrible wrong. As for the PS3 I can tell you first hand if they're representative helped you in anyway you were in a very small minority. I've been dealing with them since the November launch to try and solve an HDMI connection issue with my HDTV. Even though this was actually reported on first hand by PopularMechanics they managed to deny there was an issue for 6 months, avoiding my calls and refusing to answer questions or take any responsibility for the issue. Out of a logged 20 calls over 6 months they never once gave me any help with the issue, never suggested any resolution, never claimed any responsibility for the issue and in most cases simply denied it was happening at all... only to patch the issue 6 months later.

jab1981
so because you cant believe MS screwed up everyone is lieing?
Look all I am saying it its a damn high failure rate more than the standard(3-5%) they say it is,thus its enough of a concern to put it off till they get it fixed which they are.

This reminds me of the Lens fiasco on the PS2 altho it feels like its a bit higher in numbers,as I have said the 3 people I know here IRL have head issues with their systems.

Depending on the issues the company will own up to it, most of the time they (nin,sony,MS) will PR spin it as its just your own bad luck, IMO the 360 is wonky hardware wise mainly because they did not take thos heat failing systems out of circulation thus you get a bloated number of returns it makes some sense if anything its going to double or triple the fail rate because they are using the same poorly constructed 360s and just patching the MB to work not doing anythign about the cooling system.

MS is bringing out new CPU/GPU to kill the cooling problems and make the system cheaper to produce once these are in circulation the heating troubles should be phased out,alll I am sayign is wait till there out to spend 400$ on them and MS should have dealt with all this from day 100.....

Originally posted by scors:

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Assuming it were a random failure, then really there's less than a 1% chance of going through 4 systems. That's assuming that 30% failure rate is accurate, which I believe is a number well above the actual fail rate...

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The fundamental flaw of this logic is that the exchanged 360's people recieved are not new 360's, but rather, a refurbished/repaired system. Therefore it has a much higher chance of failing. Frankly, I think 30% is on the conservative side.

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Originally posted by scors:

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Assuming it were a random failure, then really there's less than a 1% chance of going through 4 systems. That's assuming that 30% failure rate is accurate, which I believe is a number well above the actual fail rate...

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The fundamental flaw of this logic is that the exchanged 360's people recieved are not new 360's, but rather, a refurbished/repaired system. Therefore it has a much higher chance of failing. Frankly, I think 30% is on the conservative side.

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I dont think its more than 30 mainly because 2-4 in 10 sounds about right.

If the level really has reached 30% its getting to that point when they are going to have to start tho think about it getting called a generic manufacture defect.

Of course if that does happen they are going to have to redsign the cooling block and allow an overall product re-call.

But looking at this from microsofts point of view they would only ever admit to this if its going to cost more to swap out 30% of systems where they are having to reaplce far more than the cooling block where gpus die and burn etc or to just replace the cooling blocks in the all systems out there with something better, that will do the job.

But if this play off of failures against an overal recal cost doesnt break until its say 50 - 60 %, who is going to lose out more microsoft or the consumer or maybe both.

But whats going to hurt them more, just giving in and admiting its a design defect and not a problem with the manufacture process, really the revised heat block seen on the recently returned systems is an indirect acceptance of it being a design fault.

Or not to admit it and end up probably hurting the xbox name more because people were fed up of being on there 2nd, 3rd or possible more swapout.

I bet you if microsoft approached someone like zalman or coolmaster they could knock up a realtivly cheap block for less than $6 manufacture.

or

http://www.engadget.com/2006/04/02/nykos-xbox-360-intercooler/

You can understand that the goal was to produce a low noise box for the living room but anyone who has built a few pcs would tell you if you were going to stick the equivilent 360 cpu and gpus into a pc or a server your going to be wanting to fit a heafty fan and to be able to move a fairly large volume of air to move that vented heat.

Ah hehe ive just remembered another way to cool a 360 :

http://www.pugetsystems.com/submerged.php

Really you know im all joking but it would be fun to see, besides i can see real problems with being able to get those disk in and out hehe.

However if you have money to burn and want to say goodbye to your heat problems for ever, just mod in one of these vapochill pupies ;)

http://www2.asetek.com/default.asp?showP...ontentSection=2

plazma247
has anyone sued MS over the whole cooling issue?
it would interesting to see the real numbers, at least by the end of next year you'll have thousands of 360 3.0's out.hopefully MS will be smart and phase out the flawed units...if not.....thats just a scary thought.,...

Not to my knowlage chap, realistically its not really a fire hazard as i belive most are dying at the cpu or gpu, being the two most heat producing componets in there, as the system no longer functions with these components dead. So its not going to set fire to anything, or at least i wouldnt have expected it to.

However, even if they made a gen 3 of the system, are they just going to keep on swapping older systems out until they hit warwanty end?

