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[anttimonty]

Ok just watched the video. Ok I'm a bit confused by that foil. If and most likely it is designed to be there, but why doesn't everyone have it? Also the foils that I have seen in stock P4 coolers were somehow attached to heatsink and you had to use quite a lot force to remove them if you wanted to use better thermal paste (also the thermal paste was aplied to both sides of the foil and it still was short on thermal transfer).

Never the less that foil is a bad design as it doesn't come even close to what you could do with standard paste and it isn't directly connected to the heatsink in anyways.  It should be so obvios that people shouldn't be even arquing about this. Without the foil you would have only two contacts  filled with thermal paste (in this case the thermal conductivity is optimal in places where you have to use paste) and now that they have that foil, there is three contacts first from GPU to that foil (with no paste in between them, this most likely leads to bad contact and there by reduces thermal conductivity) after that you there is still two contacts remaining from the foil to paste and from the paste to heatsink. Bad bad design indeed.

BTW for did those Germans say that the foil shouldn't be there or did they just say that it was the problem? I'm just curios because so many are bashing the Germans and praising that the foil should be there even when there could be better alternatives to thermal conductivity in this case.

In conclusion this is bad design if the foil was intented to be there and if not then this is a BIG mistake

[silversinksam]

QUOTE(modthebox.tk @ Mar 10 2006, 12:52 PM)

If it is all bull than why are some 360s overheating?

Or there is something else we haven't thought of yet.

 First let me say I know more about Thermal mediums than the people that broke this story, I test thermal pads and Materials pretty often, Here's the last article I published regarding Silver thermal pastes, which resulted in a recall.

 MS did not forget to peel off anything and this theory they forgot to peel off anything is completely inaccurate.What the video shows is a Thermal pad,  Thermal pads are layered, and what you see in the pics and the video are nothing more than the aluminum carrier layer peeled back, this does not prove MS forgot to peel off a layer in manufacturing. What you see is the layers of the thermal pad itself

 You want to know my opinion as to why the Xbox's are overheating?  It's very simple, Thermal pads suck, combined with improper ventilation

 The Xbox stuffs a Hot running CPU into a small form factor case, combine this with a thermal pad and its a recipe for overheating. The reason they use a thermal pad is simple, it's cheap, and it offers some degree of protection for the cpu in regard to the Xbox being mishandled (like being dropped)


Arctic Silver 5 is a general purpose TIM, (Thermal Interface material) which is slightly capacitive, Ceramique is a general purpose TIM that is not capacitive at all, Arctic Silver 5 perfrms slightly better than Ceramique.

 Here's the bottom line, Any Thermal paste, even the cheapest silicone based white stuff is VASTLY superior to ANY thermal PAD in terms of thermal dissipation.

If MS wants to stop this Overheating issue, they can do one of two things, One is stop using a thermal pad, and the second is improve the airflow in the Xbox to better cool the components.

[G0t M4xx 21]

I would also like to add that of the three 360's I encountered that DIDN'T have the foil, none of the three ever had any overheating issues at all, before or after repalcing the stock compound with Arctic Silver 5. I intentionally made one of them overheat one time (powered it on without the CPU heatsink on) just to see what would happen, the fans quicky spin up, sounded like a jet engine for a few seconds, then the console shut itself off. During normal operation the fans in mine weren't even spinning half this speed, showing that my boxes never had any heat issues.

And before you ask, yes after putting the CPU 'sink back on, that 360 worked fine. No damage was done.

[johnporcaro]

Thanks to all you who jumped in (no pun intended...) to shed some light on this.  I wrote about it a bit on the Xbox team blog (http://gamerscoreblog.com).  

Bottom line: It's supposed to be there.  Yes, direct contact with thermal paste might be slightly better, but messier.  I've heard (though can't confirm officially) that on some consoles, we used a different part.  That's why there are reports of some consoles without the foil.

If a console is overheating, it's because of something else.  

If your console is acting up, call customer service...

John

[G0t M4xx 21]

Just wondering how lack of a part can be called a different part.

[badbob001]

QUOTE(silversinksam @ Mar 10 2006, 08:26 PM)

If MS wants to stop this Overheating issue, they can do one of two things, One is stop using a thermal pad, and the second is improve the airflow in the Xbox to better cool the components.

Do you think simply switching from pad to paste will "fix" the heat problem? I guess modders can perform some before and after heat readings to verify. I'm a little doubtful that the fix would be so simple. Maybe the 360 is simply not designed well enough to provide good cooling.

[downlowfunk]

Man what is this Rep doing here.  we used differnt parts on differnt systems.  and then the other post says how is no part a differnt part. HAHAHAHA.    

its not that big of a deal, really.   I guess if its over heating, call the support line.    I remember for the longest time, PCs from big name companys had the warranty breaker hologram.  Now they say go ahead and clean the inside of the case with canned air, or install memory, Hd's etc, it wont void your warranty.    Ms needs this kinda policy.  Sure would be nice to be able to open the xbox use some canned air, put some after market thermal paste under the heatsinks, and not void the warranty.  In actuality your doing MS a favor by doing preventive maintenance.  

Maybe John could report this back to the Emperror.

