if this were the case then all the consols would crap out.....fast. since it is not, there are aperantly other issues at play.

Way to twist words Bashcraft

That's really bad though, if they can't find just a single issue...most of the people I know Red Ring'd at least once already...

Twisting words, my ass. It's true. Mine's getting sent back because the DVD tray won't stay closed. It takes LITERALLY half an hour of screwing around to change discs. Yeah, quality gear there.

This is madness!

@Shoitaan: Well when they keep giving us non-awnsers like these, you got to go with your gut and try to sift through the bullshit.

Just wait till Halo3, Bioshock and Mass Effect burnout the xbox360 because it overheated the GPU and the CPU chips trying to crunch them 1's and 0's. RROD.

Make sure to invest in a good cooling system.

When is MS going to release the info. they do have? It would put Nikkei to shame. I'm sure they have a firm grasp on the number of problems, what is causing the most problems, etc. I think this would be a good way to clear the air. Address the problems and then go on to say how you're going to fix each of them.

While cheap, Microsoft is regretting their use of parts from the Fischer Price company.

I must be one lucky man. I've had my 360 since launch and never had problems with it.

Sigh... way to help yourselves Microsoft. Though I still rather own a 360 over a PS3 and still believe in the architecture over what Sony has to offer, I seriously question the program management side of Microsoft that let this shit happen to the product and I don't know how many more of these careless mistakes Microsoft can afford before they start loosing customers by the drove. Scary thing is that if 360 proves to capture a large sum of the market this generation... I doubt they would have learned anything because such is the way of corporations; Sony isn't the only company that can be hurt by clueless executives. I'm willing to bet a small fortune that may engineers internal to Microsoft warned the higher-ups of these issues before the first board was printed. I guess it's just easy to overlook the small details in the "big" picture. I swear people need to stop that big picture thing an realize that it comes together on its own just fine when you take care of each and every small part.

...Dumbasses.

@stennex:

Yes, because the "Intercooler" worked out so well.

@Digitalguardian: Admission of fault is admission of liability. If you work for any big company, the first thing they say is never say sorry. I used to work in a department store way back in the day, and they made sure everyone understood that if a customer trips and falls you ask "are you ok" but you NEVER say "I'm sorry". Those simple words lead to sueing. MS knows that people want sue money.. look at that guy that was trying to get $5mill out of MS for his 360 scratching like $500 worth of discs!
What you need to look for is what they're doing as opposed to fickle crap like what they're saying - admission of a booboo. They don't have to apologise provided they fix the issue for people they have it and take measures to ensure the crap doesn't happen again.

They're adding heat sinks, they've extended the warranty, and they're soon gonna be releasing with smaller cooler processors. And MS tech support is actually rather good. They're fixing the problem, slowly but surely. There's your answer.

I'm sure if my launch model wasn't still kicking ass I'd feel different, but it is, so I don't :)

i got a root cause for you: it was a poorly designed system.

Why oh why must they only give us only 3 red rings!?!? I want that 4th ring you bastard!

Way to Sony, MS!

lol that is funny. I would much rather have a single problem contributing to the head problem rather than a bunch of little problems... I mean lots of problems just shows they REALLY weren't thinking when they were designing the sucker.

I mean at least if the heat sink was the only problem, it was simply a judgment call based on form factor. Easily fixed by piping it to another region of the board.

Calling bullshit on this one.

While you might have had a few faulty drives, etc, by far the largest issue is the RRoD.

As Shoitaan said, admission of fault is admission of liability. We all know it's bullshit, but let's not pretend Microsoft are the only ones who've ever done this.

At least they've extended the warranties. And we know that cost them a bundle.

@Heihachi.vs.Kazuya:

"Madness"... THIS IS SPARTA!!!!

I'm on my 3rd Xbox 360. Both my issues with the first two were DVD drive related.

#1 was a brand new console. The DVD drive started making unholy noises then eventually just died.

#2 was a refurbished "replacement unit". The DVD drive scratched up a bunch of my games. I've had to replace MLB2K7 twice already.

Wow this is amazing..........