Actually lol im still looking at coolers, theres a little device called a peltier element:

http://www.sciencestore.co.uk/StorePelti...CFSQHEgodFW5zCw

http://www.heatsink-guide.com/peltier.htm

Fan less and its the right price 2 boot, although they would need a temprature regulation circuit to prevent it from being able to cool below 14 deg c where your going to start to have problems with such things as condensation.

Just a heads up. i own one of these and the way itplugs in looks kinda risky so i just tape it to make sure it doesnt get loose. the cooling is fantastic and the xbox 360 actually feels colder. but the sound is soooo loud

http://www.gwn.com/articles/article.php/..._Gamers_Up.html

Originally posted by scors:

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Well, the only experience I have is the 20some guys I know with 360's. Out of all of them, only one guy has had a failure, and he's on his third or fourth. He also happens to be the one who married a woman who is bound and determined that there's a place for everything, and everything in it's place. She still is adamant that it belongs inside their entertainment unit and can't quite understand the whole ventilation thing. She also used to hide the controllers on him, as she considers video games a huge waste of time. Didn't quite catch on that he'd just go buy more. Poor guy, we make fun of him incessantly.

---

Sounds like you hate his wife!! lol... Luckily my wife loves gamin too. Even with good ventilation and "safety" perimeter around the 360 to avoid knocks/spills/anything I have had the rings of death (got replacement back), my replacement was broke from the day I received it (my dvd drive sticks internally when no disks are in - takes days to shake it loose!!).... but because of the now 30 day wait time on UK repairs (because of the numbers needing repairs) I just haven't bothered... waiting until my Live subscription renews!!

psp junior, although the air flows increased it would appear one of those turbo coolers still isnt going to save you from the ring of death.

Watch this and see whats attached to the back of the box !

http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=GLOPW1Qe1HU

hehe this one made me smile:

http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=vGXMrJafaCE

oh no they have had it now watch out watchdog is on the case:

http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=56-gQq62Hyc

the 360 is a bit shotty its goign to die or run ok,a fan will help but if its a bad manufacturing nothing will save it from the Halo of death....well....3 rings is not a circle but I tried :P

This is the reason i never bought a Xbox 360.

There ought to be an internal investigation into how a supposedly new console that should have been beta tested before release is having overheating trouble, then again it makes no sense as to why they all are'nt failing due to overheating unless it's due to other factors like elevation and climate

Well, here's my take on the situation, I co-own a 360 with some mates and no such issue yet, it gets used a lot but so far in a cool room. The acid test is this summer.
As far as I see it, the board itself gets too hot, and bends. The fact that the solder joints melt seems absurd as it requires temperatures well into three figure celsius. I don't believe that, I reckon the cooler is warping and not making proper contact with the CPU, this being caused by heat building up inside the system.
The 'towel trick' presumably causes the effect to happen so dramatically the problem rectifies itself. I've felt the air coming out the back of the 360, it's hot but not extreme, if it's hot enough in there to melt solder, what the hell's happening?

In addition, never buy a "turbocooler" or whatever £9.99 addon you found in Game, they use smaller fans over the top of the existing ones, which hinders the ventilation. If anything, you want to make more holes and add more fans, if only you could do that without voiding the warranty!

sammorris
do notebook style fan systems work well for it?

Don't know, you basically want to be sucking air out of the holes that don't currently have fans on them, and NEVER over the ones that already do.

In HMV in the UK there is a cooling stand AND battery charger in one for about £20 I think... it is a standing up one, so pulls the air through the bottom of the 360, the bottom has holes but no fans I think.

Maybe that is the sort of cooling system you should think about.

Link: http://www.hmv.co.uk/hmvweb/displayProdu...1;-1&sku=583260

Originally posted by sammorris:

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Don't know, you basically want to be sucking air out of the holes that don't currently have fans on them, and NEVER over the ones that already do.

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Notebook fans circulate air via the sides of the unit and blows that air up,since heat travels up you wont get a lot of hot air recycling and have at most cooling air on the bottom of the unit and around it.

At best it would lower the over all unit heat up but do little for the places that need it the most.

Originally posted by ZIppyDSM:

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sammorris
do notebook style fan systems work well for it?

---

Umm do you mean a smaller fan or to use a cooling pipe system, i think the cooling pipe system would bee good if you extended it to have a much larger surface area heatsink externally to the box, this would then be cooled using larger fans, thus pumping most of the heat out of the main housing. Which would should lower the ambient box temprature and mean things like temperature board warp etc would be less of an possible issue.

I was actually speaking to a friend of mine today who working in electronics and has been running his own electronics company for years, some how failure rates came into the conversation and i mentioned the rumoured xbox failure rate.

When i explained the problem and told him of the not so advisable towel fix thats on youtube he explained that lead free solder melts at a temprature of 270c im not sure how to the exact celcius that is but he knows his stuff.

If anyones thinking of the towel fix i would advise against it as ur basically turning the inside of your xbox into a solding iron and wrapping it in nice conbustable towels.

