RSSAnalyst: Xbox 360's overheating problems began with GPU
By Ed Oswald | Published June 11, 2008, 3:34 PM
Gartner analyst Bryan Lewis has said that in trying to save money in producing the graphics chip for the Xbox 360, Microsoft actually ended up paying much more due to repair
The Redmond company wanted to avoid using an application-specific integrated circuit (ASIC) vendor in an attempt to save millions in production costs. Instead, it designed the chip on its own, outsourcing the manufacturing to Taiwan Semiconductor.
Unfortunately, Microsoft's design did not dissipate heat properly. This in turn caused the console to overheat, and was the root cause system problems which cost Microsoft $1 billion to fix -- far more than the tens of millions it was said to have saved.
When news of the overheating problems first surfaced, Microsoft defended its design, saying only 3% of units shipped were susceptible to overheating. That excuse was part of what prompted a fellow named Robert Byers to launch a class-action suit against the company in December 2005. That suit generated some substantive heat on its own, but it flickered out by the following March when the plaintiff voluntarily dismissed the suit without explanation.
Microsoft never confirmed exactly what went wrong with its design, only saying that it was a "design issue." The only clue that the company was to blame for the overheating was that it said it was an internally-initiated design, and not the fault of any of its partners.
EETimes reported on Monday that ATI -- arguably a very prominent ASIC vendor in its own right -- likely was tapped to build the graphics chip following the discovery of the problem. Lewis said that if Microsoft would have chosen an ASIC vendor in the first place, it might have never experienced any problems.
The reasoning for this is pretty simple, Lewis contends: ASICs have experience in building such chips, whereas big companies like Microsoft are something of a jack of all trades, yet a master of none.
The added experience of an ASIC producer can reduce the likelihood of design oversights, he went on, and thus potential issues may be caught well before they lead to a production problem. Lewis said that companies in Microsoft's position really do not need to be designing chips, since they'll only design too few of them for the process to become cost-effective.
Danno....yeah no $h*t the article was not about Sony, the BDA, or the PS3...but i was not the one that brought Sony into the discussion, just pointing out the severe FLAWS in the original comparison...
Niro, you're an idiot...plain and simple...how can you logically make this comparison??....first of all...Sony does NOT equal Blu-ray...yes, they have the most money invested, but to say that the entire BDA is soley made up of Sony execs is idiotic...
yeah if you want to take advantage of profile 2.0 stuff which is retarted interactive nonsense that nobody uses anyways then yes, you need to buy a new player...or buy a PS3 because that has already been updated FOR FREE...
anyone who bought a profile 1.0 BD player should have known what they were buying...you can't be on the bleeding edge of technology and not expect things to become obsolete rather quickly...its the nature of the beast...Sony is not FORCING you to buy jack....if you want the special features then buy a new player...or keep your old player and just watch the movie which is what 80% of people want from their movies...or again you could have bought a PS3 and have had it upgraded for FREE....
the difference is so simple that im shocked even someone with your low level of intelligence can't grasp it...
Sony released a disc format...laid out the specs for 1.0, 1.1, and 2.0...unfortunately they did not just go to a finished spec upon launch....frankly it was rushed to market and was unfinished...shame on them...
Microsoft on the other hand...released a console that was SO poorly designed that many reports have initial failure rates eclipsing 30%!! that is UNACCEPTABLE in the consumer electronics industry...especially considering your competitors (Sony and Nintendo) were able to keep their failure rates below 3%...
Microsoft didn't offer to fix the problem for free because they are consumer friendly...they offered to fix the problem because writing it off as a loss and fixing it was cheaper than what they probably would have had to pay out had the issue gone to court...MS was protecting their a$$es...not yours...
Sony and Nintendo on the other hand released hardware that just works...
lets see....
Consumer friendliness of the PS3 vs the 360...
yeah the 360 is cheaper initially...but...
Sony includes built in wireless internet...MS makes you pay more for that...
