Update: I had a source within Microsoft who was on original Xbox hardware team and was still on it for the Xbox 360 Xenon board development. They shared with me Xbox engineering team briefings talking about the red ring of death during 2007. I made the video based on his First-Hand experience, theory and insight. I truly acknowledge that there are other theories but he thought it was lead-free solder becoming brittle and cracking over repeated overheating. I'm welcome to entertain alternate to theories such as GPU defects but I wrote this based on my conversation so that I had with my source and the documents that he showed me. He was a first hand witness at the time in question. It's crazy that here we are 17 years later and it's still a heated issue, pun fully intended. I'm waiting for someone to comment on the beard. I actually filmed most of this for the video on the Xbox 360 digital store closing and I cut it out for time and also wanted to turn it into its own video.
With all due respect, the reason people get worked up about it is that we have been fighting the "lead-free solder" myth for so long, that it's a little frustrating to see misinformation continue to be pushed, despite all of the new research and first hand reports from engineers, as well as leaked documents, and independant testing the confirms the GPUs are manufactured with a known incompatible material set. :/
It not a theory, its a proven fact. If you'd watch the documentary your going on about you'd realize how outdated and inaccurate your infomation is. All you are doing is spreading misinformation. Whats next? Are you going to suggest the bolt mod as a fix? Smh
You received this information in 2007 and this is now 2024, the real truth of this issue has been known since 2008 when the issue was solved by revising the Gpu underfill ONLY. Lead free was still used no problem. Even xenon systems that were repaired with a new revised Gpu can operate reliably for many years. The underfill is now strong enough to support the bumps under normal heating and cooling , heck it’s strong enough to handle higher than normal temperatures without failure , unlike the original underfill. the 360 has thermal shutdown protection so even if it did ‘overheat’ it would shut down and flash 2 red lights before damage is done. The original underfill was already weak at normal temperatures, but let’s say the heat sink and fans get plugged with dust and the temperatures rise above normal. That underfill is getting softer and flexing those solder bumps like crazy which then kills the system faster.
Unfortunately, this video is incredibly inaccurate, which I blame on multiple inaccurate and out of date sources. I would heed caution before listening to the content presented here. The failures are NOT caused by overheating in any form. It is a flaw in the design of the GPU package, use of low-Tg underfill, and a bad low-k process at TSMC. This was not MS's fault. Same issues affected many ATi chipsets and NVIDIA chipsets all which are made by TSMC. See the video by RIP-FELIX for details. He goes into depth on the REAL TRUTH.
Well, my source was an engineer who worked on the original Xbox for the entire life of the console and the development cycle of the Xbox 360. I'm just saying this is what the internal Microsoft engineering documents and email that I saw said. They thought it was a lead-free solder cracking over repeated use. By the way, I'm also the person who first reported on Bungie leaving Microsoft. Again, I knew people at the company who reached out to me with insider information because they knew I had a tech blog that was syndicated on the Seattle PI and the AP newswire. I mean other people are welcome to have different theories, but this was the theory of my source from the Microsoft Entertainment and Devices division
Yeah, they thought it was a lot of things before they figured out what it was really. They admit this themselves, and leaked documentation confirms this. Also, it literally doesn't matter if you reported anything with Bungie, that's journalism, entirely irrelevant to anything. These are not theories. My information was confirmed by several people I have spoken to recently who worked on the Xenon system.
Yes was overheating the problem. After getting rod I received new console from Microsoft and I immediately opened and set fans to 12v. Was a xenon. Console never broked again.
Sorry about that. I try to have music but not have it be too distracting. I guess it could have had music at the beginning and the end but I'm always worried that people are going to stop paying attention. Sorry about that I will keep your suggestion in mind when I do future videos
Let me get this straight. Microsoft demonstrated the problem in Power On (GPU flaw). You have Microsoft Engineering documents from 2007. Bare in mind that in 2007, everyone had a flawed GPU so the problem wasn't quite figured out yet. But because you have these documents and they're from a Microsoft Engineer, it's the truth? Brother, they already figured it out and Microsoft says otherwise now. It's NOT a cooling issue. Imagine if it was, they wouldn't have had to go through so many GPU changes. And imagine if they never considered the GPU being a problem. Every 360 phat would be prone to fail but that's NOT the case. I'm willing to bet that a late falcon or jasper will outlast any S or E in terms of RROD. They simply don't fail. Slims have a combined CPU and GPU. We never seen this on a 360 before. While it's not a bad design, the original design is proven much better. And honestly I don't think people realize it until they buy tons of 360s from parts/repair lots and then compare what still powers on and what doesn't. Most times the late model phats power on just fine and with slims in the same condition, the chances of powering on are like 50/50 at best.
Either way the combined CPU and GPU Is both cooler and revised silicon. My only very minor complaint that I have with a 360e is that they took out the regular AV port and added a composite AV, so you can't use component for a CRT but that made sense at the time. The 360 went from only supporting log video at the beginning of its life cycle and barely supporting analogue video by the end of it
@8bitjoystick no because both 90nm fixed chips and 90nm defective gpus ran at the same tempature. The fan is dynamically controlled and will always keep the gpu at the same temp cooling teaks or not. The only difference being it would run quieter with better cooling. Also no one cares that you don't like the xbox 360 e composite out
@@8bitjoystick But they have a higher failing rate compared to a late falcon or jasper so I'm not sure what else to tell you. Everyone likes to stick by "latest is greatest" and I mean yeah, in some aspects. But if we're talking about longevity then phat units with a revised GPU are taking the cake.
