road-runner Posted July 12, 2007 Posted July 12, 2007 Software giant admits there are 11.6 million faulty consoles, which it will have to fix. Microsoft has admitted that every one of the 11.6 million Xbox 360 consoles sold in the past 19 months suffers from a design flaw that could cause the device to fail. The firm will extend the warranty coverage from one to three years to compensate consumers, but does not plan to instate a recall or exchange programme. Microsoft gaming chief Robbie Bach claimed in a conference call with financial analysts that the design issues surfaced recently. "In the past couple of months we started to see significant increases in repair requests and call requests and significant attention from people," he said. Microsoft did not disclose the exact nature of the problems, but said that it had made the necessary design changes and that units currently in stock will be upgraded. The extended warranty period is limited to hardware failures indicated by three flashing red lights on the console. Users of consoles suffering from such problems are entitled to free repairs and shipping. Microsoft estimated that the repairs will cost the company US$1.05bn to US$1.15bn, spilt evenly between the higher than expected return rates for existing consoles under the one-year warranty, and future returns under the extended warranty period. Link Share this post Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Verran Posted July 12, 2007 Posted July 12, 2007 DailyTech had a writeup on this about a week ago. Apparently the failure rate is believed to be as high as one-third by several "insiders". This comes after months of M$ double-speak and dancing around the issue, all the while claiming that the failure rate was "normal". It's good that they're finally going to address the issue, but you won't see me patting them on the back. A lot of articles are giving it a very "way to go for them" vibe, and I think that's really weak. There's a big difference between admitting a lie and getting caught in a lie. Share this post Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
hardnrg Posted July 12, 2007 Posted July 12, 2007 Wonder whether it is to do with the cooling system, or something electronic, or what... hmmm Share this post Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Verran Posted July 12, 2007 Posted July 12, 2007 A lot of people seem to think the RRoD problems are due to cooling. I'm pretty sure the new "Elite" model was found to have a different upgraded cooling setup. There seem to be a lot of reports of heat causing solder-points to separate from boards. I'm pretty sure there was mention of chips being epoxied in some way to the boards too (on the elite) in an attempt to fix it. Share this post Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
airman Posted July 12, 2007 Posted July 12, 2007 i heard it was going to cost M$ several billion dollars to repair all of these units. Share this post Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
suchuwato Posted July 12, 2007 Posted July 12, 2007 Well, doesn't the elite have some measures in place to stop pins becoming detached because of the board's warping due to heat? My 360 is spazzing out a bit recently... it'll freeze up, with broken white lines down the screen, and a torn image. Any ideas? Share this post Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
g1ng3r Posted July 12, 2007 Posted July 12, 2007 Xbox 360 overheating explained! (taken from many places - most of it from www.xbox360fanboy.com) "The ever-resourceful Deutschland modding community has reportedly discovered the reason behind the 360's overheating issue. Xbox-Scene informs that a group of German tech-heads from ModControl.com and GameStore24.de took apart two independently purchased consoles and discovered the protective foil on the heatsink had not been removed" "On the left [see above pic] you see the CPU heatsink and how the thermal compound should normally look like. On the right you see the ATI GPU heatsink and people who are used to assemble PCs themself known this isn't how it should look like. It's not just a thick layer of compound ... there's actaully a plastic protective foil on top of the thermal compound." "On the right a close-up of the protective layer/foil on top of the heat transfer pad. On the left the protective foil has been removed and placed next to the heat pad. This protective layer is probably placed by the manifacturer of the heatsink and is used to protect the heat transfer pad from dust, but should normally be removed just prior installing the heatsink on the GPU. The way it's installed now by MS the GPU chip makes contact with the plastic protection foil instead of the heat transfer pad. This can of course cause cooling issues for the graphics chip as for optimal cooling performance there should just be a thin layer of thermal pad between the GPU chip and heatsink." Also there is a video (in german) Share this post Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
fire_storm Posted July 12, 2007 Posted July 12, 2007 Its too bad the xbox360 has been out for almost 2 years and these problems still aren't fixed with it. Share this post Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
hardnrg Posted July 12, 2007 Posted July 12, 2007 you have got to be kidding me! assembly engineers left some foil on the thermal pad?! Share this post Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
g1ng3r Posted July 12, 2007 Posted July 12, 2007 you have got to be kidding me! assembly engineers left some foil on the thermal pad?! Thats what I thought Its hilarious to think they got payed to mess up microsofts console! Share this post Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
iKillSteal Posted July 12, 2007 Posted July 12, 2007 you have got to be kidding me! assembly engineers left some foil on the thermal pad?! lol, assembly engineers. Is that really what they're calling them now? I guess that "disposable laborers" doesn't really raise employee morale like it did back in Rome. I'm sure they wouldn't have made that mistake if "getting fired" actually meant that. Sucks for Microsoft. Such a tiny thing caused so much crap for them. Share this post Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Fireonice Posted July 13, 2007 Posted July 13, 2007 So sence mine doesnt have a warrenty anymore i can take the h/s off and fix this problem? I really hope its just the heating im going tommmorw to get some artic silver 5 and im gona beef up the cooling with some parts laying around. Share this post Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
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