Dont know about anyone else but wrapping electronic equiptment up in towels so that it can over heat to in excess of 270 Deg c sounds a little but unsafe to me.

I also discussed the use of a peltier element he was surprised they were so cheap now and agreed it would be a good way to go if the goal is a more silent solution instead of more fans.

Would be intresting if anyone had taken load tempratures of the core or heat sink to see whats its really running at i cant find it any place.

Just looking at the inside of a 360 and where the dvd drive sits appears to be over half of the main heat sink, in pc's ive had to replace a fair few cpus where the following happens:

CPU is next to power supply as in most atx designs, cpu heatsink leaks heat directly into the power supplies surface. This then causes a like a thermal rebound effect where the now heated powersupply then starts to reflect more and more heat back to the cpu which cause a slight rise. This goes on until you get a thermal run away (when its producing more heat than it can get rid off) and dies.

To combat this most atx power supplys now dont have complete cases they instead have draw fans on the bottom to vent the heat through them, this means the heats gone and cant build up so easy.

Could the close DVD drive be another factor?

plazma247
the 360 draws a lot of power dose it not? power=heat+ poor heat dispensation = heat failures,prehaps the towel method is a stabilizing heat based alerutntive but sheesh that would burn the chips out fast I would think.

heres a question which is better for that 80/120mm fan just below most PSUs in a tower case,havign fresh air come it or for it push air out?

Originally posted by ZIppyDSM:

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plazma247
the 360 draws a lot of power dose it not? power=heat+ poor heat dispensation = heat failures,prehaps the towel method is a stabilizing heat based alerutntive but sheesh that would burn the chips out fast I would think.

heres a question which is better for that 80/120mm fan just below most PSUs in a tower case,havign fresh air come it or for it push air out?

---

120 has more surface area but u normally find the cubic capacity is largely around the same for respective 80mm fans which tend to have a higher RPM.

If you want the best fan i would recomend :

http://www.thermaltake.com/product/DCfan...a1357/a1357.asp

At full speed the fan will do 75.7 CFM (cubic feet per minute), have a look its the F1 of pc fans :)

word of advice catch your finger in a normal fan doing 2000 rpm its going to hurt a tiny little bit, stick it in one of these babies at 4800 and your going to feel it and probably bleed a bit, lol im sure they sharpened mine.

However your question was which is better for venting a cpu, in this case your probably better with a 120, the reason for this is higher rpm 80 fans are going to have a more focused draw area and possibly cause the cpu cooling fan to strugle to manage to draw air as its fighting the low pressure created by the draw fan. As a 120 draws from a larger and less focused area it can move the same volume of air from but over a larger area, thus reducing the low or reverse pressure above the cpu fan.

Also depends on what your heatsinks like, if you use a tower fan/heatsink like this:

http://www.ixbt.com/cpu/heatpipe-giants-...ent-tower-1.jpg

Which draws from the bottom and exhaust on top you might as well use a fan that has the largest air movement as its going to only assist the air path by creating negative pressure behind the cpu fan instead of in front.

Just for intrest heres the towel fix in action:

http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=2w4OnKCX6Nc

Worth remembering the cpus probably have a max working operating temp of 100 deg c or there abouts, but if the towel fix is actually causing the solder joints to heat until the points to refuse on the board it must be doing 270 deg c. Thats if whats really happen is a refuse of the joints and not something else. But a chip may withstand upto say 400 deg c or what ever before it actually breaks, but it will only operate and work correctly for the first 100 of that.

plazma247
wouldn't a box fan a inch off the ground be better,
like this on its side but with "feet" to keep it off the ground.

Quote:

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it is a standing up one, so pulls the air through the bottom of the 360, the bottom has holes but no fans I think.

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No holes, surely equals no air?
The towel trick cannot possibly overheat the unit to 270C or the plastic would melt, the solder thing isn't true. What's actually happenign is warping of the heatsink and the board, which should be better attached. Overheating the unit bends it in such a way to cure the problem.

The 360's cooling fans attach directly to ducts from the heatsink and the GPU, all well and good, but what about the rest of the stuff? There's too much ambient heat in the case, there needs to be another fan cooling that, and this is why those vent systems do nothing but worsen the problem, they only attach to the CPU and GPU ducts, and all the air in the actual 360 itself is stuck getting hotter and hotter.

Plazma247: That fan wouldn't fit, it's 80mm, the XBox uses 70mm delta fans to my knowledge.

In other words, unless you know what you're doing, leave the 360 alone, don't buy any of these shoddy third party extras. If you're going to modify the unit, do it properly, drill some holes and shove some 120mm case fans in there.

Sorry sammorris, if you read what zippy wrote:

Quote:

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heres a question which is better for that 80/120mm fan just below most PSUs in a tower case,havign fresh air come it or for it push air out?

---

Zippy actually asked me about PC cases, it was going off topic so we continued it privately.

Actually if you look at this page:

http://www.thermaltake.com/eu/itbu/product/desktop/amd_.htm

They list a 6000 rpm 70mm fan, anyone know what the normal playstation fans run at ?

