Oh Noes! Another Xbox Thread by Me! (360 reliability thread)

[Yoshiman]

Come Thursday, I'll officially have enough money to buy an Xbox 360.

However, there's one thing that's keeping me from purchasing said system; The Ring of Death. From what I hear, the Ring of Death is caused by an internal hardware failure, which is generally the X-clamp inside the system warping due to heat and causing parts to disconnect from the mainboard.

Some people have had their systems dead out of the box, others had them for about a year and then break, or like my friend, whose had her system from launch, work fine and still going strong.


Now, eventually I'll want a 360, especially with Halo 3 and Resident Evil 5 coming out on it. My question is, has Microsoft planned/started to manufacture more reliable systems? I hear the failure rate (according to retailers) for the 360 is around 30%, which is a little disheartening. :/

Now, suppose I get the system, and it fails on me. I could send it back and all that, or I could attempt to mod it (using this (http://rbjtech.bulldoghome.com/pages/rbjtech_bulldoghome_com/XClamp.htm) tutorial) and possibly eliminate the problem.


For those too lazy to read all of this/summary:

- What are the chances that if I buy a 360, it'll fail?
- What is Microsoft doing to fix this problem?

[DarkDragoonX]

Yeah, the failure rate concerns me, as well... I have a friend who is now on his third 360. He doesn't mistreat them in any way, they just... break. Taking into account my buddy's problems and what information I've seen on the internet, the odds of failure seem to be fairly high.

As far as I know, Microsoft hasn't done anything to fix it. In fact, from what I've read coming out of Microsoft, they appear to be trying their hardest to pretend the problem doesn't even exist.

[MottZilla]

The failing systems are believed by some to primarily be in older systems and newer systems fare better. Reasons for what happens all tend to be related to poor manufacturing or intense heat leading to ussually the GPU section of the board losing connection. The best thing to do is insure you get plenty of airflow around your 360. It also doesn't hurt to buy a extended warrenty or replacement plan from a retailer.

I'm on my 2nd system and it's going strong. Just make sure the hot air from the back of the 360 go away from the unit. A simple desk fan can work wonders. Personally I believe is shitty soldering from uncalibrated machines.

[AlexMax]

The lack of reliability is pretty much the only thing scaring me away from a 360 at this point. Like you, I don't want to invest that much in a console only for it to die six months later. :(

[Orn]

Well mine is from Jan 2006, and its always worked great.. asside from occational freezing. There was one incident of the dreded ring of death.. but it was not permiminently screwed up.

From what I've read, the bricking problems are mostly from the launch consoles. Microsofts increased confidence is reflected in their warently extention to 1 year.

If your still worried, you could wait till new 360's are upgraded to 65nm processors (this fall), which would lower the amount of heat that is created. I've heard that that model will replace the Premium models, and also have the HDMI ports of the elite model.

Note that the Elite models already has an HDMI port, and has less overheating problems.

[Cloral]

The posts in this thread prove why MS needs to take these reports of failures more seriously. It is driving down the sales of their system. Instead of dancing around the problem, they need to come out and say, "This is what went wrong, this is what we're doing to fix it, and any that do fail will be fixed free of charge." This might cost them a bit in the short run, but would lead to much better sales in my opinion.

As for them fixing the issue, I've heard from a few places that the newer 360s and 360s that have been fixed now have an extra heat sink in them. This should make them more reliable. And it would probably be best to operate your 360 in the open air, instead of cramped up in a home theater cabinet where it can't breathe properly.

[MottZilla]

Repaired Xbox 360's have extra cooling around the GPU area and such from what I hear.

[Warlock]

Repaired Xbox 360's have extra cooling around the GPU area and such from what I hear.

Right, that's what I heard too. So if all else fails, send it in for repair and they'll add more fans :)

But yeah, so far mine has been just fine. Though it has only been about two months (but my little brother plays it constantly while I am at work so it is at least getting used quite often)

[vegeta1215]

If I buy another current gen system, it would be the X-Box 360. But I have to agree that the issues I've read about are not something I want to have to worry about, esp considering the price of not only the system, but the games.

I played 360 over my friends house and witnessed some of the freezing problems. I don't know how often it occurred for him, but he had the Best Buy protection plan and got a replacement at no cost, and so far it has been perfect he says. So, maybe they are getting all the kinks out.

[DarkDragoonX]

What irritates me is that there have been so many "kinks" to begin with.

Also, as Cloral said, if they came right out and said "yeah, there are some issues, and we're working towards a resolution, and we'll replace consoles that fail due to this flaw," then I'd be a lot more confident. The fact that Microsoft has tried to ignore the problem's existence (at least in public) really agitates me. Every time some interviewer asks a microsoft rep about the high failure rate, they always get some response along the lines of "Well, people love the console and continue to buy the console, so THERE!"

