I'm looking forward to some quality excuses from Bill's fanbase.

This honestly makes me fear for my '360 even more.

Wow, that's pretty fucking sad. How did this thing get past the testing stages? Like isn't there some standard on these types of electronics based on general heat production or something? Maybe I'm just crazy, or maybe Microsoft just sucks ass at electronics hardware. Or maybe both.

at least they replace it...BAD MICROSOFT...yet I love you

Yeah, I too wonder how this could have gotten past testing. It's pret-ty shoddy ...

Finally, SCIENCE! The kind of thing you can use to ignore people who refute it.

@CitizenInsane27: Hardware isn't the only place where Microsoft gets by being mediocre.

If my 360 dies, I'll curse at Microshaft on the phone and run straight to my local gamestop to pick up a PS3.

Interesting report, nice to see some indepth research going on about this issue.

But yeah at least MS has ponied up and gotten us new heat sinks and the 3 year warranty, so Im not gonna be beating the dead horse anymore.

Just good to see that there was a real reason for all the complaints. Hopefully this should stop the idiot wars going on about the system being perfect and that people whos systems break is because they are "idiots".

So open your 360 up and point a fan at the bare parts and it shouldn't melt down :P

@Hills

I understand your love for Microsoft, as the 360 and the original Xbox impress me, but this kind of thing is unacceptable. They cannot give me any amount of warranty time to replace the angst suffered from the repeated death of the system, and their negligence to change it. No where in the gaming universe, or even in the universe of hardware should this kind of unholy thing be allowed.

Like I said before, this HAS to break some kind of industry regulation. 100 degrees celsius? That's fucking hot enough to boil water.

When I first got my xbox 360 it used to heat up real fast and real hot. So hot, that I had to place a fan by it to cool it off. Finally it crapped out on me. I sent it in and got it back. Now it's not nearly as hot to the touch.

But yeah, they really craptastically designed this piece of kit. They should have done a full blown recall but I think they don't want to recall every single system they put out.

Pretty high temperatures. When i play my games on the 360 and switch them out those things are hot. The cd is almost as hot as a tortilla right off the flame. With the new 65 chips hopefully this will all be resorted out. People need to game knowing full well that their system wont crap out on them.

In terms of where the heatsink and graphics chip is placed, does anyone know if this would hurt your system more if you keep you 360 horizontal or vertical? I think horizontal would be worse judging by the placement of the chip.

@Movingtarget

They should've recalled them, but they cannot risk THAT BAD of publicity. They won't ever recall them, and subsequently, that initial investment for the 3-year warranty extension is going to climb over time due to all what, 5 million units still sitting on shelves dying.

I think too depending on what games you play too raises the chance of the machine freaking out on you. For example Dead Rising is one of the games that seems to cause the system to heat up a lot. I think this mainly might be to the amount of graphical processing it does when it gets really "crowded" on screen and such.

While other less "taxing" games, dont seem to heat it up as much.

we knew this a LONG time ago. was no one paying attention? we didnt need Japan to point this out. But whatever gives it more exposure i guess.
Hopefully this doesnt die just because they extended the warranty, i want microsoft to eat this one big time. theyre not gonna weasel out of it.

pssst...in case noone has pointed you to this site yet - it offers aftermarket xbox 360 'tuning' parts, such as clear fan shrouds and LED fans with improved cooling and noise

[www.talismoon.com]

Both my Wii (due to WiiConnect24) and the 360 run incredibly hot (can't talk about PS3, don't got one). As a PC builder, one of the most important, if not the most important, design aspect is cooling.

You can make hardware as powerful and grand as you want (or with the Wii, simple and slim as you want), but it will always be limited to the laws of physics.

I really want a 360... So many good games already on it. But these hardware issues really trouble me...

@CITIZENINSANE27

They already got bad publicity tbh. They gambled and rushed this piece out and it bit them. You think by now that they would have this problem solved but I guess they will never learn.

I work for a Microcenter here in Ohio. Last Christmas, we got in at least 300 360's (about 5-6 skids of them). We RTV'd (Return to Vendor) at least half of them. A lot of them either had hard drive errors or crapped out from overheating. At first, I thought it was user error on the first batch of returns, but they kept coming and coming every week. Then mine finally got the red ring of death. Microsoft put out a turd this round as far as cooling and reliability goes.

Man, off topic but as much as I love my 360, I have to admit...that's one messy looking board!

@CitizenInsane27:

I think the answer is "both."

Also, what testing phase? Whatever wasn't done had to be left undone if MS wanted to beat Sony and Nintendo to the market and have that bonus year. And MS really, really wanted to beat Sony and Nintendo to the market.