Oh ok, my apologies.
4000rpm max.

I have had 4 Xbox systems now. 3 of em failed, all within 6 months of having them. I've even had a V2 version fail on me. So the overheating issues now fixed. Great. Now my current new gen system keeps scratching my disks and the drive seems to be dieing. Pain in the arse 360 systems. I just wish the games and live service wernt so good so i would quit buying new systems.

Gonna get a Wii next time though. Nintendo am also bestest. PS3 can suck arse, i know someone who turned there Ps3 into a sausage grill by removing it's guts and inserting a hotplate. lol.

looking at most of the posts for the 360 towel trick, like:

http://forums.xbox.com/13418101/ShowPost.aspx

Everyone is suggesting it causes a refuse of solder points, it maybe hot hot on the chip surface but even covered in a towel that heats going to be diserpaited into all surrounding components and its going to take a while to get everything else up to the same temp, i think thats why they only suggest a max of 15-20 mins.

And would love to see pictures of that sausage grill Hvygear, hehe maybe someone could make the Xbox 360 or ps3 kitchen set.

HeHe someone appears to make an 360 egg scrambler:

http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=1Tc98XEYiW8

Quote:

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Gonna get a Wii next time though. Nintendo am also bestest. PS3 can suck arse, i know someone who turned there Ps3 into a sausage grill by removing it's guts and inserting a hotplate. lol.

---

Now there's a fanboy if I ever saw one. The reliability of the xboxes is unashamedly poor, but as you said, they are very good consoles. I think the best solution is to repair them yourself, and do it properly.

sammorris
the 360 is without a doubt the best Next gen system game/power wise but the fail rate is shocking,the WII have made a place for itself like the PS2 did the question only remains will it keep its momentum and I think it will the PS3 has been labeled a high end uber machine between the price and and that its not goign to do will untill it falls below 400 by then the WII very well could be the center of the 7th gen of gaming giving Sony the fall Nin got with the N64.

The N64 was a huge success because of the games and the next gen use of polygons in game design, it's would be hard for Nintendo to pull another success like that in my opinion.

The Wii is great because of it's innovativeness. Nintendo traditionally likes to try new things to further gaming, this is the one striking thing about this company for me, along with the Nintendo only fames of course. I mean, who could resist Mario Kart, i never met a person who hated that game.

For me it's always been,

Xbox = RAW power and some games specific (Halo pwns all btw ^_^)

Nintendo = less power in modern times but has innovation and some games Nintendo specific.

Sony = Some of the games and catering for the consumer market with the most cash, A la' PS3 (aka Richie rich's console). Think of the PS3 as a status symbol.

Originally posted by Hvygear:

---

The N64 was a huge success because of the games and the next gen use of polygons in game design, it's would be hard for Nintendo to pull another success like that in my opinion.

The Wii is great because of it's innovativeness. Nintendo traditionally likes to try new things to further gaming, this is the one striking thing about this company for me, along with the Nintendo only fames of course. I mean, who could resist Mario Kart, i never met a person who hated that game.

For me it's always been,

Xbox = RAW power and some games specific (Halo pwns all btw ^_^)

Nintendo = less power in modern times but has innovation and some games Nintendo specific.

Sony = Some of the games and catering for the consumer market with the most cash, A la' PS3 (aka Richie rich's console). Think of the PS3 as a status symbol.

---

dude reality check the N64 was far from a huge success,the PSX and PS2 where huge success,the N64 is mroe liek the DC hell even teh DC was more of a success, the N64 was held back by hardware and lack of 3rd party support.

the Xbox made its niche by stealing PC games and having near PC gaming power MS lost a lot of moeny on it to boot but they needed it to build the brand,now they have a simi decent successor that suffers from lack of coherent BWC and a high fail rate.

The WII is a huge success for what it is a last gen system revamped with motion controls, because it has the mainstream goign nuts over it almost everyone is becoming a 3rd party dev,it is yet to be seen if they will give up the PS3 for the WII but its close.

Quote:

---

Originally posted by Hvygear:

---

The N64 was a huge success because of the games and the next gen use of polygons in game design, it's would be hard for Nintendo to pull another success like that in my opinion.

The Wii is great because of it's innovativeness. Nintendo traditionally likes to try new things to further gaming, this is the one striking thing about this company for me, along with the Nintendo only fames of course. I mean, who could resist Mario Kart, i never met a person who hated that game.

For me it's always been,

Xbox = RAW power and some games specific (Halo pwns all btw ^_^)

Nintendo = less power in modern times but has innovation and some games Nintendo specific.

Sony = Some of the games and catering for the consumer market with the most cash, A la' PS3 (aka Richie rich's console). Think of the PS3 as a status symbol.