Actually, the slim still runs at the same 70-80C as the Phats. Since the TDP was reduced, the heatsink was also reduced. 70-80C is a perfectly safe temperature for chips to run out. Source: Mod any Phat and Slim and watch the temps after 10 minutes of gameplay. I professionally repair these units. The most reliable console is the Tonasket version of Jasper (sometimes called Jasper "V2", real name Tonasket aka Jasper_B according to an MS engineer). Followed by the Jasper. I have had to repair a significant number of S and E units with faulty XCGPUs. However those XCGPU failures are unrelated to the original RROD flip chip issues. And none of it is related to overheating or lead free solder in any way.
And before that was the Lynx and Colecovision. I had a Colecovision as a kid and I still have one. I need to get it AV modded but I remember back when we had US companies design and manufacture game consoles in the US.
Thanks. I make weekly videos that are published every saturday. I also do live streams on Wednesday at 6:00 p.m. I am pretty happy with the growth of this channel I've been only doing it for a little over a year. But thank you
I hate to be a downer on the video as its amazing, well edited and some important facts. Its not the solder that was the issue. Its the GPU's themselves, they were manufactured awfully causing them to fail internally in their layers. This was rectified during the period when Falcons were manufactured. The underfill for the interposer and die was corrected. At the time its what Microsoft believed, but then it was later revealed that the problem was the GPU chip itself. I have a few Xenons in my collection with the later Y1 GPU's and they have never failed since. The Xenon's were from 2005/2006, and opening them up, was clear they had the revised chips on them. You also have to consider too... if Lead Free solder was the culprate. Why was the CPU's never affected or noted in any of the error logs? It was all errors to the GPU. Falcons which suffered with the 0110 memory error was due to the Taiwanese RHEA GPUs having faults with its memory allocating. I understand that its your opinion and that it came from engineers, however I want to put the friendly reminder out there that its not the solder, you can reball a XENON and it will give you the same issue, unless you replace the GPU with one which had an improved underfill. This problem was major, and was even happening to laptops and other devices. I do my own BGA stuff in my free time, and I can say from experiencing working around reballing, that its not solder caused... I do hope this helps, there is also a lot of articles out there too.
I had a source within Microsoft who was on Xbox team and was still on it for the Xbox 360 Xenon board development. They shared with me Xbox engineering team briefings talking about the red ring of death during 2007. I made the video based on his First-Hand experience, theory and insight. I truly acknowledge that there are other theories but he thought it was lead-free solder and overheating. He also was an actual motherboard engineer on the original Xbox. It's crazy that here we are 17 years later and it's still a heated issue. No pun intended
@@8bitjoystick That is a true and funny pun there. I like it. :D Apologies for my comment and if it was slightly rough, I got stun when I was younger getting my system reballed when I was a teenager, different places, same error to find one engineering place told me the issue was to do with the GPU. After that and he supplied the later GPU in it... lasted for over 10 years before going into storage. From then walked away from the theory, especially when more things were coming out. I remember back then, I would try different things to fix it. I did the bolt trick myself. xD But at the same time, you do make a point in heat, as in reality, the warping and heat too is also a huge factor of it too. I actually found, by leaving the XBOX 360 return to idle temp after a gaming session, it would stop the system from RRODing, which is an interesting one. That is so cool that your friend was part of the motherboard manufacturing for the original XBOX, that is absolutely mental. I bet there are some interesting stories behind the scenes there too. :)
One thing is that I dislike about UA-cam is they don't let you re-upload a different version of the video without deleting your current one. So I wish I put in a couple lines about alternative theories such as people who blame the GPU and modern theories. Granted my source's perspective was contemporary at the time which is now 17 years ago. But I should have had a couple lines about other theories. Also, I didn't really want to blame J Allard, when I posted the photo of him and Robbie Bach. I never actually met my source in person. He did send me a box of some Xbox developer swag and my interview with him done with a series of phones and email exchanges. I was semi-local to Redmond but in Bremerton which is still on the other side of the freaking Puget sound. Still was a drive on a ferry ride to get there.
@@8bitjoystick I must point out, it's not "people" blaming the GPU. Microsoft knows it's the fault now. Your source is out of date. Everyone now knows, Microsoft, ATi, TSMC, etc. Your data as you admitted was 2006-2007 and is out of date. They were still guessing then, and unsuccessfully, since consoles were still dying. Once the companies determined the GPU flip chip was at fault, TSMC was able to successfully fix the issue immediately and then suddenly 360's stopped dying with the late Falcons and Jaspers. Microsoft said: "The breakthrough came when we realized the issue was not on the motherboard, but actually inside the components" (paraphrased but something like that). I have spoken within the last few months to several people involved in the Xenon system design who have confirmed this to be correct.
Dude you should just delete this video. You are just harming the Xbox 360 community by spreading misinformation. RROD had nothing to do with overheating or lead free solder
Respectfully, my source that was on the Xbox Hardware engineering team during the development of the Xbox and the Xbox 360 disagree with your theory. I mean I'm welcome to entertain alternate to theories but I wrote this based on my conversation so that I had with my source and the documents that he showed me. He was a first hand witness at the time in question.