Sony includes a next gen media player...MS makes you pay for that and its a gimped version with less audio options than stand alone players while the PS3 is a full spec player...oh and MS's HD player? they stopped making movies in that format a couple months ago...oh, and one more thing...Sony updates their player for free (1.1 support, 2.0 support, DTS:MA decoding, Dolby TrueHD decoding)
Sony lets you install ANY 2.5" SATA Hard Drive without voiding your warranty...MS makes you buy THEIR overpriced HD...
i hate to sound like a PS3 fanboy because I'm not...I own all 3 consoles, and love them all... but when people post idiotic stuff like Niro it gets me all fired up lol...
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|Sony made a product that works with low failure rates. That is interesting didn't Sony lose a class action suit about high failure rates on the PS2? Yep thought so.
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|3% sounds to me like a manufacturing problem, not
what I expected which was math trouble like say,
somebody leaving out the thermal resistance from
case to sink in the design stage, or forgetting
that ambient is not 68°F and that the sink isn't
even in the ambient. Which results in a cheaper
heat sink but....
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|"...big companies like Microsoft are something of a jack of all trades, yet a master of none."
------
right on the money!
(yes, I love my elite..but still)
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|Ironic--Microsoft worked so hard to not repeat the mistake of the GPU quantity problem with the original XBox that they ended up having a quality problem with the 360.
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|My Elite has gone RROD. I can get it to turn on and play but it takes some playing around with the power button.
I already received my box from MS to ship it in for service but I'm waiting until the day before we go on vacation to send it out.
It turns out my PS3 draws more power than 5 refrigerators at idle but at least the thing doesnt **** up.
The Wii has always been rock solid and you have to look hard to find one that failed.
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|there is NO way to compare this issue to blu-ray drives...was Blu-ray a finished spec upon release? No, it was not...but the BDA did have preliminary specs for profile 1.1 and 2.0 available from the get-go...we knew what was to be included in 1.1 and 2.0 players WAY before they were ready to release....it was hardware manufactures, that chose to build these 1.0 players....now Sony happens to be one of those manufacturers, but to blame that all on Sony is nonsense....
Now of course Sony's most popular Blu-ray player has received free upgrades to 1.1 and then 2.0 profile spec...
now the main difference between the 360 overheating and Blu-ray is the simple fact that BD players don't suffer catastrophic failure due to a hardware design flaw!...profile 1.0 BD players will play profile 2.0 discs...you just can't take advantage of the interactive features...
that is a HUGE difference compared to a horrible design flaw that causes your entire hardware setup to overheat and brick!....i find it hilarious that an intelligent person could even try to make the argument that it is similar...
the PS3 itslf has been a very solid piece of hardware....the Wii seems to be in the same situation...the 360 however not so much....from what i understand the newer ones are "better" though....thankfully all 3 of my consoles (PS3, 360, and Wii) have had ZERO problems...
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|So let me get this straight...you forgive Sony for KNOWINGLY screwing people by releasing players that would not be compatible with Spec 2.0 (Since they knew the requirements WAY before release, as you say), but chastise MS for bad design?
Sony is forcing you to buy knew players if you want the highly advertised PIP and ineractive features, while MS is replacing your console for free.
Yea...Sony is much more consumer friendly...
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|I was told the Elites "hardly ever go bad" I know three other people who have Elites that went bad all within a week of mine ****ing up.
Hats off to MS and thier brilliant design team, I hope this cost them way more than the 1.15 billion they put aside for RROD consoles.
The PS3 is now the crown jewel in my house. (ugh).
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|Early adopters always get screwed, people should know that by now. Look at the iPhone, all those little whiny b****es are complaining about the $600 initial price.
Now it costs a third as much and does way more.
Anyone who bought a stand alone first gen BD player is a fool. The PS3 is the only completely upgradeable player. This thing actually smokes HD-DVD with profile 2.0 installed.
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|Some good advertisiong for Sony Dark.
You really need to stop trolling for Sony and get a life bud. This article has nothing to do with the POS3 BLoray profiles or the BDA. You really have nothing better to do.