---

dude reality check the N64 was far from a huge success,the PSX and PS2 where huge success,the N64 is mroe liek the DC hell even teh DC was more of a success, the N64 was held back by hardware and lack of 3rd party support.

the Xbox made its niche by stealing PC games and having near PC gaming power MS lost a lot of moeny on it to boot but they needed it to build the brand,now they have a simi decent successor that suffers from lack of coherent BWC and a high fail rate.

The WII is a huge success for what it is a last gen system revamped with motion controls, because it has the mainstream goign nuts over it almost everyone is becoming a 3rd party dev,it is yet to be seen if they will give up the PS3 for the WII but its close.

---

I think you need the reality check. PS2 was the gen after the N64. In the U.K the N64 was a bigger hit than the PSX initially and there was a lot of 3rd party support, spare controllers, rumble packs and so on.

Biggest and best selling game at the time, Goldoneye. Arguably, the graphics were much better on the N64 than the PSX.

http://boardsus.playstation.com/rss/mess...sage.id=1487386

Hvygear
world wide makes meaningless regional sales,ect, everything revolved around the PSX,not dissing the N64 but it barely kept the status it had while Sony went from PSX to PS2 with no trouble ,Sega had issues with the Saturn and then made the DC witch was a solid system till they decided to bow out of console making,hell the DC still had games for it made up to 05 or 06 in japan,Even the GC could not reclaim Nintendo's status while a solid system it was not a hit either.

What I am saying is the N64 was not a hit compared to the WII,SNES,DC,PSX,PS2,ect,ect,ect.

It was a solid system that had some support but was a blow to Nintendo because it was not a hit compared to the SNES,Sony ruled the console world since the PSX days and up to the PS3,the PS3 is not a hit nor a failure its suffering from bad pricing and marketing even when the games roll out for it its not going to sale like the 360 or WII that are almost half its price.

If sony can do something abotu the price the devs should wander back to it, but until then the 360 and the WII are more viable choices to dev for, I am mostly talking about small 3rd party devs, thous that make multi console games are part of the mainstream and tend to port (almost mindlessly) to anything thats popular..

Originally posted by ZIppyDSM:

---

Hvygear
world wide makes meaningless regional sales,ect, everything revolved around the PSX,not dissing the N64 but it barely kept the status it had while Sony went from PSX to PS2 with no trouble ,Sega had issues with the Saturn and then made the DC witch was a solid system till they decided to bow out of console making,hell the DC still had games for it made up to 05 or 06 in japan,Even the GC could not reclaim Nintendo's status while a solid system it was not a hit either.

What I am saying is the N64 was not a hit compared to the WII,SNES,DC,PSX,PS2,ect,ect,ect.

It was a solid system that had some support but was a blow to Nintendo because it was not a hit compared to the SNES,Sony ruled the console world since the PSX days and up to the PS3,the PS3 is not a hit nor a failure its suffering from bad pricing and marketing even when the games roll out for it its not going to sale like the 360 or WII that are almost half its price.

If sony can do something abotu the price the devs should wander back to it, but until then the 360 and the WII are more viable choices to dev for, I am mostly talking about small 3rd party devs, thous that make multi console games are part of the mainstream and tend to port (almost mindlessly) to anything thats popular..

---

Fair enough. PSX - PS1 - PS2. I hated my PSX, it just looked wrong compared to the other consoles of the time. The DC did not do well over here in the U.K which is a shame as it really was a good console.

The GC ultimately failed as a next gen system because of the power that the other other consoles boasted, still saw big sales in Japan though. Those guys will buy anything Nintendo, they still have DS shortages in the cities. lol.

Each console in each generation to their own. Consoles cannot be compared to consoles in other generations effectively.

Each console is given popularity by the games given to it, in Sony's case they do well in this area, theres no denying the the MGS series is damn good, again each to there own with specific console only games.

Actually the Gamecube was much more powerful than the more popular PS2. The most powerful Xbox came last in terms of sales to my recollection.

Here's my stand:

Gen V
Playstation: Massive sales, huge game library (some good, lots bad), relatively inexpensive games. Easy to program
N64: Far lower sales, reasonable game library (most good, some bad), very expensive games. They were difficult to program, which prevented the crappy 'took 1 day to make' games being released on it.
Saturn: Have you ever seen one?

Gen VI
Dreamcast: Not very successful, but a solid powerful gaming platform.
PS2: The most successful, on the same formula as last time, cheap games. Least powerful of the gen, but yet the highest sales.
Xbox: The most powerful, but not as successful. Quite a few good games, but the system mainly sold on the strength of Halo, without too much backing it up.
Gamecube: Sat squarely in the middle, sales-wise and performance wise. Lots of cool titles, the 'young kid's console'

Gen VII
Wii: A revolution in gaming. Low processing power was to be made up for by fun and innovative gameplay. it sure has been, but where are the games? Unless the big titles get out the door soon, its days are numbered.
360: Not the most powerful, but the most successful so far, with a shedload of great games, good controllers and excellent HD graphics. Would be a success story if it weren't for the plethora of technical issues.
PS3: Too powerful, too big, too expensive. At least it is for now, there aren't enough big sellers, and the big moneymakers are absent this time around, notably Gran Turismo 5, the latest in the fashionably late, but fashionably good racing series. Will it ever get off the ground? Not at that price, cheap Bluray player or not.

