Analyst: 360’s RROD Caused by Microsoft’s Own Graphics Chip
by John Kershaw on June 12, 2008 at 4:20 pm
I’m sorry, but I still find this picture funny
After years of speculation and millions of little red rings, could the cause of the biggest and most widely known hardware problem this generation finally have been revealed? According to Bryan Lewis, research vice president and chief analyst at Gartner, it’s the 360’s graphics chip.
Up until September 2007, the graphics chip, or GPU (Graphics Processing Unit) inside the Xbox 360 was made using a design created in-house by Microsoft. Normally, companies pay large sums of money to have another company which specialises in ASIC (Application-Specific Integrated Circuit, a specialist chip) production to design it for them. Trying to save tens of millions of dollars, Microsoft decided to do it themselves.
One billion dollars later (the cost of repairing all those RRODs) they probably regret that decision. Due to oversights in the design, the chips get too hot and it’s this overheating which causes the dreaded little red lights and a bricked console.
Lewis said at the Design Automation Conference that it was Microsoft’s attempt to save money which cost them so dearly. When asked for the moral of the story, Lewis said:
Had Microsoft left the graphics processor design to an ASIC vendor in the first place, would they have been able to avoid this problem?
Probably. The ASIC vendor could have been able to design a graphics processor that dissipates much less power.
In September 2007, the GPU inside the 360 was replaced with one re-designed by GPU experts ATI and gained an extra heat dissipater to help cool it down.
Source: EE Time
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4 Comments » |
on June 12, 2008 6:49 pm
yeah, my second 360 just started giving me trouble, ironically it was right after I started playing Halo 3, I got the 3 lights, now I am waiting for it to brick so I can ship it back to MS. I don’t think I will buy cross-platform games for it anymore once it get fixed. exclusives only, everything else PS3.
on June 13, 2008 1:41 am
I see they regret the billion dollar not a recall repair, what about the consumer they took a shit on? I guess were not all that important, Microsoft deserves 3rd place.
on February 15, 2009 7:48 am
im i just got a 360 yesterday what would stop the rrod
on February 16, 2009 1:43 pm
you want to stop the RROD, get a PS3 or a Wii…
there is no stopping it, it is a design flaw and it is going to happen eventually.