Your data as you admitted was 2006-2007 and is out of date. They were still guessing then, and unsuccessfully, since consoles were still dying. Once the companies determined the GPU flip chip was at fault, TSMC was able to successfully fix the issue immediately and then suddenly 360's stopped dying with the late Falcons and Jaspers. Microsoft said: "The breakthrough came when we realized the issue was not on the motherboard, but actually inside the components" (paraphrased but something like that). I have spoken within the last few months to several people involved in the Xenon system design who have confirmed this to be correct.
My source was an actual Xbox motherboard engineer. I respect your chutzpah of thinking Reddit of 2024 knows more than someone who actually worked on the Xenon board in 2004 and 05.
Once again. My sources are multiple engineers who worked on the Xbox 360 as well as research papers on this exact failure. Your source is out of date and incorrect. In 2006/2007 they didn't know what the issue was yet. Who knows what theories they had. The whole industry using TSMC products had this issue and they all figured it out. But it took time.
Cooling was not fine on the Xenon motherboard and earlier revisions. The person that I interviewed actually worked on the Xbox 360 motherboard. They also thought that early on in the design process, the team had planned that the motherboard was going to be for a bigger system and he did not agree with the placement of the DVD drive in particular. I agree with you that there is no way that they could have placed the monstrosity that was the early 360 power bricks inside the console, but that was one of the examples of the kinds of design choices that they made with the system.
@@8bitjoystick If the cooling on Xenons are bad, then why are Elpis boards which are Xenon boards with a replaced GPU and updated boot loader reliable and rarely fail?
I just made my video based on my conversations with my source who was actually there and was a part of the internal discussions on the Xbox Hardware team of the day until 2006. In 2004 and 2005 when developing the 360 boards, they were concerned about the arrangement of the CPO GPU and dvd drive and then the theory amongst Xbox engineers afterwards was the concerns about the lead-free solder cracking and becoming brittle. I hear that there are theories about GPU defects, but I still subscribed to the theory that the team that there are multiple things that can cause a red ring of death and that's the reason why it was an ongoing engineering nightmare that took multiple revisions with the different approaches.
@@CliffNark If by that you mean heat contributed solder cracking. retroconsoles.fandom.com/wiki/Yellow_Light_of_Death I'm currently working on a video on the red light of death, The NES hardware connection issues. Which is actually caused by corrosion.
Well, my source within Microsoft on the Xbox 360 team thought that it was overheating from the GPU and CPU causing a arious lead-free solder points to fail. There are some people who claim that there was a GPU manufacturing problem, which I can definitely think is a possible possibility. But considering the various revisions to the original motherboards often involved better fans and cooling and took steps to try and reduce the internal temperature. Help reinforce the theory that Microsoft thought that it was overheating and that was causing its problems at the time.
The GPU heatsink was updated for noise reasons, fans are dynamic so no change in operating temps which are perfectly safe. No other cooling improvements were made, fans, etc all stayed the same. The CPU heatsink was reduced when the CPU moved from 75W/85W to 41W for obvious reasons. Also, lead free solder does not fail from any of thr temperatures the unit encounters. Your source is out of date.
The problem was, the employees forgot to peel off the protective plastic sheet off the thermal paste pad from the bottom of the heat sinks before assembling the console. I’ve personally removed those plastic sheets from various launch consoles as I repaired RRoD in middle and high school. I’ve been on the search for another launch system with those plastic sheets as those are very rare and could be worth a little bit of money. That’s what the problem was.
I'm not saying that didn't happen. I'm just saying that there were other problems. My source thought it was related to the lead-free solder cracking. Apparently there's other camps that blame the problem with the GPU. I bet Microsoft back in the day would have effing loved it if the problem was as simple as people forgot to take the plastic sheet off the heatsinks.
They did NOT forget to peel anything. Another myth. That silver foil is part of the Chromerics T-558 phase change pad. The T-557 on the CPU does not have it. Look up the Chromerics spec sheet. MS later changed to T-557 on the GPU. There was NO mistakes. A phase change pad does not work the way thermal paste does, but it worked as well as commercial pastes at the time. It did NOT cause overheating and had NOTHING to do with the failures.
another thing you may not no the matt black xbox 360 s has on board memorry storage that can corrupted and brick your system always go for the shiny ones
My 360 got the red ring of death recently. Sounds like if I want to keep my games I should find a 360-S or 360-E and also a transfer cable because I don’t think the hard drives are compatible. Am I right?
Yes, it's possible to use a transfer cable. I used to have one back in the day. It was pretty cool. It snapped on to the hard drive and then you plugged It into the USB port. You should call Pink Gorilla and see if they have any or join The Greater Seattle Retro gamers Facebook group and asks to see if anyone could let you borrow one. Personally, I have an Xbox 360s but I think the e's are pretty cool too, as in pleasant and also cool as far as temperature.
I did not know that. I remember the external Wi-Fi adapter that was made by Microsoft that you would clip on the back of an original 360 and plug into the USB port. I also remembered being like over $100 bucks. I mostly have my consoles hooked up with ethernet
@@8bitjoystick there was a white one with a single antenna, and a black one with 2 antennas , the black one was 5ghz capable. You can usually snatch them up for about $35 these days.
I've actually been putting this in videos for the past couple months now but you're the first person to comment on it. I'm sort of surprised. So good on you.
