Microsoft has come forth with a statement that, when taken literally, means, "many different design flaws lead to the overheating and early demise of the Xbox 360 console."
Or, as a Microsoft spokesperson put it, "There is no single root cause or systemic issue with any of the Xbox 360 consoles." Same thing.
This, following a Nikkei report that a thermal design expert had examined two separate Xbox 360 consoles (one 2005 original; one 2007 refurb) and found the following issues:
• The temperature gap with room temp was 22 degrees C. "When designing consumer products, it is common to seek a temperature gap of around 10 degrees C between exhaust and room temperatures," the thermal design expert said. "The 22 degrees C is quite a large gap…"
• The cooling fan was half of desktop PCs – apparently to reduce noise.
• The expert pointed out, "The heat sink on the graphics LSI is so small, I wonder if it can really cool down the board." The reason for this? Apparently, Microsoft had to downsized graphics LSI heat sink so that the DVD drive could be placed above it.
• In five minutes after booting up a game, the graphic LSI heat sink temp rose to 70 degrees C. In 15 minutes, the temperature for the microprocessor heat sink stabilized at 58 degrees, but the graphics LSI heat sink reached 80 degrees C. If the room temperature was high (like 35 degrees C), the heat sink could possibly hit 100 degrees C. What’s more, if the vents were clogged with dust, the temperature could also increase.
• The console repaired in May 2007 did not have a new heat sink placed in it.
Um…I’m not an engineer, but I think those are bad.
