A year ago I posted about what I went thru when my Xbox 360 got the Red Ring of Death. At the time Microsoft would not say what the problem was other then saying it was a design issue. If you read my post about the RRoD you will see alot of comments with people having the same problem. Now it turns out that we may have the answer to what the hell is going on.

At EETimes.com they have a story about Bryan Lewis, research vice president and chief analyst at Gartner, and what he found out. It seems that the problem is the graphic chip that Microsoft designed on its own. Now why would a software company design there own graphic chip? To save millions. Of course in the end it cost them a lot more then they were tring to save but what the hell, good try.

But in the end, by going cheap–hoping to save tens of millions of dollars in ASIC design costs, Microsoft ended up paying more than $1 billion for its Xbox 360 recall.

To fix the problem, Microsoft went back to an unnamed ASIC vendor based in the United States and redesigned the chip, Lewis added. (Based on a previous report, the ASIC vendor is most likely the former ATI Technologies, now part of AMD.)

The best quote from Bryan Lewis is this.

When it was pointed out that Microsoft still has its own semiconductor technology group that is still designing various chips, Lewis responded, “How many ASICs per year does Microsoft design? Not many” compared to experienced ASIC/ASSIP vendors.

I still have not read about millions of PS3′s crashing.

I was doing my daily surf around the news sites when I came across a game called Race Driver: GRID on Voodoo Extreme. Why I haven’t seen this game before I don’t know but I am glad I found out about it now because it looks awesome.

I don’t buy that many games because of two reasons. One is that I hate to pay $60 just to play it once since I am not a big multiplayer person. The other is replay value. In order for me to buy a game new it has to have a good amount of replay value and that is one of the biggest reasons I love racing games. But this game, from the footage below, gave me some more reasons that I might buy this new.

First is the damage. Forza 2 had damage but not like this. Wheel flying off, parts going everywhere. Now thats cool. Another, and one I have been waiting for, is you can really roll your car. This something that you can’t do in PGR, Forza or Gran Turismo. Add to that open wheel cars and you got me hooked.

Just watch the video below. You looking forward to this?

I was sent this video that showed how you can play on Xbox Live for free. What this does is give you 48 hour passes that you can use and some times you get Microsoft points. This won’t give you a gold account and everything that gos with it but at least you get to play online for free.

So what you do is go to here and bookmark it. You should see a register page to win a trip to Xbox headquarters. When you fill in the info all you need is two characters for the screen name and password and put in some fake email address. Make sure the year in the DOB is before 1994. Now click submit.

On the next page it will ask for a access code. Just click on “I don’t have an access code” and it will give you one. Be sure to copy that somewhere because you will be using it a lot. Go back now and put in the access code it gave you. Below that is the crappy word verification. If you can’t read it just click below the image and get a new one. Once that is done click Lets Play.

On the next page its going to say that your not a winner but you really are. So you don’t go away mad after all that crap you have to type in they give you a 48-hour trial code. Copy it down and go back to the page that you bookmarked. Log out and go back to the bookmarked page again. Now just do it over to get another 48-hour trial code. Just change the user name and email address and keep using the access code from the first time. You can keep doing this over and over.

There is this game coming out and I think its name is Halo. From what I can tell it has this guy in a green armor and it take place in space. Not sure what its about but dam if it isn’t everywhere.

Ya, we get it Bungie. Halo 3 is about to be released. And like Gears of War it is going to be the best game ever. Problem is that I don’t care anymore. You have Master Chief everywhere. Its just a game. We buy it, we play it and then me more on. Look at BioShock. Pretty good game but I am done with it. Not going to play it again. Now for you multi player people this might just be the game your looking for.

And if your a Halo collecter, man you got your work cut out for you so let me help. You can get the Xbox 360 Limited Edition Halo 3 Wireless Headset. Its green. Maybe the Xbox 360 Limited Edition Halo 3 Wireless Controller Brute or the Xbox 360 Limited Edition Halo 3 Wireless Controller Spartan. By the way they are $20 then the normal wireless controller. Better yet you can your the Limited Edition Halo 3 Wireless Controller on your Special Edition Xbox 360™ Halo 3 Console. Its green too. And when your not using all your special Xbox 360 stuff you can use your Special Edition Halo Zune. Rock out to the sounds of Halo when reading all the Halo news with the Halo 3 RSS Reader and drinking your special Halo Mountain Dew.