Got an Xbox 360 wired controller I brought way back in 2009 and it has had four sets of analogue sticks and it's on it's second cable and it's still going perfectly fine! Love that controller no way I was going to let the cable kill it! A bit of soldering and a new cable and it's as good as new! :D I still remember playing Halo 3 back around 2009 great times! :D
Well, I remember the d-pad being a little controversial for people who liked having raised d-pad$/s pads. They thought that the 360 d-pad was too low for their taste. That's why I thought the convertible one that they did where you could rotate the pad and have it retract. That was cool.
I actually had a confidential source in Microsoft 17 years ago who explained just what the hell happened and what was going on. I hope they actually delivered on the promise of the video.
Are you sure about that? I mean even the people who disagree with my sources theory think that there's an alternative problem with the hardware. I actually think the Xbox 360 software is pretty God damn good.
Big oof to have Josh Davidson tell you everything is wrong. I'd also like to add a few key points: 1. You said all 6 phat revisions were bad, but this is all but true. This is because as Josh mentioned, it was a gpu design flaw and had nothing to do with cooling. I'm gonna simplify this down to 2 gpu designs. The first is what the 360 launched with. This chip has a design flaw in which joints in the component (technically in between 2 but thats besides the point) would break after heat cycles at operating temperature, which would cause the rrod. The second gpu is what was standardized in around August of 08 but could be found in slightly older consoles up to around march of 08, this chip had mostly fixed the design flaw that pleagued the original. The first versions of these fixed chips appearing in late falcons and opus consoles (also in many xenon retrofits). Many of these chips are still running. In fact, ill bet if you were to go pick up a post August 08 console it would start right up and continue to run for years. This reliability only improves up until it peaks at jasper (kronos) gpus, which basicly have a failure rate of 0 and are actually more reliable than most slims even though the winchester boards appear to be very reliable. 2. Again, heat plays no part in this, proven by the fact that the early reliable gpus still run on the 90nm process and reach similar temps. Please note some aspects are extremely simplifed, and please Josh if you read this feel free to correct any wrong statments.
I said that the later revisions in the Xbox 360 motherboards got less error prone with every revision. Also, many of the local game stores won't even stock the original Xbox 360 design and they only carry the s and the e. My major point was eventually they are going to turn off the file servers for the 360 and if your ability to play all of your downloaded content is tied to having an authorized and downloaded Xbox 360, I would feel much safer having it be on an S or an E. Back in the day I did buy a Jasper original Xbox 360 but switched to Valhalla which is still going like a champ. Yeah, I'm not ready to believe that internal overheating played no factor in the RROD, especially since the improvements that they made to systems cooling in the various revisions and my source who thought it was enemy number one at the time. I do find it a little amusing that people think that I have a "retro explanation" to a hardware problem in a retro game system.
There is no overheating. The unit would shut down long before overheating occurs (try it!) The GPU heatsink was changed to reduce fan noise as the GPU power output came in higher than expected (source, ms leaked doc from 2006). The system controls the fans dynamically. There were no other "improvements" made to the cooling whatsoever. This information is absolutely nonsense. PS: Valhalla isn't a motherboard. It was an old codename for the CGPU that was changed after leaks in 08. You mean Trinity. And fwiw, I've had to repair many more Slims than Jaspers. Their CGPU has begun failing.
@8bitjoystick dude, the gpu reaches a max temp of around 80 on every console which is the normal operating temp for the gpu. Also since your so certain that your old info is correct, why don't you go watch the documentary you keep mentioning which proves you wrong. Your video is incorrect, deal with it. Stop denying that your wrong and bringing up 17 year old infomation
Also who says im using content downloaded from the marketplace? Who's to say im not using discs or, shhhhh... pirated games? Also you do realize the hard drive can be transferred and your games still work even if your offline? And the phat hdd can be swapped to a slim shell to be used in an s or an e and vice versa @8bitjoystick
@@Josh-Barnett well, I have a metric crap ton of Xbox DLC including a ton of rock band songs. You do you, I'm keeping my working 360 stock but I'm more into modding my Famicoms, NES, Super Famicoms, and Game Boy systems. Oh I modded my Saturn with a MODE, and PlayStation 2 but that's just just for disc swapping. I'm sure a lot of people are going to be into modding their 360s and once the store closes.
Well you're more than welcome to subscribe. I make weekly videos that come out on Saturdays and I do a related live stream to my next video every Wednesday. My next video is on the Golden Age of Pirate ladies in video games 1998-2003
Update: I had a source within Microsoft who was on original Xbox hardware team and was still on it for the Xbox 360 Xenon board development. They shared with me Xbox engineering team briefings talking about the red ring of death during 2007. I made the video based on his First-Hand experience, theory and insight.
I truly acknowledge that there are other theories but he thought it was lead-free solder becoming brittle and cracking over repeated overheating.
I'm welcome to entertain alternate to theories such as GPU defects but I wrote this based on my conversation so that I had with my source and the documents that he showed me. He was a first hand witness at the time in question.
It's crazy that here we are 17 years later and it's still a heated issue, pun fully intended.
I'm waiting for someone to comment on the beard. I actually filmed most of this for the video on the Xbox 360 digital store closing and I cut it out for time and also wanted to turn it into its own video.
