If you've ever had any cooling issues, or the Red Ring of Death with the Xbox 360; you might find this interesting. A Japanese-based Nikkei hired a thermal design expert to take a look at the 360, and what he had to say isn't very good. They took a look at two consoles, one made in 2005 and one repaired in May 2007. And here is the dirty details:
• 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 downsize the 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. Really, really bad.
Well, I don't know if you realize it or not, but you completely answered my question I wrote about thermal issues in the Xbox360. LOL
ReplyDeleteThere are so many ways to fix that problem. Send the heat to a plate to keep coffee warm, or maybe a plug-in toaster oven. Add-on foot warmer to keep you toasty all winter?
ReplyDeleteOr circulate some water through there to make some steam, and then you could use the steam to make your own animatronics or something.
How many units would they sell if it made espresso? That saves a trip to Starbucks, man....
Those are great ideas Tim!!!
ReplyDeleteOne part of my entry on this subject in another post which wasn't answered is They offloaded a lot of heat by moving the big wattage/transformer box out of the XBox360 and into the electric cord so they could make the 360 look more sleek. The original XBox had the transformer in the box; the main reason it was so bulky and unatractive.
Do we know for sure the Elite has a different layout/chipset or whatever that's smaller?
"Do we know for sure the Elite has a different layout/chipset or whatever that's smaller?"
ReplyDeleteNo sure. The one thing I don't understand is that if there were heat issues, why not make the console a little larger to accommodate a bigger heat sink? Seem like a no brainer to me.
I'm sure it's cause some marketing dude for Microsoft said if it's bixer than X dimentions; then you won't sell it as a staple to the living room as an applicence for most everything.
ReplyDeleteDumbasses.