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[ArtemisKitty]

After posting I went and fired it up and placed a hand on the right side of my 360 (the side he has as the bottom end, the one being blocked by the carpet) - I can actually FEEL the air being sucked in past my fingers with some serious airflow there, and that was just while powering up and booting to the dash, so when it gets really going (After about 10-15 minutes of Perfect Dark Zero the fan is noticeably louder) it'd probably be even more noticeable. Yeah man, unblock that vent, from the feel of it you're stopping up what seems to be THE main intake for your 360's cooling there. Not a good thing. (Hopefully your GPU's not damaged by the extreme overheating - from what I've seen in the past, that's precisely what an ATI does when the fan on the heat sink dies and it gets up to 200-300 degrees and starts to damage registers or when one of my friends *coughidiotcough* overclocked the RAM on his X800 card by about 20% without adding massive copper sinks and fans to it, if even that would be enough. Fortunately for him he had a replacement plan on the X800, and me to stop him from doing it again.) But yeah, you've GOT to move that before it toasts. Don't kill the 'box! It's too pretty to die!

[Cunundrum]

I had the same exact thing happen to mine last night on NFS first and then PS0.. It first started to happen about 2 hours into a NFS session and I was like WTF.. I thought it might be the game itself so I pulled it while it was still hot and loaded up PD0.. same thing.. Then I though it was the resolution.. so I tested on all 3.. 480p, 720p and 1080i.   It only happened on 720p... so I'm thinking it was my TV maybe...  Well to make a long story short.. I moved the 360 to the top of my entertainment center instead of the enclosed part that it was in and it seems to be fine last night and all through today.  Maybe heat from unit or PSU.. Don't know which.  Guess we need more input but hope this account helps.

[ArtemisKitty]

Just occured to me after posting that last bit - I work at CompUSA and a few days before we set up the demo, a coworker and I (the buddy of mine who camped out at walmart with me to get a box) completely went over the entire standalone demo fixture marvelling at it's construction - anywho, the way it's built, there are 2 controllers in front, a memory card slot for "special content" or something, a 23" samsung LCD TV, hooked up via component cables, and so on. If you look at the back of the stand, there is a 92mm fan (pretty sure about that, might be a 120? I think it's 92 though...) for exhaust, which constantly blows slightly warm air. If you look inside the clear plastic "bubble" where the unit is housed, it's standing on a sheet of plexiglass, but if you look underneath that same sheet, there is a long oblong cutout section almost exactly the size of the console, so actually the entire thing is suspended by it's edges, and has the bottom open. Furthermore, there are little round holes (about 3/4 inch wide I think) under the bottom of the console, which not only serve as the air intake for the entire display, but are DIRECTLY under this same intake vent, which directs cold air straight up into the console. So yeah, you're blocking off the main input, which MS actually suspended in air and directed flow into. Not good, definitely wanna move that. (The power supply is in the back behind another section of plexi, and is cooled somewhat by the air coming back out of the "bubble" section which houses the 360 itself, as a matter of course)

QUOTE(Cunundrum @ Nov 26 2005, 06:00 AM)

I  It only happened on 720p... so I'm thinking it was my TV maybe...

Doubtful, though it DOES make a whole lot more sense that it would, after all 720p is a LOT higher resolution (technically) than 1080i, and actually takes a good bit more power to process. To simplify, if they were to make it interlaced? It'd become 1440i, and inversely if 1080 were converted to progressive it'd be 520p, so you're looking at another 400 lines (if interlaced) being rendered there. That's a nice chunk of processing power. It stands to reason that a lot more heat would be generated at that draw.

[JoBlo69]

I almost think it is not worth anyones time to messaround with placeing the 360 in its perfect place somewhere in an area...

I would take the thing apart and see what it would take to mod some 80mm fans in it or somthing, newegg has alsorts of fans ranging from  60mm, 65mm, 70mm, 74mm. One of these size fans have to work... i dont have a 360 yet so i wouldnt know...(the walmart in my neigborhood sold there 360's a day eairly)

The pc fans have to be more reliable and more cooing effective than whatever M$ has put in the 360.

If someone wants to mesure the diameter of the fans blades them selfs i can tell you what fans to buy from newegg or where ever.

But ultimatly i would see what it would take to upgrade the cooling hardware in the 360 rather than messing around with what works and what doesnt work, by moving it around to the "ideal" location in your living room.

[Anomaly]

OOps, double post

This post has been edited by Anomaly: Nov 26 2005, 07:14 AM

[JoBlo69]

I thought these thing were supposed to be water cooled...