This is a perfect example (http://blogs.mercurynews.com/aei/2007/06/a_qa_with_todd_holmdahl_the_hardware_guy_at_micros oft_about_xbox_360_failures.html), and it's really bloody obnoxious.

[Yoshiman]

I'm on my 2nd system and it's going strong. Just make sure the hot air from the back of the 360 go away from the unit. A simple desk fan can work wonders. Personally I believe is shitty soldering from uncalibrated machines.
It kinda bothers me when you say your second system. Really, if you pay $400 for a console, you should only have one. I have a used PS2 that hasn't had problems for the 3 years I've had it. My SNES and N64 are in good condition as well.

Now, I figured it'd be a bad idea to shove the 360 in an entertainment stand. Would it be okay if I set it on top of my stand (this is where my friend has hers set up) or if I made a wooden footstool-type thing and put it, along with the power brick, on that?

Also, I heard about getting an add-on called the Nyko Intercooler EX. It supposedly reduces the internal temperature by a good 20 degrees, but I also heard it can damage the system as well. What's your response on this?

Consoles really shouldn't be this troublesome. :p

[MottZilla]

The Xbox 360 and PowerSupply should have breathing room on all sides. My power supply is on a plastic milk crate thing so all 6 sides are well ventilated. My Xbox is just on a table with a good amount of room between the back and the wall and nothing else around it. Just make sure it doesn't trap the heat it generates in a bubble around it like you would with your typical entertainment center cabinet.

The Nyko thing some people don't recommend because of the way it interfaces with the electrical input of the system for it's own power. Other people thing it's fantastic. I don't use one or find I need one. If you're in a hot room though maybe it would help.

And yes consoles shouldn't be, and the majority of the time your 360 won't be any trouble. There's only trouble when it's defective and freezes for no reason. Just remember sometimes it freezes because of good old Microsoft software.

[Cloral]

Just wanted to point this out:

http://kotaku.com/gaming/no-brainer/microsoft-expands-360-warranties-275370.php

360s now have a 3 year warranty that includes shipping. Plus they claim to have figured out what was causing all the problems and have fixed it. If this is true, then this should put the reliability issues to bed.

[MottZilla]

So everyone rush out now and buy 360s. ;)

[Warlock]

So how does the warrenty work? I just have it as of the date I purchased the 360? Or was I supposed to buy their original warrenty?

[Cloral]

I believe that every 360 sold now has the 3 year warranty, so long as you didn't open it up or mess with it or something like that.

[DragonGT12345]

My 360 Experience:

I've had my 360 since day one. I've had only one problem with it and that had to do with me using it on the floor for several hours. This occurred sometime in May. I called MS up at like 1amish (Not sure if exact time). They sent the box to me within a day. FedEX shipping, Tracking number and everything. I got a brand new 360 within a day or two. No questions asked.

I do believe they extended the manufactors warrenty for ALL 360 consoles, 3 years from Date of purchase. They'll basically fix/ replace any 360 free of charge. The warrenty is free too. Also I encourage anyone that wants to buy a 360, but is afraid because of the ring of death to still buy one. It's IMO that MS has been doing a good job fixing and replacing all defective consoles. Atleast I didn't have any problems with it.

[vegeta1215]

I'm not a huge fan of Microsoft, but it is very big of them and step up and offer such a great warranty service. It'll surely put a lot of people's fears to rest since even if something happens to their console, they are covered.

Down the road I may decide to get a 360 in addition to my Wii, but I hardly have time to play video games. Heck, I still have three handheld games I haven't touched for months.

[Warlock]

Honestly, I have always been pretty leery of MS, ESPECIALLY the original Xbox which basically had ~5 good games (two of which were Halo). But 360 has definately stepped it up. I am still enjoying mine. I really think that year head start helped - at the very least to establish themselves as 'the primary console' over Sony (aka like PS2 was, and then everyone else got halfassed ports... if they were lucky).

As for reliability, it is a shame and one thing that did keep me from buying one initially. I read they are manufactured in Mexico or something, which might explain the shoddy work (cheap labor is really screwing over the VG industry... well its' consumers anyways). But it's good to see MS at least finally admitting a problem and compensating for it. Probably one of the more altruistic things I've seen them do. Sony wouldn't do it...

P.S. - *sigh* I need to stop being lazy and actually turn my computer on.. though I am getting pretty good with this godaweful Wii keyboard (and they need a real Wii keyboard). Still, in the time it took to write this I could have written a 10 page paper. It's so tedious...

[MottZilla]

Xbox 360's are made in China. Original Xbox 1 was made in both china and mexico. Their breaking down is believed to be do to overheating, possibly getting so hot to break the solder bonds causing the GPU to lose contact with the PCB it's seated on or something like that. Probably just stupidity on some designers fault or some executive that didn't want to spend as much on cooling as they should have.