The Xbox 360 Ring of Death: What Causes It and Why
Marc Sandford
August 30, 2008
Do you have a love-hate relationship with your Xbox 360? You love it because you've become massively addicted to the hours of unbelievable fun that it provides. You hate it because of...well, need I say the red ring of death?
The red ring of death has caused countless consumers a great deal of grief and frustration. It has also given Microsoft some headaches as well...to the tune of over one billion dollars in warranty repairs. Perhaps the first question to ask is why?
What causes the red ring of death? The number one reason is heat. The Xbox gets too hot when it's used continuously over a period of time.
So why does it get too hot? There are two major parts to the answer for this. First, the graphics chip was designed on the cheap by Microsoft.
Rather than go to a highly experienced vendor to design the chip (ASIC vendor), Microsoft designed the graphics chip in house, that is, on it's own. This was done in an effort to save some tens of millions of dollars in design costs. Now, most of us know that to get the job done right, you go and hire an expert.
We all know that our "home made" efforts simply won't work as well as work done by the pro's. Microsoft's home designed job is inefficient in that it puts out too much waste heat. The second part of the overheating issue is that the cooling system is only marginally capable of dissipating the enormous heat put out by the home designed graphics chip.
It doesn't seem to take much to cause it to over heat. Run the unit for too long, especially in a warm, un-air conditioned room and it'll over heat. The unit does not tolerate partial blocking of its cooling vents either.
For instance, it's easy enough to allow cords and cables to get all bunched up at the rear of the console. This can cause the unit to get too hot. Want to run it in a junky cluttered corner where direct sunlight can reach it in that un-air conditioned room?
Not a good idea either. Of course, you may not normally treat your "electronic toys" this way, but the point that I'm making here is that a well designed product is supposed to be able to tolerate some customer abuse and keep on ticking.
One question that I have no answer to is what happened to the quality control process at Microsoft? They must have some sort of product testing program in place to protect the consumer from defective products. Perhaps it was inadequate in that it didn't simulate normal customer usage of the Xbox. Or maybe it was, but management pushed it out the door anyway?
Speculations aside, the good news here is that Microsoft has already gone to a US based ASIC vendor and had the graphics chip redesigned and hopefully some day your average Xbox gamer will have no idea what you're speaking about when you mention: red ring of death.
Find out how Microsoft design mistakes caused the "red ring of death" and get some Xbox troubleshooting advice at http://www.squidoo.com/Xbox-troubleshooting-red-ring-of-death-fix.
The red ring of death has caused countless consumers a great deal of grief and frustration. It has also given Microsoft some headaches as well...to the tune of over one billion dollars in warranty repairs. Perhaps the first question to ask is why?
What causes the red ring of death? The number one reason is heat. The Xbox gets too hot when it's used continuously over a period of time.
So why does it get too hot? There are two major parts to the answer for this. First, the graphics chip was designed on the cheap by Microsoft.
Rather than go to a highly experienced vendor to design the chip (ASIC vendor), Microsoft designed the graphics chip in house, that is, on it's own. This was done in an effort to save some tens of millions of dollars in design costs. Now, most of us know that to get the job done right, you go and hire an expert.
We all know that our "home made" efforts simply won't work as well as work done by the pro's. Microsoft's home designed job is inefficient in that it puts out too much waste heat. The second part of the overheating issue is that the cooling system is only marginally capable of dissipating the enormous heat put out by the home designed graphics chip.
It doesn't seem to take much to cause it to over heat. Run the unit for too long, especially in a warm, un-air conditioned room and it'll over heat. The unit does not tolerate partial blocking of its cooling vents either.
For instance, it's easy enough to allow cords and cables to get all bunched up at the rear of the console. This can cause the unit to get too hot. Want to run it in a junky cluttered corner where direct sunlight can reach it in that un-air conditioned room?
Not a good idea either. Of course, you may not normally treat your "electronic toys" this way, but the point that I'm making here is that a well designed product is supposed to be able to tolerate some customer abuse and keep on ticking.
One question that I have no answer to is what happened to the quality control process at Microsoft? They must have some sort of product testing program in place to protect the consumer from defective products. Perhaps it was inadequate in that it didn't simulate normal customer usage of the Xbox. Or maybe it was, but management pushed it out the door anyway?
Speculations aside, the good news here is that Microsoft has already gone to a US based ASIC vendor and had the graphics chip redesigned and hopefully some day your average Xbox gamer will have no idea what you're speaking about when you mention: red ring of death.
Find out how Microsoft design mistakes caused the "red ring of death" and get some Xbox troubleshooting advice at http://www.squidoo.com/Xbox-troubleshooting-red-ring-of-death-fix.
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