Its not that I don’t want to play Halo 3 because I do. My point is that you don’t need to do all this needless ads. This is the Medal Gear Solid for Xbox. You could of cut the ads by 3/4 and still have it be the huge hit its going to be. The thing that I am looking forward to seeing is if its going to be as good as say BioShock. Its been hyped more that anything be is it going to pay off. Let me say this now, just because you sold more copy’s that any other game in no way means that it way a good game.

A few weeks ago I wrote about the BioShock Demo and how cool it was. I wrote about how I was not really into it till the demo came out how it hooked me but the problem now is that I can’t find it. Really its no where to be found. I was at the mall today and went into GameStop and not one copy to be seen anywhere. Its unreal. Even with the messed up release of Gears of War there were still copies everywhere.

The part that sucks the most is that I was ready to pay the $60 for the game, something that I never do for a single player game, and nobody has it. I even went into a place I hate (Blockbuster) to see if it was there and of course it wasn’t. But the good part is that since I can’t find it I just saved $60 because now I will just wait till I can rent it for a few days and it will only cost me $5. On the other hand I am still going to spend the $60 when The Orange Box comes out.

The BioShock Demo came out last night so I let it download over night. Not a small demo at over a gig in size. I got home to night and wanted to check it out. Now up intill tonight I wasn’t really looking forward to this one. I’ve seen all the movies and read all the hype but not till I try something out will I get into it. And man am I into it now.

I check out Major Nelson’s podcast last night were he had an interview with Ken Levine, Creative Director of Irrational Games, creators of BioShock. He describes the demo as something of a directors cut were you start at the beginning of the game. You just lived through a plane crash and there just one tall building for you to swim to. From there everything pretty much is trying to kill you but the guy your talking to on a radio. Hes trying to get you to help him save his wife and kid.

The thing that really got me was the level of detail all over. From the 50′s posters and rugs to the music that plays almost everywhere. The architecture fells right. The lighting fells right. To me it just felt like everything comes together just right. The only thing that I didn’t like was the guy on the radio. My 360 is setup with optical out so I have 5.1 but for some reason he was really hard to understand at times. I don’t know if thats the way it is for everyone or just my setup. Other than that I can’t wait to check out more of Rapture.

I am liking Gizmodo more and more everyday. This time they have a story from Nikkei about a thermal design expert looking inside of two Xbox 360′s. One of the 360′s is from Nikkei’s IT Pro editorial office that was purchased at the end of 2005. The other belongs to a reporter in the IT Pro editorial office and was repaired in May 2007. Here is some of the things he found.

The cooler fan’s maximum wind speed was 1.1 m/s, only 1/2 to 1/3 compared with general desktop PCs. It may be partly because the fan rotation was reduced to lower noise. According to an expert’s analysis, “The amount of switched air is slightly in short considering the chassis’ size (309 x 258 x 83 mm3).”

“The heat sink on the graphics LSI is so small, I wonder if it can really cool down the board,” our expert said.

Microsoft apparently had no choice but to downsize the graphics LSI heat sink in order to locate a DVD drive above it. The DVD drive’s bottom surface covers the top of the heat sink and forms an air channel.

In only five minutes since we started playing the game, the temperature of the heat sink on the graphics LSI rose to 70°C (158°F). The thermal gradient was about 10°C/min (50°F).

In 15 minutes, the microprocessor heat sink temperature stabilized at 58°C (136.4°F), but the heat sink on the graphics LSI rose to 80°C (176°F), 57°C (134.6°F) above the room temperature.

You should go to there site and read it but in short the design sucks. But I am still playing with it.

Over at Gizmodo they have a post on how you can check if you have the new heatsink in your Xbox 360 with out opening it. You just take your camera and put the lens on the vent on the power side. Turn on your flash and take a few pictures. If you end up with a picture like the one below from my new system then you don’t have the new heatsink and might be a getting the Red Rings sooner then you think.

Now that I have my Xbox 360 back I thought I would share my thoughts on the whole ordeal. First thing is that this never should of happen in the first place. Paul Thurrott has said may times on Windows Weekly that he saw when Microsoft was working in the 360 before it was a console and ask them “How are you going to get all this hardware into a console?”. Guess it fit but now runs hot.

Another thing is that they didn’t fix my system. They just gave me a new one. How does that work? I would understand if the manufacturer’s date on the one I got back was a month old or something around there but it wasn’t. It was four months older then the one I sent in. So there not fixing the problem, there just replacing systems with new system that could still give you the red rings. And if your just going to replace them why should the old one be sent in and wait a month to get a new one? Why not work a deal with a store so people could just bring there broke one in and get a new one.

Overall they are not fixing the problem. There trying to control bad P.R. and if I get another set of red rings I might just break down a go with a PS3. Which is sad because up to this point I really liked my 360. Now it fells like I am just waiting for it to break.

