Got a love-hate relationship going on with your Xbox 360? You love it due to the fact that you're massively addicted to the intense fun that it provides. You really detest it because of...well, need I mention the red ring of death?
The red ring of death gives countless consumers a good amount of grief and frustration. It's likewise given Microsoft some headaches as well...to the tune of about a billion dollars or so in warranty repairs. Now the first question that needs asking is why?
What exactly triggers off the three quarter circle of lights called the ring of death? Its main cause is heat. The Xbox becomes overheated when it's played continually over lengthy time periods.
So how can the Xbox get so overheated? There's two parts to the explanation here. Firstly, the graphics chip was engineered on a cheap budget by Microsoft.
Rather than go to a highly experienced vendor for its chip design (ASIC vendor), Microsoft designed the graphics chip in house, in other words, on it's own. This was done in order to save some tens of millions of dollars in the cost of the design. Now, most of us know that to do the job right, you go and hire a professional.
It's well known that our "home made" efforts just will not work as well as work done by the pro's. Microsoft's in house job is inefficient in that it dissipates too much waste heat. The other part of the overheating problem is that the cooling system is only marginally capable of dispersing the tremendous heat put out by the home designed graphics chip.
It really doesn't take a lot to make it get too hot. Try running the unit for any length of time, particularly in a warm room with no air conditioning and it'll get too hot. The console doesn't deal well with partial blockage of its cooling vent-holes either.
For example, it's easy enough to allow cables and cords to become all bunched up at the rear of the console. This by itself can cause the console to get too hot. Thinking of running it in a junky cluttered corner where the midday sunlight will hit it in that un-air conditioned room?
Well, it isn't a good notion either. Of course, you probably don't treat your toys like this, but the point that I'm making here is that consumer products are supposed to be able to tolerate some customer abuse and keep on ticking. An issue that I have no answer to is what went wrong with the quality control process at Microsoft?
There must be a product testing program of some kind in place to protect the customer from buying faulty products. Maybe it was deficient because it failed to simulate typical customer use of the console. Or possibly it was ok, but the management people shipped the consoles out anyway?
All conjectures aside, the great news is that Microsoft has gone to an ASIC vendor in the US and had the graphics chip redesigned. Maybe some day your ordinary Xbox gamer won't know what you are talking of when you mention the red ring of death.
About the Author:
Marc Sandford is a gaming addict and author. Get Xbox 360 troubleshooting advice about repairing the Red Ring of Death.
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