With all due respect, the reason people get worked up about it is that we have been fighting the "lead-free solder" myth for so long, that it's a little frustrating to see misinformation continue to be pushed, despite all of the new research and first hand reports from engineers, as well as leaked documents, and independant testing the confirms the GPUs are manufactured with a known incompatible material set. :/
It not a theory, its a proven fact. If you'd watch the documentary your going on about you'd realize how outdated and inaccurate your infomation is. All you are doing is spreading misinformation. Whats next? Are you going to suggest the bolt mod as a fix? Smh
You received this information in 2007 and this is now 2024, the real truth of this issue has been known since 2008 when the issue was solved by revising the Gpu underfill ONLY. Lead free was still used no problem. Even xenon systems that were repaired with a new revised Gpu can operate reliably for many years.
The underfill is now strong enough to support the bumps under normal heating and cooling , heck it’s strong enough to handle higher than normal temperatures without failure , unlike the original underfill. the 360 has thermal shutdown protection so even if it did ‘overheat’ it would shut down and flash 2 red lights before damage is done. The original underfill was already weak at normal temperatures, but let’s say the heat sink and fans get plugged with dust and the temperatures rise above normal. That underfill is getting softer and flexing those solder bumps like crazy which then kills the system faster.
Unfortunately, this video is incredibly inaccurate, which I blame on multiple inaccurate and out of date sources. I would heed caution before listening to the content presented here.
The failures are NOT caused by overheating in any form. It is a flaw in the design of the GPU package, use of low-Tg underfill, and a bad low-k process at TSMC.
This was not MS's fault. Same issues affected many ATi chipsets and NVIDIA chipsets all which are made by TSMC.
See the video by RIP-FELIX for details. He goes into depth on the REAL TRUTH.
Well, my source was an engineer who worked on the original Xbox for the entire life of the console and the development cycle of the Xbox 360.
I'm just saying this is what the internal Microsoft engineering documents and email that I saw said. They thought it was a lead-free solder cracking over repeated use.
By the way, I'm also the person who first reported on Bungie leaving Microsoft. Again, I knew people at the company who reached out to me with insider information because they knew I had a tech blog that was syndicated on the Seattle PI and the AP newswire.
I mean other people are welcome to have different theories, but this was the theory of my source from the Microsoft Entertainment and Devices division
Yeah, they thought it was a lot of things before they figured out what it was really.
They admit this themselves, and leaked documentation confirms this.
Also, it literally doesn't matter if you reported anything with Bungie, that's journalism, entirely irrelevant to anything.
These are not theories. My information was confirmed by several people I have spoken to recently who worked on the Xenon system.
Fake. Was the overheating. After getting rod i received new console and set fans to 12v and never broked again. So shut up
Yes was overheating the problem. After getting rod I received new console from Microsoft and I immediately opened and set fans to 12v. Was a xenon. Console never broked again.
can't pay attention to the content because the music is distracting, it really doesn't need to be going all the way through
Sorry about that. I try to have music but not have it be too distracting. I guess it could have had music at the beginning and the end but I'm always worried that people are going to stop paying attention. Sorry about that I will keep your suggestion in mind when I do future videos
Let me get this straight. Microsoft demonstrated the problem in Power On (GPU flaw). You have Microsoft Engineering documents from 2007. Bare in mind that in 2007, everyone had a flawed GPU so the problem wasn't quite figured out yet. But because you have these documents and they're from a Microsoft Engineer, it's the truth? Brother, they already figured it out and Microsoft says otherwise now. It's NOT a cooling issue. Imagine if it was, they wouldn't have had to go through so many GPU changes. And imagine if they never considered the GPU being a problem. Every 360 phat would be prone to fail but that's NOT the case. I'm willing to bet that a late falcon or jasper will outlast any S or E in terms of RROD. They simply don't fail. Slims have a combined CPU and GPU. We never seen this on a 360 before. While it's not a bad design, the original design is proven much better. And honestly I don't think people realize it until they buy tons of 360s from parts/repair lots and then compare what still powers on and what doesn't. Most times the late model phats power on just fine and with slims in the same condition, the chances of powering on are like 50/50 at best.
Either way the combined CPU and GPU Is both cooler and revised silicon.
My only very minor complaint that I have with a 360e is that they took out the regular AV port and added a composite AV, so you can't use component for a CRT but that made sense at the time. The 360 went from only supporting log video at the beginning of its life cycle and barely supporting analogue video by the end of it
@8bitjoystick no because both 90nm fixed chips and 90nm defective gpus ran at the same tempature. The fan is dynamically controlled and will always keep the gpu at the same temp cooling teaks or not. The only difference being it would run quieter with better cooling. Also no one cares that you don't like the xbox 360 e composite out
Not to be rude but it is my channel, I've been quite tolerant of your opinions while avoiding being abrasive.
@@8bitjoystick But they have a higher failing rate compared to a late falcon or jasper so I'm not sure what else to tell you. Everyone likes to stick by "latest is greatest" and I mean yeah, in some aspects. But if we're talking about longevity then phat units with a revised GPU are taking the cake.
Actually, the slim still runs at the same 70-80C as the Phats. Since the TDP was reduced, the heatsink was also reduced. 70-80C is a perfectly safe temperature for chips to run out. Source: Mod any Phat and Slim and watch the temps after 10 minutes of gameplay.
I professionally repair these units. The most reliable console is the Tonasket version of Jasper (sometimes called Jasper "V2", real name Tonasket aka Jasper_B according to an MS engineer). Followed by the Jasper. I have had to repair a significant number of S and E units with faulty XCGPUs. However those XCGPU failures are unrelated to the original RROD flip chip issues.
And none of it is related to overheating or lead free solder in any way.