[Anastrophe]

excuse me for stating the obvious, but has anyone asked MS to comment yet?

edit: just seen the news update

[twistedsymphony]

one post below this one:
http://forums.xbox-s...howtopic=496779

[silversinksam]

QUOTE(badbob001 @ Mar 11 2006, 08:22 AM)

Do you think simply switching from pad to paste will "fix" the heat problem? I guess modders can perform some before and after heat readings to verify. I'm a little doubtful that the fix would be so simple. Maybe the 360 is simply not designed well enough to provide good cooling.

It could,

 I've been staff at overclockers.com for many years and I've tested enough thermal pad verses thermal pastes to tell you that pads simply suck as a thermal conduit.

 Read this, pay attention to the last paragraph

http://www.neoseeker.com/Hardware/faqs/kb/2,22.html

Hell, even Wilkopedia will tell you a thermal pad cannot compare to thermal grease

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thermal_pad#Thermal_pads_in_electronics

 Like I said, the only reason they use thermal pads is they are cheap, and they offer some protection to the cpu in the event the console is manhandled.

 Could using thermal paste eliminate the issues of overheating, again my answer is, it could.

[stolennomenclature]

QUOTE(vspazv @ Mar 10 2006, 11:31 PM)

This is not a manufacturing oversight. They just assumed the foil would be more thermally conductive. Intel did the same thing on every P4 socket 478 heatsink they shipped except they placed thermal compound on both sides of the foil.

Cannot understand the rationale behind placing thermal compound on both sides of a piece of foil. Take away the foil and you have the same thing. Why do it?

The whole point of the heat transfer compound is to fill in the inevitable gaps caused by microscopic roughness in the two mating surfaces (heatsink and chip surface). The compounds usually used flow when they are subjected to pressure and heat (during the first use). So the compound will neatly fill in the microscopic gaps between the heatsink and the foil - but what fills in the gaps between the chip and the foil? If the foil were soft enough to deform under pressure to fill in the gaps between the heatsink and chip then why bother with the heat transfer compound - why not just use the foil on its own?

I also fail to see how the foil helps the company during maintenance and removal of the heatsink. It would be totally impossible to realign the heatsink accurately enough that the old pad/foil could be reused in any case. A complete a new thermal pad (with or without the foil) would be necessary.

I fail to see any logical justification for the foil which appears to accomplish nothing besides hindering the heat transfer process. Whether or not it is official company policy to leave the foil on, it seems clear that heat transfer would be enhanced by its removal.

Perhaps someone could enlighten me on the physics/mechanics of this process?

 

[silversinksam]

QUOTE(stolennomenclature @ Mar 12 2006, 12:00 AM)

Cannot understand the rationale behind placing thermal compound on both sides of a piece of foil. Take away the foil and you have the same thing. Why do it?

The whole point of the heat transfer compound is to fill in the inevitable gaps caused by microscopic roughness in the two mating surfaces (heatsink and chip surface). The compounds usually used flow when they are subjected to pressure and heat (during the first use). So the compound will neatly fill in the microscopic gaps between the heatsink and the foil - but what fills in the gaps between the chip and the foil? If the foil were soft enough to deform under pressure to fill in the gaps between the heatsink and chip then why bother with the heat transfer compound - why not just use the foil on its own?

I also fail to see how the foil helps the company during maintenance and removal of the heatsink. It would be totally impossible to realign the heatsink accurately enough that the old pad/foil could be reused in any case. A complete a new thermal pad (with or without the foil) would be necessary.

I fail to see any logical justification for the foil which appears to accomplish nothing besides hindering the heat transfer process. Whether or not it is official company policy to leave the foil on, it seems clear that heat transfer would be enhanced by its removal.

Perhaps someone could enlighten me on the physics/mechanics of this process?

 

 Much doesn't make sense, you are correct,  Your not supposed to add thermal paste to a thermal pad, if you do, it will be even worse of a thermal conduit And thermal pads are a one time use item, you should use a new one if you have no choice but to use a thermal pad.

[yahooadam]

1 min to get this in :eek:

they would not have used foil as a protector

it would have been plastic, why pay more ?

[grim_d]

QUOTE(silversinksam @ Mar 10 2006, 07:26 PM)

Arctic Silver 5 is a general purpose TIM, (Thermal Interface material) which is slightly capacitive, Ceramique is a general purpose TIM that is not capacitive at all, Arctic Silver 5 perfrms slightly better than Ceramique.

Every time ive used AS5 against ceramique, the ceramique performed better. I swear by the stuff.

[yahooadam]

QUOTE(grim_d @ Mar 14 2006, 10:34 AM)

Every time ive used AS5 against ceramique, the ceramique performed better. I swear by the stuff.

i dont know how you managed that, every other review out there has allways shown the AS5 is better then the ceramique

Anyway, now i have more then 1min to make a reply (stupid college lock off time, and filtering system   )

If it was a protective layer over the thermal paste it would have been done with a plastic film, and not metal

due to the fact that the plastic would come off better, and costs Less

i too have had the misfortune of seeing a P4 with a metal tab on it

its the worst system ive ever seen, as in trying to remove the heatsink from the proccesor, it removed the proccesor from the socket too (fortuently it wasnt damaged)

anything inbetween the HS and the chip will be worse for performance

thermal paste is ment to be kept at a wather thin coating


here you can see the thin film you put on

infact this tamps down much further, beacause when you lift the heatsink off, the air gets sucked under and it forms those "pools" of thermal compound