Only 4 years went between the first MS console ever made and the second. This is a ridiculously short amount of time between consoles. A shorter amount of time than established console making corporations usually give. MS rushed this thing at the expense of gamers for the early lead. The sad thing? Their plan may end up working. And the reliable (at least based on my personal experience with the console -- *knock on wood*) PS3 will lose one exclusive after another to the the broken 360 that should have been recalled by December of 2005 and reissued when it was ready. Which looks to be sometime in 2008.

This is a bad situation. There's too many 360s in the wild for MS to recall without breaking even their bank, but because of the large install base developers keep spitting out games for it, further increasing the install base of broken consoles.

The obvious solution is for MS to put out a redesigned console that isn't broken by design. Why the hell haven't they done that yet? Why are they persisting on foisting this junk on mostly unsuspecting consumers? I'm getting the impression MS shareholders aren't enjoying the console war much.

Thats screwed up. Those small fans cause that much noise but the PS3 uses one 160mm fan and its quiet as a mouse. Guess if MS was concerned about noise reduction they shoulda shopped around a little harder.

Less noise? I couldn't care less. My CD drive makes up for the noise.

"The cooling fan was half of desktop PCs - apparently to reduce noise."

LOL- the reduce noise part made me laugh. Can't imagine how loud the 360 would be with a normal fan.

The worst part about this though, is that if Microsoft spend even half that $1 billion (they said they're using for repairs) to research and build a better machine before it launched- none of these problems would exist and they'd be making alot more money, etc.

Badly designed? When the MAJORITY of 360s don't have any issues, it's not a major design flaw.

Makes me wish MS would just send me a new heat sink and allow me to put it in myself. Or at least let me mod my case so I can put better cooling solutions in it without voiding my warranty.

@Watershipdown

MAJORITY for NOW.

"The cooling fan was half of desktop PCs - apparently to reduce noise."

That would be the dumbest excuse ever. My 360 sounds like a jet engine and is noisier than my PC of equal spec. Way to go, Microsoft.

I cared until they announced the 3 year warranty and free shipping both ways honestly. I expect all my hardware to break eventually. It always seems to anyways :( (Monitor just died a week ago)

The reason I find is sad is because in the history of consoles, there has NEVER EVER been a problem like this. While some consoles sucked because of their controllers, games, etc., they never sucked because of a bad design flaw... wow... and to think that Microsoft of all companies would cause this flaw...

... and this time, saying that "Microsoft" is a software, not a hardware company doesn't cut it.

Since when was MS known for bad designs? Oh wait.....

@WatershipDown: majority? tell that to the people have had to get over 5 different xboxs.

I would comment on this, but I am busy filling out the repair information card to send in my third 360.

It didn't die completely. But it's been rather hot in Norfolk, VA this weekend, and apparently a three hour Crackdown session was enough to make the graphics card heat up enough to start artifacting.

Nice pretty versicle lines going up and down across the entire screen.

Microsoft, I try my best to remain balanced in my views on your system vs. Sony, or even Nintendo's, but this is ridiculous. You are really pushing me to go all out Sony fanboy "LOL RRoD!" on your ass.

*Grumble grumble*

@Movingtarget

True, this was a small bit of bad publicity, but compare that to the raping even Sony got for a couple of PR slips, when their product (minus the exception of a few zones, such as games and features, which are both coming in the immediate future) was solid as hell, and has had no major problems, yet it just gets reamed, still. But maybe I'm speaking too biased. In my eyes, I just think that all the fanbois and other 360 owners just took one on the chin, which is just completely not cool in any regard. I've just sat and watched waaaaay too many people I know bitch and moan about how their 360 died, but they hold no grudge about how none of the problems that caused those deaths are being associatively discussed. The fact that third party people had to crack it (360's) open just to see what the hell MS didn't want us to know about is extremely fucking sad. MS should have done their job, and told us what was wrong, and what they are gonna do about it, instead, we have to find out ourselves, which makes them seem far more cryptic in their statements, and a whole shit less trustworthy. But in all regards, I guess people just can't deal with loss.

@ SOVMISH

There has been a problem like this on earlier systems. Atari 5200 controllers used to break so easily from normal use. Also, if i remember right, PS2 had some issues with it as well.

@WatershipDown: So it wouldn't be a major design flaw unless 50% of them failed?

Anything much over a 5% failure rate is extraordinary in consumer electronics and a sign of poor design. 30% is a catastrophic failure (even for something as unreliable as a PC).

The cooling fan was half of desktop PCs - apparently to reduce noise.