Before the OG Xbox and 360, the last console made by an American company was the Atari Jaguar, it was manufactured by IBM.
And before that was the Lynx and Colecovision. I had a Colecovision as a kid and I still have one. I need to get it AV modded but I remember back when we had US companies design and manufacture game consoles in the US.
Great video! You deserve more subs.
Thanks. I make weekly videos that are published every saturday. I also do live streams on Wednesday at 6:00 p.m. I am pretty happy with the growth of this channel I've been only doing it for a little over a year. But thank you
Still have an OG 360, oh well may as well use it until the solder rage-quits.
Depends on when it was made. Here check this out. weekendmodder.com/identify.html
I hate to be a downer on the video as its amazing, well edited and some important facts. Its not the solder that was the issue. Its the GPU's themselves, they were manufactured awfully causing them to fail internally in their layers. This was rectified during the period when Falcons were manufactured. The underfill for the interposer and die was corrected. At the time its what Microsoft believed, but then it was later revealed that the problem was the GPU chip itself. I have a few Xenons in my collection with the later Y1 GPU's and they have never failed since. The Xenon's were from 2005/2006, and opening them up, was clear they had the revised chips on them. You also have to consider too... if Lead Free solder was the culprate. Why was the CPU's never affected or noted in any of the error logs? It was all errors to the GPU. Falcons which suffered with the 0110 memory error was due to the Taiwanese RHEA GPUs having faults with its memory allocating. I understand that its your opinion and that it came from engineers, however I want to put the friendly reminder out there that its not the solder, you can reball a XENON and it will give you the same issue, unless you replace the GPU with one which had an improved underfill. This problem was major, and was even happening to laptops and other devices. I do my own BGA stuff in my free time, and I can say from experiencing working around reballing, that its not solder caused... I do hope this helps, there is also a lot of articles out there too.
I had a source within Microsoft who was on Xbox team and was still on it for the Xbox 360 Xenon board development. They shared with me Xbox engineering team briefings talking about the red ring of death during 2007. I made the video based on his First-Hand experience, theory and insight.
I truly acknowledge that there are other theories but he thought it was lead-free solder and overheating. He also was an actual motherboard engineer on the original Xbox.
It's crazy that here we are 17 years later and it's still a heated issue. No pun intended
@@8bitjoystick That is a true and funny pun there. I like it. :D
Apologies for my comment and if it was slightly rough, I got stun when I was younger getting my system reballed when I was a teenager, different places, same error to find one engineering place told me the issue was to do with the GPU. After that and he supplied the later GPU in it... lasted for over 10 years before going into storage. From then walked away from the theory, especially when more things were coming out. I remember back then, I would try different things to fix it. I did the bolt trick myself. xD
But at the same time, you do make a point in heat, as in reality, the warping and heat too is also a huge factor of it too. I actually found, by leaving the XBOX 360 return to idle temp after a gaming session, it would stop the system from RRODing, which is an interesting one.
That is so cool that your friend was part of the motherboard manufacturing for the original XBOX, that is absolutely mental. I bet there are some interesting stories behind the scenes there too. :)
One thing is that I dislike about UA-cam is they don't let you re-upload a different version of the video without deleting your current one. So I wish I put in a couple lines about alternative theories such as people who blame the GPU and modern theories. Granted my source's perspective was contemporary at the time which is now 17 years ago.
But I should have had a couple lines about other theories.
Also, I didn't really want to blame J Allard, when I posted the photo of him and Robbie Bach.
I never actually met my source in person. He did send me a box of some Xbox developer swag and my interview with him done with a series of phones and email exchanges. I was semi-local to Redmond but in Bremerton which is still on the other side of the freaking Puget sound. Still was a drive on a ferry ride to get there.
@@8bitjoystick I must point out, it's not "people" blaming the GPU. Microsoft knows it's the fault now. Your source is out of date. Everyone now knows, Microsoft, ATi, TSMC, etc. Your data as you admitted was 2006-2007 and is out of date. They were still guessing then, and unsuccessfully, since consoles were still dying. Once the companies determined the GPU flip chip was at fault, TSMC was able to successfully fix the issue immediately and then suddenly 360's stopped dying with the late Falcons and Jaspers.
Microsoft said: "The breakthrough came when we realized the issue was not on the motherboard, but actually inside the components" (paraphrased but something like that). I have spoken within the last few months to several people involved in the Xenon system design who have confirmed this to be correct.
Dude you should just delete this video. You are just harming the Xbox 360 community by spreading misinformation. RROD had nothing to do with overheating or lead free solder
Respectfully, my source that was on the Xbox Hardware engineering team during the development of the Xbox and the Xbox 360 disagree with your theory.
I mean I'm welcome to entertain alternate to theories but I wrote this based on my conversation so that I had with my source and the documents that he showed me. He was a first hand witness at the time in question.
Your data as you admitted was 2006-2007 and is out of date. They were still guessing then, and unsuccessfully, since consoles were still dying. Once the companies determined the GPU flip chip was at fault, TSMC was able to successfully fix the issue immediately and then suddenly 360's stopped dying with the late Falcons and Jaspers.
Microsoft said: "The breakthrough came when we realized the issue was not on the motherboard, but actually inside the components" (paraphrased but something like that). I have spoken within the last few months to several people involved in the Xenon system design who have confirmed this to be correct.
@@Josh.Davidsondon’t waste your time with this guy. Some people’s minds cannot be changed despite compelling evidence to say otherwise.