Originally posted by sammorris:

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Actually the Gamecube was much more powerful than the more popular PS2. The most powerful Xbox came last in terms of sales to my recollection.

Here's my stand:

Gen V
Playstation: Massive sales, huge game library (some good, lots bad), relatively inexpensive games. Easy to program
N64: Far lower sales, reasonable game library (most good, some bad), very expensive games. They were difficult to program, which prevented the crappy 'took 1 day to make' games being released on it.
Saturn: Have you ever seen one?

Gen VI
Dreamcast: Not very successful, but a solid powerful gaming platform.
PS2: The most successful, on the same formula as last time, cheap games. Least powerful of the gen, but yet the highest sales.
Xbox: The most powerful, but not as successful. Quite a few good games, but the system mainly sold on the strength of Halo, without too much backing it up.
Gamecube: Sat squarely in the middle, sales-wise and performance wise. Lots of cool titles, the 'young kid's console'

Gen VII
Wii: A revolution in gaming. Low processing power was to be made up for by fun and innovative gameplay. it sure has been, but where are the games? Unless the big titles get out the door soon, its days are numbered.
360: Not the most powerful, but the most successful so far, with a shedload of great games, good controllers and excellent HD graphics. Would be a success story if it weren't for the plethora of technical issues.
PS3: Too powerful, too big, too expensive. At least it is for now, there aren't enough big sellers, and the big moneymakers are absent this time around, notably Gran Turismo 5, the latest in the fashionably late, but fashionably good racing series. Will it ever get off the ground? Not at that price, cheap Bluray player or not.

---

I had a saturn >>
and a sega CD,didn't fall for the 32X tho :P
loved the Sega CD tho, didn't really have enough DC games but I saw it as at least half as good as the GC because of all the support it had.

the PS3 is heading for a 3DO/Jaguar repeat could wind up like the DC or sony pull a sega oops heres a new console thing LOL,but really they already are revamping it to lower costs so when they lower the price of new units it should gain momentum....if they lower it...

I also had some TurboDuo games, that reminds me of the Xbox only it dose not have that great of games LOL.

I'm not saying the Saturn was a bad console, far from it, but Sega messed up the launch badly, and the support for it dried up very quickly.

Originally posted by sammorris:

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I'm not saying the Saturn was a bad console, far from it, but Sega messed up the launch badly, and the support for it dried up very quickly.

---

This was largely due to two reasons:

1. Sega was already on its last legs financially and struggled to challenge the nes and snes in America.

2. Nintendo force/persuaded lots of games creators to only code for Nintendo systems and shut down the titles that would be available on other consoles.

Quote:

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Sega was already on its last legs financially and struggled to challenge the nes and snes in America.

---

If that was the case, how come they managed to design and sell the Dreamcast?

Doh forgive me cheif i was thinking of the dreamcast when it came to the money.

But O belive the lock down of software houses actually started with the saturn and was fully inforce by the time of the dreamcast.

Quote:

---

Originally posted by sammorris:

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I'm not saying the Saturn was a bad console, far from it, but Sega messed up the launch badly, and the support for it dried up very quickly.

---

This was largely due to two reasons:

1. Sega was already on its last legs financially and struggled to challenge the nes and snes in America.

2. Nintendo force/persuaded lots of games creators to only code for Nintendo systems and shut down the titles that would be available on other consoles.

---

Sega was struggling to compete with the others thus the short sighted Saturn was born,the trouble is between codeing(2 CPU+ 6 extras possessors) and lack of dev support from lack of sega support to devs it was just a nightmare,add wanning sales they had to do something and sadly the DC was it.

I think Sony is doing a better job with support but now adays pubs want quick cash from devs so coding on a hard system might be foolish.

Altho I think codeing is better now adays it still might be enough to slow pubs/devs warmign up to them.

I Agree but i think some people (devs) still sell out to one said system, i remember watching the E3 expo when the ps3 and 360 both appeared before launch and there was companines signing up exclusivly, cant remember who but i think most have realised that as long as they can create a good title it makes more sense to write it across all platforms.

What would be nice is for a bold software house to write a cross platform multiplayer where ps3 users could match up against 360 users. Forgive me if this has already been done, but i thought that things like xbox live prevented this for happening.

Originally posted by plazma247:

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I Agree but i think some people (devs) still sell out to one said system, i remember watching the E3 expo when the ps3 and 360 both appeared before launch and there was companines signing up exclusivly, cant remember who but i think most have realised that as long as they can create a good title it makes more sense to write it across all platforms.

What would be nice is for a bold software house to write a cross platform multiplayer where ps3 users could match up against 360 users. Forgive me if this has already been done, but i thought that things like xbox live prevented this for happening.

