The Xbox 360 Thread!

[wolfx]

My friend is DIY-ing the problem by replacing something called the X-clamp. The short of it (he told me) was the clamp causes the mobo to warp when coupled with the heat from the heatsink on top of the clamp. Over time the mobo will flex and cause the circuits to be screwy.......so apparently changing the x-clamp somehow will fix this problem.

[Chowser]

Wow, guess I'm one of the lucky ones, other than the few times back when Dead Rising came out where I had the 3ROD problem, I moved the 360 to a much airier place, plenty of ventilation. My son just played Dead Rising for 7 hours straight last night with no problems. My warranty is good till February 2008 as well. Best $14 I ever spent. Have had to use it only once so far for a new power supply. (Don't move your 360 while it's plugged in and running. It'll cause the power cord to burn a little.)

[JsARCLIGHT]

This is actually the first I've heard about the "X-Clamp" (albeit I don't go cruising gaming boards) and after doing some poking around it sounds more than plausible that this is the cause of the 360 Meltdown plague. I'm not the sharpest tack in the drawer when it comes to computer stuff nor am I a doctorate in thermodynamics but I know enough to know how this problem is a problem... and just looking at the photos of the insides of an Xbox 360 leads me to believe this was a poor design. The whole "heat channel ducting" thing does not look all that effective... and having been the owner of several Dell computers that used that same kind of design (metal fin heatsink into a plastic duct leading to a rear mounted fan) I can attest to it's inability to wick heat away efficiently. I had no clue the insides of this thing where laid out this way... kind of disconcerting.

This whole thing is just lending more credence to my practices of playing in short bursts, constantly trying to monitor the console's heat and making triple sure the console has lots of room to breathe with proper ventilation. Based on this new info I ran out and bought one of those wall plug-in fan stands from Beast Buy for mine and moved it closer to the corner of my entertainment center near the floor AC duct.

[Poonman]

I'm still on my launch console and its been in my entertainment center the whole time.

ofcourse I have an intercooler so maybe thats why mine is doing so well

[bandit29]

There's always the "towel trick" to fix the 360 please

http://thexboxdomain.net/2007/01/15/the-to...ick-fixes-360s/

[David Hingtgen]

Well, I've moved from "email" to "please call us" via Xbox support. My console is now 10 months old, so it should be within warranty, but they've changed which 360's get which warranty so often I have no idea really. Will call them tonight probably. (After Heroes)

[eugimon]

jeebus, I hope yama... err... microsoft can make a fully functional 360 that doesn't burn out by the time halo 3 comes out. hopfully the smaller die version will be more stable.

[Apollo Leader]

Rush'n Attack and Xevious out on XBLA this Wednesday.

Halo 3 Beta wise, I've only had the chance to play it last Wednesday. Hope to play with some of you soon... unless our systems break down before then!

[JB0]

I'm still on my launch console and its been in my entertainment center the whole time.

ofcourse I have an intercooler so maybe thats why mine is doing so well

I've always been a bit skeptical of those. Putting a fan on top of another fan isn't the same thing as having 2 fans. If the fans aren't matched well, you actually REDUCE airflow.

But the big problem is that piggybacking it onto the power supply is a Bad Idea.

The old DC and PS2 fan modules ones that hooked to the AC side weren't hurting anything, but parasitizing the power supply's output is NOT an equivalent option. Especially since I think the 360 supply is regulated, which means the system itself is far less tolerant of voltage fluctuations.

There were also issues with Nyko's connectors being iffy. Given there's a peak of about 200 watts going through that connector*, it's not something you want wiggling around(hence why the connector has locking tabs on it), and there were accounts of electrical arcing in the Intercooler connections, which left visible burn marks in the XBox connector.

It's a bad design made worse by shoddy construction.

That's why MS did that release saying if you wanted to add fans, get a USB-powered one.

Plus the official party line that the 360's cooling solution is perfect as-is, more fans aren't needed, and unlicensed peripherals are wrong and evil and will void your warranty while eating your firstborn(even though they recommended an unlicensed Pelican fan unit as a viable Intercooler alternative).

*For those that care...

The 360 supply, according to the sticker on the bottom, is actually 2 seperate supplies.

The one we're really worried about is 12 volts, with a max of 16.5 amps.

12V*16.5A = 196 watts at peak consumption.

There's also a 1 amp 5-volt circuit. 5V*1A, of course, is 5 watts. It's a trivial supply, though. The NES drew more power than that.

[David Hingtgen]

I finally created a Live account, as it was easiest to just register everything at once so I could send my address, track my system repair, etc. There must be a lot more people on Live than I thought, as I was going for some fairly obscure aviation and game-related gamer tags. Eventually had to settle for "Xenogears Id". Would have preferred Xenogears-Id, but no hyphens allowed. I refuse to "compromise" with numbers tacked on etc. (I was pretty surprised Opiomorph was taken---Opiomorphus might have been open but I thought of it too late---plus the name has too strong of a biblical connotation)

[yellowlightman]

Anyone planning on picking up Senko no Ronde? I was all gung ho about it, but it's getting panned and for $60 I could buy at least a couple shooters for my Saturn, instead. I'm all for supporting weirder game releases (bought EDF 2017) but this one may be too far.