My source was an actual Xbox motherboard engineer. I respect your chutzpah of thinking Reddit of 2024 knows more than someone who actually worked on the Xenon board in 2004 and 05.
Once again. My sources are multiple engineers who worked on the Xbox 360 as well as research papers on this exact failure. Your source is out of date and incorrect. In 2006/2007 they didn't know what the issue was yet. Who knows what theories they had. The whole industry using TSMC products had this issue and they all figured it out. But it took time.
2:42 C'mon now, that's just not true, the cooling was fine on all 360 fat revisions. The sacrifice for aesthetics was in having an external PSU
Cooling was not fine on the Xenon motherboard and earlier revisions. The person that I interviewed actually worked on the Xbox 360 motherboard. They also thought that early on in the design process, the team had planned that the motherboard was going to be for a bigger system and he did not agree with the placement of the DVD drive in particular. I agree with you that there is no way that they could have placed the monstrosity that was the early 360 power bricks inside the console, but that was one of the examples of the kinds of design choices that they made with the system.
@@8bitjoystick If the cooling on Xenons are bad, then why are Elpis boards which are Xenon boards with a replaced GPU and updated boot loader reliable and rarely fail?
I just made my video based on my conversations with my source who was actually there and was a part of the internal discussions on the Xbox Hardware team of the day until 2006. In 2004 and 2005 when developing the 360 boards, they were concerned about the arrangement of the CPO GPU and dvd drive and then the theory amongst Xbox engineers afterwards was the concerns about the lead-free solder cracking and becoming brittle. I hear that there are theories about GPU defects, but I still subscribed to the theory that the team that there are multiple things that can cause a red ring of death and that's the reason why it was an ongoing engineering nightmare that took multiple revisions with the different approaches.
@@8bitjoystick You ever heard of the Playstation 3 Yellow light of death? Was that also caused by bad airflow?
@@CliffNark If by that you mean heat contributed solder cracking.
retroconsoles.fandom.com/wiki/Yellow_Light_of_Death
I'm currently working on a video on the red light of death, The NES hardware connection issues. Which is actually caused by corrosion.
It was a major design flaw that caused this, not overheating. Jasper phat and Slims Corona/Trinity/Winchester chipset addressed this.
Well, my source within Microsoft on the Xbox 360 team thought that it was overheating from the GPU and CPU causing a arious lead-free solder points to fail. There are some people who claim that there was a GPU manufacturing problem, which I can definitely think is a possible possibility.
But considering the various revisions to the original motherboards often involved better fans and cooling and took steps to try and reduce the internal temperature. Help reinforce the theory that Microsoft thought that it was overheating and that was causing its problems at the time.
The GPU heatsink was updated for noise reasons, fans are dynamic so no change in operating temps which are perfectly safe.
No other cooling improvements were made, fans, etc all stayed the same. The CPU heatsink was reduced when the CPU moved from 75W/85W to 41W for obvious reasons.
Also, lead free solder does not fail from any of thr temperatures the unit encounters. Your source is out of date.
Lead-free solder cracking is a thing.
@@8bitjoystick yes but not at the temps the xbox operates at. Just admit your wrong and stop deleting comments
@@Josh-Barnett I have not deleted any comments.
The problem was, the employees forgot to peel off the protective plastic sheet off the thermal paste pad from the bottom of the heat sinks before assembling the console. I’ve personally removed those plastic sheets from various launch consoles as I repaired RRoD in middle and high school. I’ve been on the search for another launch system with those plastic sheets as those are very rare and could be worth a little bit of money.
That’s what the problem was.
I'm not saying that didn't happen. I'm just saying that there were other problems. My source thought it was related to the lead-free solder cracking. Apparently there's other camps that blame the problem with the GPU. I bet Microsoft back in the day would have effing loved it if the problem was as simple as people forgot to take the plastic sheet off the heatsinks.
They did NOT forget to peel anything. Another myth. That silver foil is part of the Chromerics T-558 phase change pad. The T-557 on the CPU does not have it. Look up the Chromerics spec sheet. MS later changed to T-557 on the GPU. There was NO mistakes. A phase change pad does not work the way thermal paste does, but it worked as well as commercial pastes at the time.
It did NOT cause overheating and had NOTHING to do with the failures.
another thing you may not no the matt black xbox 360 s has on board memorry storage that can corrupted and brick your system always go for the shiny ones
Yeah I don't really understand why they were still trying to sell Xboxes without hard drives at that point.
My 360 got the red ring of death recently. Sounds like if I want to keep my games I should find a 360-S or 360-E and also a transfer cable because I don’t think the hard drives are compatible. Am I right?
Yes, it's possible to use a transfer cable. I used to have one back in the day. It was pretty cool. It snapped on to the hard drive and then you plugged It into the USB port.
You should call Pink Gorilla and see if they have any or join The Greater Seattle Retro gamers Facebook group and asks to see if anyone could let you borrow one.
Personally, I have an Xbox 360s but I think the e's are pretty cool too, as in pleasant and also cool as far as temperature.
Here, join this group and ask if you could borrow a transfer cable. facebook.com/share/5rnoEQHbbq7RFbEB/?mibextid=A7sQZp
@@8bitjoystick Thanks, I will
The 360 can connect to 5ghz using the external WiFi adapter.