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then yes,now adays not so much,the large dev houses that make software on all systems can press out ports with more ease because they are already making stuff for them thus can spam out ports and make more profit,the only time a game dose not go multi is because its either to hard to port or they have deals with one system.

interesting that everybody slams ps3 for overheating yet maybe there components can withstand a lil heat 30% is very high esp after having 2 years to fix it hmmmmm very interesting

Originally posted by SamNz:

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interesting that everybody slams ps3 for overheating yet maybe there components can withstand a lil heat 30% is very high esp after having 2 years to fix it hmmmmm very interesting

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360 actually,the PS3 only has had part shortages and console gluts in retail.

I believe most of the 360 issues come from bad manufacturing job,say your first million or 2 units come from a bad factory,now have those units patched and not fully repaired in order to use them for RMA replacements, the presived fail(5-10%) rate could well triple, but I don't believe this line of thought has the numbers to back it up either way MS screwed up and is "blaming" the consumer.

sammorris
don't forget the PS3 uses 6 or 7V lines at a certain amprage,its nto like a normal PC fan (god aint I late on this?)
LOL

BTW did you PM me abotu me air flow question?
if you didnt pm me pm me already :P

Been a busy few days for me, what was I supposed to PM you about?
The PS3, expensive though it is, does seem to perform relatively well reliability-wise and I don't hear any moans about the noise level either. The extra time and extra money seemed to fund a better designed cooling system.

Originally posted by sammorris:

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Been a busy few days for me, what was I supposed to PM you about?
The PS3, expensive though it is, does seem to perform relatively well reliability-wise and I don't hear any moans about the noise level either. The extra time and extra money seemed to fund a better designed cooling system.

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sammorris
PC tower fan placement the fan under the PSU should it be putting air in or out of the PC?

My stupi mind says putting air in is better since theres lil fresh air coming in.

PC tower fan replacement? Sorry I'm not grasping what it is you're trying to do...

Originally posted by sammorris:

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PC tower fan replacement? Sorry I'm not grasping what it is you're trying to do...

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thats ok,no one understands me :P

ok whats best having the fan under the PSU in a tower unit put cool air into the PC or exhaust from the PC?

The PSU fan should always exhaust from the case, because that way all the hot air the Power supply produces is shoved straight outside, and not dumped into an already warm PC case.

Originally posted by sammorris:

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The PSU fan should always exhaust from the case, because that way all the hot air the Power supply produces is shoved straight outside, and not dumped into an already warm PC case.

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...the fan UNDER the PSU .....correction the CASE FAN under the PSU LOL
you know most tower cases have a 60-120MM mount and grill for a fan to go on its generally under the PSU.

zippy if you go to buy any modern replacement psu most are going to have a 12cm draw fan over the cpu instead of just using an 8cm rear exhaust fan.

Its a 12cm to draw over the largest surface with minimum air flow to prevent back flow/pressure against the cpu fan.

This change to modern powersupplies was done largely because many earlier p4 and AMD system suffered from heat welling on the power supplies bottom plate.

Similar to the thing as in the xboxs, where surroundings to the cpu heatsink is getting to the point that it can no longer be cooled effeciently and the the heat getting reflected back and forth from surrounding then becomes to much.

Hence the name "thermal runaway".

Originally posted by plazma247:

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zippy if you go to buy any modern replacement psu most are going to have a 12cm draw fan over the cpu instead of just using an 8cm rear exhaust fan.

Its a 12cm to draw over the largest surface with minimum air flow to prevent back flow/pressure against the cpu fan.

This change to modern powersupplies was done largely because many earlier p4 and AMD system suffered from heat welling.

Similar to the thing as in the xboxs, where surroundings to the cpu heatsink is getting to the point that it can no longer be cooled effeciently and the the heat getting reflected back and forth from surrounding then becomes to much.

Hence the name "thermal runaway".

In the ATX power supply case this was the bottom plate over the cpu heat sink.

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I meant the case fan under the PSU,my PSU is a Ultra X2 550-Watt,the 120 fan pumps air out but its placed over the intake grill of the PSU and not in the back of the PSU,this worries me some,but my main question is which should the case fan under the PSU be a intake or exhaust fan, my brain says intake, so fresh cool air can come in flow by the CPU and be exhausted by the PSU.

Ah ok, rule of thumb with PC's is draw from front and exhaust at rear, this avoids rebreath effects where exahusted hot air gets recirculated.

When you install the fan place the label on the fan facing away from you towards the back of the case, this will be the exahust the same as the powersupply.

If your fitting a 8cm fan in a hold for a 12cm fan use duck tape or something suitable to covert the surrounding holes the fan doesnt cover, it will ensure you get no re-breath at the back of the case.

Look at the front of the case, does it have space for draw fans at the front?

If so fit as requried, if you have space for two and are fitting one, again cover the un-used hot as the will prevent the fan from just re-breathing hot air, but if you have space for two and your fitting a rear draw fan fit two at the front.