Thats what the promo thing on mtv said... months ago back in june or when ever

[ArtemisKitty]

It is. Partially. Water cooled systems still do need some airflow though to cool the liquid itself. (basically the same thing as your car's radiator, just a little smaller) - but according to:

http://features.teamxbox.com/xbox/1145/The...0-Dissected/p7/

"MS has designed a liquid cooling system that dynamically adjusts the flow of the liquid and the speed of the fans depending on the temperature and power consumption."

[samsbak]

I think the design needs to be reconsidered...maybe systems of this power require aluminum houseing...I get my xbox360 back this week!! it was a freezer. but i never saw artifacts...that would have at least been something...


Next gen here I am !!!  take me please. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/mad.gif)

This post has been edited by samsbak: Nov 26 2005, 07:24 AM

[Cunundrum]

Well.. I did a fan mod on my xbox back in the day when I first put in the 250 gig HD.  I did the 3 fan HD fan on the side that was in the tutorials section.. also the larger fan in the back.  Anyway.. it definately kept my box a hell of a lot cooler than it was without it.  I can see me ripping the 360 open and doing something similar just for peice of mind.  It can't hurt.

[s7nn3r]

QUOTE(ArtemisKitty @ Nov 26 2005, 07:11 AM)

Doubtful, though it DOES make a whole lot more sense that it would, after all 720p is a LOT higher resolution (technically) than 1080i, and actually takes a good bit more power to process. To simplify, if they were to make it interlaced? It'd become 1440i, and inversely if 1080 were converted to progressive it'd be 520p, so you're looking at another 400 lines (if interlaced) being rendered there. That's a nice chunk of processing power. It stands to reason that a lot more heat would be generated at that draw.

ArtemisKitty, you make a good point with regard to the processing power...  Something to consider when looking at how the 360 processes video frames.  With respect, I do have a minor clarification to what you wrote: when considered over time, 1080i output actually has more resolution to render.  1080i output is actually 2x540 lines per frame.  In the same span, 720p is only doing 720 lines.

If the issue mainly crops up at 720p, this would reinforce the idea that the issue is in the stage where the framebuffer is getting to the video output.  Since 720p hits the output once per frame and 1080i hits it twice (at 540 lines each field), it might be that there is enough difference in the amount of data being converted to cause the issues.  Food for thought.

Regards,
S7nn3r

[ArtemisKitty]

Yeah, sorry 'bout that, I should have been more clear about the 720/1080 thing (It's really late, I ought to have gone to bed by now... shame on me.) - I meant that the amount of data being processed simultaneously is greater. From what I remember reading, 1080i HD streams (mpeg2, the stuff being used for standard ATSC) are running at 60 Mbits per second at present (Granted that also includes audio but still...) - That's already quite a bit of data, and that's talking about compressed over-the-air or satellite broadcasts. I shudder to think what kind of data we're talking about once it's decompressed... I'd imagine that since the 360 is running the graphics chip basically as a PC ('specially if you get the VGA output cable, which rocks) it'd be uncompressed data. Just a though though, haven't seen enough on the architecture of the actual chipset or how it's implemented, and to tell the truth that's not my strongest area. Home theater? That I know a decent bit about. Troubleshooting PCs? Sure thing. Designing hardware? Erm... Gimme a few more years in school for that one. Anywho, curious to see what happens with this. (Btw I've left my 360 on overnight for 2 nights in a row, letting it download large demos as I went to bed, with no issues whatsoever as far as heat/etc - at least nothing I could see.) Then again it could also be different in my case because although I've set everything to 720p, the fact that I have a VGA cable on it (1280x1024 on a Sony GDM-F500 21" FD Trinitron flat CRT - great bedroom TV.) could also be a factor. It might be running the data straight out to the monitor instead of compressing it to component out, since the VGA specification has separate leads for red, green, blue, horizontal sync, vertical sync, etc, whereas with component you're embedding that data into an existing line (sync on green etc).

This post has been edited by ArtemisKitty: Nov 26 2005, 07:50 AM

[Ces2k3]

alot of the contest winners seem to have  the most problems. i think all this crap has to be some kind of packaging  mistake from m$ not for notting the system itself isnt even padded enough to take your usual delivery  bumps. i tyhink when m$ get  customers system they will make sure the package is well protected for shipping damages.

[ensaynexotics]

I ran my xbox 360 on a carpet horizontally for nearly 20 hrs, 5 of those hours being a mistake (forgot to turn it off.....yes im an idiot). Although nothing happened to the xbox itself the disc had some scratches after the 5 hrs that i left it on, and it was REALLY hot (the CD that is).

[ensaynexotics]

I ran my xbox 360 on a carpet horizontally for nearly 20 hrs, 5 of those hours being a mistake (forgot to turn it off.....yes im an idiot). Although nothing happened to the xbox itself, the disc had some scratches after the 5 hrs that i left it on, and it was REALLY hot (the CD that is).

[TSOPrano]

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