Has anybody realized the fact that the 360 has a a 99.9% failure rate ??? And now it found out that the 360 has no single big issue ??? No wonder the majority of failures were RROD they probably changed the firmware to show that any problem related to hardware GPU or CPU bam RROD !!!! LOL even after this so called "Falcon" 360 comes out youll be getting RROD for just random pore hardware quality failure... way to go MS !!!!! ....... morons.........

It's funny, I got my 360 back from repair today... actually, they gave me a brand new console! Anyway, the UPS guy knew exactly what was in the box, claiming that he had had "a whole lot of these" on his route. It made me laugh :)

Of course M$ is not going to accept tha the 360 has overheating issues, but you dont need to be a hardware expert to put your hand in the back on the 360 and feel a lot of heat and think "this thing is way too hot, this is not normal"...

The higher ups will always turn a blind side and ignore the lowly worker who actually knows what they are doing.
I've had this sort of scenario in the company I work in. They'd rather work out the quirks when its out than rather test the thing before releasing it to the market.

@splines: The three red lights is a general error code that implies "Hardware Failure".

Each pattern of lights has a different meaning on the 360, we're just all familiar with the general "hardware failure" one. For another example, if you don't plug in a video cable, you'll get a full ring of all four lights.

@Dragoonkin:
and 4 light would make the ring.

Who the hell came up with "red ring of death", 3 lights does not a ring make.

@Dragoonkin: I've already had two die, and on both occasions after doing the whole pressing the wireless-reconnect button thing I was told it was some sort of unknown fault. (0020 or something I think)

That would probably relate to the design flaw that causes the motherboard to warp and unseat the GPU's BGA package. It doesn't even get that my GPU has fallen off the board. It's not something the designers probably ever intended to occur, let alone have an error for.

Also, anecdotal evidence (take it for what it is) suggests that 360's with the new heatpipe and sink run quieter and cooler. I'd say that despite the problem they've had with the DVD drive (which isn't something only Microsoft have ever had a problem with) the single biggest killer has been unseated GPU's. Thus, the three red lights.

@VenoMuS: ahahha thats a good logic no one cares though it just sounds utterly EVIL and SCARY and it is......... and plus it just has a flow to it

Would you chose

A. Red Ring of Death (RROD)
or
B. Red U of Death (RUOD

or...... lets not get caried away here it just it sounds like destruction and it resembles MS..... and there other pore product "Windows" which we all no and fear too the Blue Screen of Death.

Does anyone here know how to read? Why is everyone complaining about what Microsoft just said, or pointing to the RROD for them?

They just gave some nice, honest information, and changed nothing on their stance.

What they're saying is that it isn't "transistor 57b breaks after this much use" or "GPU becomes detached at this temperature." Heat causes a variety of problems, which can break the system.

The point is, one person's RROD is not for the exact same reason as someone else's. There are a bunch of things that can break to give the lights.

That's all. No one is claiming that the red lights aren't the big issue here, but the red lights are by definition GENERAL hardware failure. There is no one bad component that causes the failures.

Seriously, people. It's called reading comprehension.

Yeah, thing has tons of problems. My roomate's 360 has a broken disk drive (closes and opens randomly, as well as rampant disk scratching and unreadble disk errors) AND the wireless receiver for the controllers doesn't work. Unfortunately, it's a launch unit, so the warranty is gone unless it red rings, the one thing it WON'T do. Any tips to make the thing die?

I don't know what the exact cause of my broken 360 was (it just said "motherboard replaced" when it came back from MS repairs), but the only thing that would stop it from crashing was to lay it horizontally and place a block of ice on top near the vents. I got a couple of hours of play until the ice completely melted.
Maybe when MS says its multiple issues, "excessive heat in the GPU" and "excessive heat in the CPU" count as two different issues. All I know is that mine was damn hot.

@Jawajoey: Although I will amend that the majority of problems probably are the GPU unseating, like Splines said. But that's not the only thing that can or does cause the RROD, therefore there is no single root cause or systemic issue.

@usfslacker:
Try placing it a non-ventilated cupboard and switching it on for a few hours. That should give it enough heat to red ring.

to me that sounds like there's no QA or QC in place. thanks MS!

@tozza:
Will it continue to red ring after it cools down as well? We've had it red ring before, but it always boots back up after cooling down. Last thing we need is Msoft checking and then charging us a buttload...

