xboxscene.org forums

Author Topic: Possible Cause Of 360's Lockup And Crashing Problems  (Read 66 times)

daghostmon

  • Archived User
  • Jr. Member
  • *
  • Posts: 53
Possible Cause Of 360's Lockup And Crashing Problems
« on: January 02, 2006, 12:09:00 PM »
I have a story that sounds a lot like whats going on with these defective 360’s. I bet Its not a bad design but crapy manufacturing.

  I worked in the eng dept. of a small ruggedized computer manufacture for 2 yrs and we had a very big problem with our computers locking up and just dieing. Of course as a company you’re not going to officially say there is a problem its bad for business, but behind closed doors we knew better and it was costing us. So after a couple weeks of troubleshooting the head eng. says lets x-ray the boards and see if we can see anything. Sure enough it turns out you could see the problem around the CPU. With today’s CPU's they don't have pins on the sides of the chips anymore they use whats called a ball grid array or BGA. These are very very small solder balls on the bottoms of these chips, sometimes even more than 100 of them. It turns out that these balls or pins didn't have enough solder paste or enough pressure to give them good contact with the circuit brd they sat on as they went thru the oven. Now they might make a half ass connection and work for a little while but once the parts got hot and cold a couple times the balls or pins on the bottom of the chip would separate off the board. It might be only one ball coming up but that’s all it would take. In the end all the defective mother boards had to be thrown out they couldn't be fixed. But with the x-rays as proof we were able to reach a settlement with the motherboard assy subcontractor. It turns out they just didn't know what they were doing.
Logged

C o s m o

  • Archived User
  • Hero Member
  • *
  • Posts: 1253
Possible Cause Of 360's Lockup And Crashing Problems
« Reply #1 on: January 02, 2006, 12:22:00 PM »
Interesting.  Could you post a pic of the bottom of one of these chips?
My chip, pictured below, has pins (Intel P4).
(IMG:http://www.geocities.com/cattlesmasher/intel_pentium4xe_3.2ghz-02.JPG)
Logged

echto

  • Archived User
  • Sr. Member
  • *
  • Posts: 498
Possible Cause Of 360's Lockup And Crashing Problems
« Reply #2 on: January 02, 2006, 11:54:00 AM »
QUOTE(daghostmon @ Jan 2 2006, 10:40 AM) View Post

I have a story that sounds a lot like whats going on with these defective 360’s. I bet Its not a bad design but crapy manufacturing.

  I worked in the eng dept. of a small ruggedized computer manufacture for 2 yrs and we had a very big problem with our computers locking up and just dieing. Of course as a company you’re not going to officially say there is a problem its bad for business, but behind closed doors we knew better and it was costing us. So after a couple weeks of troubleshooting the head eng. says lets x-ray the boards and see if we can see anything. Sure enough it turns out you could see the problem around the CPU. With today’s CPU's they don't have pins on the sides of the chips anymore they use whats called a ball grid array or BGA. These are very very small solder balls on the bottoms of these chips, sometimes even more than 100 of them. It turns out that these balls or pins didn't have enough solder paste or enough pressure to give them good contact with the circuit brd they sat on as they went thru the oven. Now they might make a half ass connection and work for a little while but once the parts got hot and cold a couple times the balls or pins on the bottom of the chip would separate off the board. It might be only one ball coming up but that’s all it would take. In the end all the defective mother boards had to be thrown out they couldn't be fixed. But with the x-rays as proof we were able to reach a settlement with the motherboard assy subcontractor. It turns out they just didn't know what they were doing.



Sounds feasible.  Break out the micromanipulator!  smile.gif
Logged

nj12nets

  • Archived User
  • Hero Member
  • *
  • Posts: 551
Possible Cause Of 360's Lockup And Crashing Problems
« Reply #3 on: January 02, 2006, 12:36:00 PM »
hes talking about inside the microprocessor where the balls connect to the pins i believe.  the microprocessor is very small embedded inside but the circuitry its on the outside and the balls connect the two if i remember correctly.
Logged

davemire

  • Archived User
  • Jr. Member
  • *
  • Posts: 85
Possible Cause Of 360's Lockup And Crashing Problems
« Reply #4 on: January 03, 2006, 07:48:00 AM »
QUOTE(nj12nets @ Jan 2 2006, 11:07 AM) View Post

hes talking about inside the microprocessor where the balls connect to the pins i believe.  the microprocessor is very small embedded inside but the circuitry its on the outside and the balls connect the two if i remember correctly.


No he isn't talking about inside the microprocessor. There are two types of processor connections, one uses pins the other uses small solder balls. (Bottom of processor) I know they make them, though I am not sure if that's what he meant.
Logged

twistedsymphony

  • Recovered User
  • Hero Member
  • *
  • Posts: 6955
Possible Cause Of 360's Lockup And Crashing Problems
« Reply #5 on: January 03, 2006, 04:43:00 PM »
The Xbox 1 uses a Ball Grid Aray as well... it's cheaper to manufacuter and you can get away with it when the Chip  is perminently attached to the motherboard as opposed to user changable like a PC

This is why when you want to upgrade the processor in the Xbox you have to send it to Friend tech instead of just swaping the chip yourself.
Logged