Finially the single 12cm over the cpu with no rear fan is normal nowadays for an atx psu and nothing to worry about, earlier models had an 8cm at the back there but the 12cm forcing against a lower rpm 8cm caused the 8cm bearings to die more quickly, well it did in everyone i saw. So most you see now adays dont have them, instead all the back is drilled/vented to allow the heat to get out.

Beacause of the pressure from the 12cm it will move the heat but it just dont feelt the same, its just over a larger area, this doesnt feel as stong as it would have with older psu's.

I have card board splitting the air flow to ensure the hot air that raises up anyway will not contaminant the intake.

This case (http://www.tweaknews.net/reviews/minotaur/) wish I got the red but got the green instead *L*

it has no front fan intakes and only some ventilation holes.

Originally posted by ZIppyDSM:

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I have card board splitting the air flow to ensure the hot air that raises up anyway will not contaminant the intake.

This case (http://www.tweaknews.net/reviews/minotaur/) wish I got the red but got the green instead *L*

it has no front fan intakes and only some ventilation holes.

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If you look at this picture chap:

http://www.tweaknews.net/reviews/minotaur/img/025.jpg

Looks like you can fit either a 12cm or 8cm at the front there, fit a 12 and then plumb the rest of the holes, also make sure you have the feet on your case and theres at least 1cm below the case for it to breath.

If you feel right at the bottom of the front facia you should feel the front breather slot ;-)

Oh and when you fit the 12cm front fan put the sticker towards the back so its sucking in and not exhausting.

Quote:

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Originally posted by ZIppyDSM:

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I have card board splitting the air flow to ensure the hot air that raises up anyway will not contaminant the intake.

This case (http://www.tweaknews.net/reviews/minotaur/) wish I got the red but got the green instead *L*

it has no front fan intakes and only some ventilation holes.

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If you look at this picture chap:

http://www.tweaknews.net/reviews/minotaur/img/025.jpg

Looks like you can fit either a 12cm or 8cm at the front there, fit a 12 and then plumb the rest of the holes, also make sure you have the feet on your case and theres at least 1cm below the case for it to breath.

If you feel right at the bottom of the front facia you should feel the front breather slot ;-)

Oh and when you fit the 12cm front fan put the sticker towards the back so its sucking in and not exhausting.

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maybe is the fan was 2MM thick,the HDD mount cage blocks that area well.

Doh, umm what about the other side of the plate any room there or does the usb stick back to much off the facia ?

Are you sure normally u can fit a fan there to blow over the hard disk stack.

Originally posted by plazma247:

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Doh, umm what about the other side of the plate any room there or does the usb stick back to much off the facia ?

Are you sure normally u can fit a fan there to blow over the hard disk stack.

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with the large mounting in front for the LED and USB/sound stuff,theres jsut no room for it.

right now I am runnign this beast covers off,but I want to put them back on when I get the HDD fans upgraded to
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?item=N82E16811999152

I need 2 more and 1 rma'd (had it for a year)

have 4 HDDs 1 40GB ide for XP,1 120GB ide,1 214gb sata and 1 320gb sata,stupid 5inch drive bays are not that great for HDDs a bit uneven with most kits.
speaking of which I got one of these
http://www.directron.com/scyhds2.html
lovely mount kit,I so wish I could find this fan in a HD fan kit
http://www.directron.com/uc8eb.html
no bearings no burn outs >>

hehe yeah i know what its like ive got 4 stuffed into mine, two running a 320 gig strip and then a 250 and 120 for storage.

im running in a lian li:

http://www.kustompcs.co.uk/acatalog/info_1027.html

Mines an earlier version of this less the side draw fan.

I would fit the fan coolers but i would get some software to check the temps on disk using smart before and afterwards as sometimes if your not drawing enough cold at the front you may find they dont actually get much cooler.

Originally posted by plazma247:

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hehe yeah i know what its like ive got 4 stuffed into mine, two running a 320 gig strip and then a 250 and 120 for storage.

im running in a lian li:

http://www.kustompcs.co.uk/acatalog/info_1027.html

Mines an earlier version of this less the side draw fan.

I would fit the fan coolers but i would get some software to check the temps on disk using smart before and afterwards as sometimes if your not drawing enough cold at the front you may find they dont actually get much cooler.

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with fans I run 10-15 below the 40-48C they like at normally run at,if you have a good case you might can skip it,but with high speeds and high temps I don't trust not running a HD without fans,so I have 2 in the HDD cage thats made for 4 fanless HDDs and 2 in the 5inch bays, I need to put my new mobo in(939 3700+ on a asrock Dual SATA a friend gave me) but I been lazy plus my HDs ar filled my Liteon SWH160-P6S gave out (reads and makes coasters fine),I am borrowing a sony dur-820a just reisntalled XP so I dont have Nero back up and running yet blah so much to do so much crap to get and little moeny and energy to do it all with LOL