I find it funny that there are 2 kinds of 360 owners. There are the ones who never have and issue (myself included) or those that are on their 17th system. Why does it seem like it's almost a black/white type of issue on who has a problem. Makes me wonder if it's partially environmental along with faulty design.

@usfslacker:
Good point. Seemed like a good idea at the time. Maybe if the heat causes something to melt it might do something unrecoverable. Its hilarious that you're actually considering inducing the RROD on your console! You gotta post your story if you go through with it.

The fact that the 360 isn't news to me. I remember the first time I pulled a game DVD out of the tray after playing for a while. It was so hot, I thought the fucking thing was going to bend in my hands.

I mean, I know we all say we want "hot titles", but this is a bit much! Heh. Heh. Get it? Hot titles? Heh...Oh, shut the fuck up. Like you never made a bad pun.

@Havok154: I've always thought that was odd, too. I'm still on my first system. And I bought it USED.

Still, if the problem is so bad that MS actually put up the money for the warrenty extensions, there's got to be more to it than the occasional moron who thought it would be a good idea to wrap his 360 in an electric blanket.

I think they need to hire some engineers who know what they are doing. It is definitely one cause. The overheating GPU. The problem is that it can manifest itself in many ways.

1. Crossed circuit due to solder melt.
2. GPU failure.
3. GPU popping off the board physically.
4. Cracked motherboard.
5. Blown capacitor due top cross feed.

So yea the actual crap out may be one of many but the root cause is most definitely a single component! You may get the rare fluke crash or bad capacitor etc. etc. but, that would have given microsoft only a 5% failure rate which is in line with the industry as a whole.

List of Known 360 problems

RROD
Scratching discs
Bad DVD drive
Overheating
The ability to warp youre cds through intense heat making them useless.....
Cheap thermal paste
Pore hardware
Retarded DVD tray dosent know when to shut
Cheap fans
Pore hardware design
Pore ventilation
RROD
Pore heatsinks

and oh yea did i forget....RROD

NOTICE MOST OF THESE PROBLEMS ARE JUST SUB PROBLEMS OF THE MAIN IDEA but it just adds to the horrbleness (if its a aword) to the situation

and year 2007 360 changes...

New Heatsinks !!!!
Smaller less heat producing chip !!!!

2 down 50 thousand more to go !!!! dang billy were ona role !!!

@SolidSnizzle: Please, stop. Your language constructs are giving me a headache.

@SolidSnizzle: penhalion said what you said, except in a more succinct fashion (although you did bring up a few additional things). However, you should read what penhalion said because he summed up the major issue very well. It is indeed one root cause, that is manifesting itself in many different ways. Hopefully, the new heat sink and the 65 nm chip should fix this root cause, and in doing so prevent many of the various manifestations (in other words, less heat-induced crashes, or RROD). It remains to be seen, but I know if I were in the market to get a new system, I'd wait until the new heat sink arrives in the consoles at the very least (which should be soon, if not already).

ITS NOT A RING DAMMIT!!!!

yea i got nothing better to do, killing time till i get to go home

@Article:"the cooling fan was half that of a desktop PC's (to reduce noise apparently)"
The smaller the cooling fan the louder the noise, it isn't the other way around. If you want the same throughput of air. So it can never be to reduce noise that the size was reduced.

I think people misunderstood the statement. There is more than one point of failure in the design. That's been proven out by the 'hobby' community.

If this were any other company than MS, would they have simply ran out of money by now?

@Havok154: yeah, I've always thought that was odd too. I've personally had no problems, and most of the people I know with 360s have either been problem-free or had their system fixed multiple times.

I wonder if it might be something to do with where the systems are built? The original Xbox had problems with the DVD drive dying if the box had been assembled in their Hungary plant.

Or maybe it's as you've suggested, and simply to do with how the system is used. Personally I have mine sitting up on my desk, it's never been on carpet or in an enclosed area in its life, and I'm careful to keep it as far away from the power brick as possible since that thing heats up alarmingly (the brick is usually on the floor below the desk).

If the problem is heat-related then there are certainly people who put it in environments that are less than ideal. But it seems too random to just be something that simple.

Stop being so hard on Moore... He's right: "things break"...

...a lot...