That's laughable though. If you want to eliminate noise, you put a larger fan in so it can move the same volume of air with less revolutions.

@Papabear

Wait til after the holidays, and if you can, buy a PS3, and some of their games that they have coming and make a decision then. If the PS3 amazes you, and doesn't fail, which it won't, then you are technically completely in the right. I myself, already traded in, due to my fear of the 360 failure rate, and though the PS3 lacks features, I don't have to worry about hardware failure. And the games are good, just not in plentiful amounts yet. Which on the other hand, the 360 has a shit ton of mediocre titles. Even in the time I had it, I could barely bring myself to buy a single game for it. Perfect Dark Zero burned a part of me, one I may never get back.

@Movingtarget

The PS2 had the (very horrible) DRE syndrome. Which didn't get solved for far too long.

@CitizenInsane27:

You must be new here. I'm widely considered to already be a PS3 "fanboy," even though I am 26, a father, and consider my favorite game so far in this generation to be Dead Rising. But, hey...

I bought my PS3 back in January. I agree, it's rock solid, and I think soon enough it's going to break out of it's shell. But this is not so much a conversion thread as it is discussing Microsoft's missteps.

Let's not be preaching the gospel of Sony in a MS failure thread. It smacks of kicking a guy while their down.

@PapaBear434: You are really pushing me to go all out Sony fanboy "LOL RRoD!" on your ass.

There's a middle ground in there. For me, I know it's a piece of crap but the lure of the games keeps me coming back. So think of your 360 like that crazy insane ex-girlfriend who is totally wrong for you (and you both know it) but the "intimate" times are just amazing. You know sooner or later she's going to go absolutely 100% psycho on you, so just enjoy the good times while they last

their = "they're"

I hate the lack of edit button.

@Papabear

I've been posting for a little while, but point taken.

My goodness...

At 100 degrees C, you could boil water!

No joke.

Hang on, a smaller fan to *reduce* noise? That doesn't make sense at all. The reason fans are noisy is that they spin really fast. A small fan can only move a small amount of air at once, so in order to get good cooling it has to run a lot faster. A larger fan doesn't have to spin as fast to move the same amount of air. It's simple physics.

Personally I wish my 360 would hurry up and die so I can get it fixed. It managed to last through one Australian summer, but I doubt it will last through two given how hot it gets.

@baberg:

That analogy is lost on me, because I married my only real girlfriend. :\

Don't get me wrong, I liked the games. But at this point, I am looking at the quality of this thing, and I have a hard time seeing people's argument for multiplatform games. People like the cheaper option, I get that, but at a failure rate like this, is it even worth it?

You get what you pay for. Sure, it's $100-$200 cheaper (depending) but you definitely get what you pay for.

@ CITIZENINSANE27

TBH I could care 2 shits about the console war, or who got what games or who is doing this or who is doing that. I am pretty pissed about my console crapping out when it did.

Also I'm pretty pissed about MS way of handling it thus far. I was hoping for a recall but we'll never see that happen. All they would do is slap a bigger heatsink on it and call it day.

I'm not going to hold a grudge because my money is already invested in the system. As long as they keep their warranty up, I guess that will have to do.

I wonder how the 360 Elite compares.

As if I wasn't already worried about my Xbox. Hopefully lucky number four does the trick.

@SovMish: "In the history of consoles, there has never been a problem like this."

Let's revise this.

"In the history of the internet, there has never been this much direct collected, community discussions about a console breaking."

Lots of other consoles have had hardware issues. The difference is the INTERNET. The PS1 overheated all the time and the only way to fix the ones released in the first two years, was to play it UPSIDE DOWN. The PS2 had disc read errors so bad that it actually had a successful class action law suit against Sony. The NES had all sorts of problems, grey and blue screens of death, and it wasn't dirty contacts, it was faulty easily worn out contacts.

The 360 breaks too much. But not all 360s will break. The real difference is, MS has stepped up, admitted that more consoles are failing than is acceptable, and will repair every console for 3 years after purchase for free, and they're addressing the issue.

Why is this still being discussed over and over and over again?

Heat Sinks get HOT? OMG. Call the President.

Wow 100C?? Thats pretty hot :O

I don't know why MS isn't doing anything. It would've been better to do a recall for free of charge, lest the problem continues and discourages more buyers or creates more angry customers. If this keeps up their next system wont have the support it now has or will build up much more slowly. Consumer brand loyalty is built by caring about customers and making solid products people can rely on. Come on MS I know you got alot of money to fix this so please do! (cause I plan on getting a 360 real soon)