Why The Xbox 360 Suffers From The Red Ring Of Death
Got a troubled relationship going on with your Xbox 360? You love it due to the fact that you're insanely hooked to the intense fun that it provides. You really detest it because...um, need I mention the red ring of death?
The red ring of death gives many customers a good amount of grief and frustration. It's likewise given Microsoft a few problems too...to the tune of about a billion dollars or so in warranty repairs. Now the first inquiry that needs asking is why?
What exactly triggers off the three red lights or the ring of death? Simply put, it's main cause is heat. The Xbox becomes overheated when it's played continually over a period of time.
So how can the Xbox get overheated? There's two parts to the explanation for this. Firstly, the graphics chip was engineered on a low budget by Microsoft.
Instead of going to an experienced vendor for its chip design (ASIC vendor), Microsoft decided to do the graphics chip design in house, that is, on it's own. They did this in order to save a few tens of millions of dollars in design costs. We all know that to do the job right, you have to hire an expert.
It's well known that home made just will not work as well as work done by the pro's. Microsoft's in house job is very inefficient because it dissipates too much waste heat. The other part of the overheating problem is that the console's cooling system is barely adequate at dispersing the tremendous heat put out by the home designed graphics chip.
It really doesn't take a lot to make it over heat. Try running the unit for any length of time, particularly in a warm room with no air conditioning and it'll over heat. The console doesn't deal well with partial blockage of its cooling vents either.
For example, it is very easy to allow cables and cords to become all bunched up at the rear of the console. This by itself will induce the console to get too hot. Thinking of running it in that cluttered up recess where the midday sunlight will hit it in that un-air conditioned room?
Well, that isn't a great thing to try either. Of course, you probably don't treat your toys like this, but what I'm saying here is that consumer products are supposed to be able to tolerate some customer abuse and keep on ticking. An issue that I don't have an 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 defective products. Maybe it was deficient because it failed to simulate typical customer use of the Xbox. Or possibly it detected the problem, but the management people shipped it out the door 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're speaking about when you mention: red ring of death.