Congrats
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|My 360 is from original release *knock on wood* still not a single problem with it. Then again i run mine with a cooler and the ambient temp of the rack is also cooled. Despite the fact it has sufficent fans (or in some cases insufficent fan strength) I have always added extra cooling (either extra fans or providing cooling from an outside source) to keep the hardware cooler.
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|"Analyst: Xbox 360's overheating problems began with GPU"
NO!!!! Really!!!!! All this time I thought it was from global warming. In related news, scientist have new theory that Earth might not be flat. No word yet on what shape they think it could be.
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|DUH!
Microsoft = Get it out on the Market now, worry about the issues / fix it later.
All that hassle to simply be 1st!
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|As opposed to what Sony did with BR??
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|You definitely got him there.
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|Erm... did he comment that Sony were any better?
As hardware goes the PS3 has been more reliable, yes.
BR is a software/firmware thing, and yes, it was rushed. Not as catastrophic when it's software/firmware though, is it.
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|Yup.
I guess they hurried the blu drive out and forget quality themselves. Not that this is a big surprise optical drives has never been their quality area. Kind of like their laptop batteries.
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|Ernn......did I comment about the PS3? No...i commented on BR. I guess assuming people know the difference between the two is a big mistake, isn't it?
And I guess how "catastrophic" the issue is all depends, doesn't it? Is it catastrophic that thousands of people bought a blu-ray player that is not fully compatible with the new blu-ray spec, and will never be fully compliant? I bet the thousands of people that bought those blu-ray players, think it's catastrophic, don't they? Especially when those players cost no less then $800, and they "thought" they were buying a fully functioning BR player (and they SHOULD think that with those prices!).
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|ummm, its not just a software/firmware problem or people who bought the BR version 1's wouldn't have to buy ver 2 to get new functionality that 1 doesn't have in it. It would have just been a download to fix it...oh you can't download on a BR, that won't come until version 2 or is that 3 because people who buy version 2 will have to buy version 3 to get new funcionality too.
MS in a way did the same thing Sony did. They brought out a product that didn't work properly because they wanted to beat the other to the starting line. If MS didn't bring out the 360 when it did it may not have been out before the PS3 and if Sony didn't bring out blu-ray when it did then we'd all be using HD-DVD.
Now MS fixed the 360's for free of charge, I don't see Sony saying send in your version 1 BR and we'll give you a version 2 for free. At least MS tried to fix the problem.
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|My bad. We're both crap at this, clearly.
Also: I could very easily be wrong, but with my DivX playing DVD player, new firmware can be downloaded from the manufacturer's website, burned to CD and 'played' on it to update the firmware.
I see no reason why this won't be possible with BlueRay players.
If it's a hardware problem which would render them completely incapable of version 2, then yes, I fully agree with you.
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|See my comment below to Niro.
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|I'm just saying both MS and Sony should have done things right the first time...BUT since they didn't MS gets a gold star for fixing the problem for free and Sony gets my middle finger.
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|It is a hardware issue. The 1st gen BD players lack a secondary video decoder (required for PIP) and Ethernet (required for online special features)
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|dude everyone does stupid stuff(YES EVERYONE) like me not buying an extended warranty for my xbox... now i have to buy a new one but im trying to see what other games the PS3 will have and if Madden NFL 09 and NCAA Football 09 will bring 60fps for the ps3.. if those games bring them then im buying the ps3 but i also like to listen to music while playing and im a huge Halo fan too so im trying to choose carefully =] because i cant afford both systems(well not yet)
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|Rumor has it that Sony will be getting the ability xbox360 has had from the beginning, sometime in June
Personally, I don't care as I will own all three.
I currently have a wii and ps3 and will be picking up the xbox360 when "jasper" comes out (I was holding off on buying until ninja gaiden 2 came out and seeing as the redesign comes in August might as well wait
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|Eh it's ok Microsoft. In the 6 weeks that it took you to return my 360 I picked up World of Warcraft and haven't returned to you since. No hard feelings you still got the cash for the system but not much since then.
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|Got my system back in 3 days and didn't cost a penny. Unlike Sony that is charging $150 plus shipping to fix the failed blu ray drives.
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