Updated: August 12th, 2007

So there I was last night watching a movie and enjoying the 4th when I got the Ring of Death on my Xbox 360. At first I thought “Ill just turn it off and on again it will be fine”. But its as dead as Anna Nicole Smith. Now I might understand if I was playing some game like Forza 2 and the system crapped out on me but all I was doing was opening the tray to get the movie out. And this happens after all the reports of the 33% failure rate on the 360.

So what I thought I would do is keep this post updated with a time line of getting the console sent back in, repaired and returned to me. I hope its just a new console and not a repaired one but that’s just hope. Lets begin.

Edit: After posting this I saw the letter that Peter Moore put on Xbox.com about extending the warranty of all the consoles that have had or will have the ring of death to 3 years from the date it was purchase. Good timing and about time.

July 4th, 2007 – Console shows the 3 red rings after pushing the open tray button after watch a movie.

July 5th, 2007 – Called Xbox support and Max (there so friendly automated answering machine) told me to take the power off the console and remove the hard drive and and then plug the power brick back into the console. Did so and still have the rings. After about a 20 minute wait I got a real person. She sounded older but was very nice. Told me to do the same thing that Max did but this time to plug the power brick into the wall and not the surge protecter. Did that and the rings are still there. After going over my info she gives me a number to put on the console and said the a box would be showing up in 7 to 10 days for me to ship my console back to whoever going to fix it. So it should be here between July 12th and the 17th. Here is the support page if you get the three red rings.

July 8th, 2007 – There is a post over at Aeropause that is telling what Mark Methenitis was told about not plugging in your system to a surge protector is pretty much the same thing that I was told. There is even a Microsoft Knowledge base article that says the same thing. This is what the person at 1-800-MY-XBOX told Mark.

The Xbox 360 is highly sensitive to reductions in power, and even the slightest cut in power can cause things like the fans and even the DVD laser to malfunction. Surge protectors can cause this, and probably 90% of the consoles they see have all failed in 6-12 months of being plugged into a surge protector.

July 16th, 2007 – The box to ship back my 360 showed up today. I was thinking that it would be a little better box then it was. It looks like an office box with two Styrofoam ends, a plastic bag and a return label. I will drop it off sometime tomorrow and track it. Some photos of the packing are up on Flickr.

July 17th, 2007 – I dropped off the box to be shipped and the guy there asked where it was going. Before I could even answer he asked me “Xbox?”. I told him yes it was and he said ok. I told him I needed the tracking number and as he went to get me a copy of it I asked if he has been getting a lot of 360′s in to ship back and he just said “Yep.”. This doesn’t look good.

July 21st, 2007 – The Xbox showed up at the repair place in TX. on the 19th. Here is the tracking info. Now I wait.

MC ALLEN, TX, US
07/19/2007 12:08 P.M. DELIVERY
07/19/2007 6:18 A.M. OUT FOR DELIVERY
07/19/2007 5:15 A.M. ARRIVAL SCAN

SAN ANTONIO, TX, US
07/18/2007 11:24 P.M. DEPARTURE SCAN
07/18/2007 9:01 P.M. ARRIVAL SCAN

MESQUITE, TX, US
07/18/2007 4:26 P.M. DEPARTURE SCAN
07/18/2007 7:01 A.M. ARRIVAL SCAN

FORT WORTH, TX, US
07/18/2007 6:02 A.M. DEPARTURE SCAN
07/18/2007 5:26 A.M. ARRIVAL SCAN

WICHITA, KS, US
07/17/2007 9:38 P.M. DEPARTURE SCAN
07/17/2007 8:23 P.M. ORIGIN SCAN

US 07/05/2007 9:44 A.M. BILLING INFORMATION RECEIVED

July 25th, 2007 – UPS called today and said a package for me would be coming tomorrow. I did ordered anything else so I guess this my Xbox. The only problem is that there times for dropping it off sucks more then the cable people. It should be here ‘sometime‘ between 8am and 7pm and I have to be the person who signs for it.

July 28th, 2007 – I now have my Xbox but its not the one I sent in. Seems they have given me a new Xbox 360. Not a big deal but the manufacturer’s date on the back is only 4 months past the one I sent in. So that means that nothing was fixed, only replaced. That also means that I could get the red rings again. Not cool. But I did get a free month of Xbox Live. Guess I will use it if I get the red rings again.

August 12th, 2007 – During all this, Erica Ogg from CNET Networks was asking me some questions for a story she did on the Xbox repair process. You can read that story here.