Why do Xbox 360′s overheat and give the red ring of death?
You’ve heard all about the Xbox 360‘s giving the red ring of death malfunction error. But what causes it? It’s mainly agreed upon that the reason why it does this is overheating of the console. Microsoft won’t reveal the details, but it cost them $1.06 billion to extend Xbox 360 warranties to three years and give free repairs. Japanese news site Nikkeibp had a thermal design expert analyze the Xbox 360′s heat radiation system. Two Xbox 360′s were used for the investigation: one purchased in 2005, and the other that was repaired in May 2007. Kotaku sums up their findings that point to something other than a minor design flaw. The bullet points are:
* The temperature gap with room temp was 22 degrees C. “When designing consumer products, it is common to seek a temperature gap of around 10 degrees C between exhaust and room temperatures,” the thermal design expert said. “The 22 degrees C is quite a large gap…”
* The cooling fan was half of desktop PCs — apparently to reduce noise.
* The expert pointed out, “The heat sink on the graphics LSI is so small, I wonder if it can really cool down the board.” The reason for this? Apparently, Microsoft had to downsized graphics LSI heat sink so that the DVD drive could be placed above it.
* In five minutes after booting up a game, the graphic LSI heat sink temp rose to 70 degrees C. In 15 minutes, the temperature for the microprocessor heat sink stabilized at 58 degrees, but the graphics LSI heat sink reached 80 degrees C. If the room temperature was high (like 35 degrees C), the heat sink could possibly hit 100 degrees C. What’s more, if the vents were clogged with dust, the temperature could also increase.
* The console repaired in May 2007 did not have a new heat sink placed in it. This is bad design.
Categories: News
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