I did not know that. I remember the external Wi-Fi adapter that was made by Microsoft that you would clip on the back of an original 360 and plug into the USB port. I also remembered being like over $100 bucks.
I mostly have my consoles hooked up with ethernet
@@8bitjoystick there was a white one with a single antenna, and a black one with 2 antennas , the black one was 5ghz capable. You can usually snatch them up for about $35 these days.
What's a "Gigglebyte"?
It's a sarcastic fun way to say gigabyte.
I've actually been putting this in videos for the past couple months now but you're the first person to comment on it. I'm sort of surprised. So good on you.
@@8bitjoystick Oh, thought you actually didn't intend that. :)
I didn't make the joke. The guys on the Joystiq podcast did but I liked it.
Got an Xbox 360 wired controller I brought way back in 2009 and it has had four sets of analogue sticks and it's on it's second cable and it's still going perfectly fine! Love that controller no way I was going to let the cable kill it! A bit of soldering and a new cable and it's as good as new! :D I still remember playing Halo 3 back around 2009 great times! :D
Well, I remember the d-pad being a little controversial for people who liked having raised d-pad$/s pads. They thought that the 360 d-pad was too low for their taste. That's why I thought the convertible one that they did where you could rotate the pad and have it retract. That was cool.
@@8bitjoystick I remember them! :) Yeah I liked them I thought the idea was really neat :D
Wow... Click bait, here.
I actually had a confidential source in Microsoft 17 years ago who explained just what the hell happened and what was going on.
I hope they actually delivered on the promise of the video.
my 360s red ringed because of software . not overheating .
i had 7 coffins .always the same issue .ffxi.
Are you sure about that? I mean even the people who disagree with my sources theory think that there's an alternative problem with the hardware. I actually think the Xbox 360 software is pretty God damn good.
Big oof to have Josh Davidson tell you everything is wrong. I'd also like to add a few key points:
1. You said all 6 phat revisions were bad, but this is all but true. This is because as Josh mentioned, it was a gpu design flaw and had nothing to do with cooling. I'm gonna simplify this down to 2 gpu designs. The first is what the 360 launched with. This chip has a design flaw in which joints in the component (technically in between 2 but thats besides the point) would break after heat cycles at operating temperature, which would cause the rrod. The second gpu is what was standardized in around August of 08 but could be found in slightly older consoles up to around march of 08, this chip had mostly fixed the design flaw that pleagued the original. The first versions of these fixed chips appearing in late falcons and opus consoles (also in many xenon retrofits). Many of these chips are still running. In fact, ill bet if you were to go pick up a post August 08 console it would start right up and continue to run for years. This reliability only improves up until it peaks at jasper (kronos) gpus, which basicly have a failure rate of 0 and are actually more reliable than most slims even though the winchester boards appear to be very reliable.
2. Again, heat plays no part in this, proven by the fact that the early reliable gpus still run on the 90nm process and reach similar temps.
Please note some aspects are extremely simplifed, and please Josh if you read this feel free to correct any wrong statments.
I said that the later revisions in the Xbox 360 motherboards got less error prone with every revision. Also, many of the local game stores won't even stock the original Xbox 360 design and they only carry the s and the e. My major point was eventually they are going to turn off the file servers for the 360 and if your ability to play all of your downloaded content is tied to having an authorized and downloaded Xbox 360, I would feel much safer having it be on an S or an E. Back in the day I did buy a Jasper original Xbox 360 but switched to Valhalla which is still going like a champ.
Yeah, I'm not ready to believe that internal overheating played no factor in the RROD, especially since the improvements that they made to systems cooling in the various revisions and my source who thought it was enemy number one at the time.
I do find it a little amusing that people think that I have a "retro explanation" to a hardware problem in a retro game system.
There is no overheating. The unit would shut down long before overheating occurs (try it!)
The GPU heatsink was changed to reduce fan noise as the GPU power output came in higher than expected (source, ms leaked doc from 2006).
The system controls the fans dynamically.
There were no other "improvements" made to the cooling whatsoever. This information is absolutely nonsense.
PS: Valhalla isn't a motherboard. It was an old codename for the CGPU that was changed after leaks in 08. You mean Trinity. And fwiw, I've had to repair many more Slims than Jaspers. Their CGPU has begun failing.
@8bitjoystick dude, the gpu reaches a max temp of around 80 on every console which is the normal operating temp for the gpu. Also since your so certain that your old info is correct, why don't you go watch the documentary you keep mentioning which proves you wrong. Your video is incorrect, deal with it. Stop denying that your wrong and bringing up 17 year old infomation
Also who says im using content downloaded from the marketplace? Who's to say im not using discs or, shhhhh... pirated games? Also you do realize the hard drive can be transferred and your games still work even if your offline? And the phat hdd can be swapped to a slim shell to be used in an s or an e and vice versa @8bitjoystick
@@Josh-Barnett well, I have a metric crap ton of Xbox DLC including a ton of rock band songs. You do you, I'm keeping my working 360 stock but I'm more into modding my Famicoms, NES, Super Famicoms, and Game Boy systems. Oh I modded my Saturn with a MODE, and PlayStation 2 but that's just just for disc swapping. I'm sure a lot of people are going to be into modding their 360s and once the store closes.
This is a great video, im suprised you dont have more subs!
Well you're more than welcome to subscribe. I make weekly videos that come out on Saturdays and I do a related live stream to my next video every Wednesday. My next video is on the Golden Age of Pirate ladies in video games 1998-2003