Post by: Chancer on October 17, 2006, 06:21:00 AM
This thread is like so many before it and will prove nothing
Post by: C o s m o on October 17, 2006, 06:34:00 AM
QUOTE(Chancer @ Oct 17 2006, 07:28 AM) 
Mine's reliable.
This thread is like so many before it and will prove nothing
Yes, yes it will. My second died a week ago.
From my research, the initial failure rate of the 360 (initial being consoles mfr'd and sole in the first 6 months from launch) was 18% (+/- 3%).
You won't get the resoponse you are looking for with this topic. There won't be one singular overwhelming sentiment.
Post by: mrRobinson on October 17, 2006, 06:39:00 AM
QUOTE(C o s m o @ Oct 17 2006, 08:41 AM)
Yes, yes it will. My second died a week ago.
From my research, the initial failure rate of the 360 (initial being consoles mfr'd and sole in the first 6 months from launch) was 18% (+/- 3%).
You won't get the resoponse you are looking for with this topic. There won't be one singular overwhelming sentiment.
Your research was severely flawed. My studies have shown a failure rate of 21% (-3%) or 15% (+3%). So I'm not sure where you pulled your numbers from.
Post by: C o s m o on October 17, 2006, 07:03:00 AM
I don't have my resources in front of me (it's all at home).
I must admit that it's not entirely scientific, but it's as accurate as I can get without getting approval from Intitutional Research, Planning, and Effectiveness.
Post by: Chancer on October 17, 2006, 07:36:00 AM
No matter how many units you base research on, it is not going to be accurate. It can only give a representative figure. If you based it on a 1000 units and found 500 faulty, who is to say the next 1000 checked would not all be ok or have a lower percentage faulty. The only people who know the real figure are MS and they will not likely tell the truth.
the thread will achieve nothing other than contradictory reactions. There is or was even a poll on these same lines
Post by: BCfosheezy on October 17, 2006, 07:42:00 AM
At any rate, I as well as 4 of my friends bought launch consoles. Each one has experienced a problem since. One was a PSU and gpu issue. Fixed. The rest were gpu issues. Fixed. I truly believe that all the issues with xbox 360 are heat related and can be fixed rather simply. I also do not understand the unwillingness of other forum members to remedy their problems rather argue with tried and true methods and griping about their lack of warranty. Let's see, be back up and playing in 20 minutes or drop $130.00 and be running in around a week with someone else's old console that THEY sent it because it was broken. Also, every person I've seen try the hot air rework method has the problem reoccur. I believe this is due to poor isolation of the trouble. The hot air rework manipulates the real problem enough to restore usefullness for a while, but the actual problem is not fixed.
Edit: Let's face it, it is not a poor solder issue. All the evidence proves otherwise. If you use a heat gun to reflow the solder and then manipulate the board back into the case, power it on and use it for days, weeks, or maybe even months but then it fails again, why do you still believe a solder joint could be bad? Do you not see that it would have become bad when the board was contorting rather than when it was sitting still? IF you still say it is, then the only way the solder joint could have seperated is due to expansion and contraction from being heated and cooled. OVERHEATING issue. It's amazing how many smart people are on this board but yet could not troubleshoot their penis from a waffle iron.
Post by: BCfosheezy on October 17, 2006, 08:00:00 AM
QUOTE(xboxexpert @ Oct 17 2006, 09:01 AM)
Wow, I've never seen such controversy between moderators.
Post by: Chancer on October 17, 2006, 08:03:00 AM
QUOTE
Do you not see that it would have become bad when the board was contorting rather than when it was sitting still? IF you still say it is, then the only way the solder joint could have seperated is due to expansion and contraction from being heated and cooled. OVERHEATING issue. It's amazing how many smart people are on this board but yet could not troubleshoot their penis from a waffle iron.
Can't let that slip by.
A poor soldered connection does not
A: Require movement to cause problems
B: Does not need to be overheated to cause problems.
Simple expansion caused by Normal heating and cooling can and indeed does cause problems with poorly soldered surface mounted components, in anything not just the 360.
This is not some simplistic issue or MS would have sorted the refurbs out inless than your 20 minute fix time.
I agree the Heatgun method achieves nothing.
You need to re-think your last statement as the statement you have just made about poor soldering is not correct
Edit
QUOTE(BCfosheezy @ Oct 17 2006, 03:07 PM)
Wow, I've never seen such controversy between moderators.
Yes I know its hard to believe but even us machines have different opinions on stuff. hardly controversial :-)
Post by: BCfosheezy on October 17, 2006, 08:28:00 AM
QUOTE(Chancer @ Oct 17 2006, 09:10 AM)
Can't let that slip by.
A poor soldered connection does not
A: Require movement to cause problems
B: Does not need to be overheated to cause problems.
Simple expansion caused by Normal heating and cooling can and indeed does cause problems with poorly soldered surface mounted components, in anything not just the 360.
This is not some simplistic issue or MS would have sorted the refurbs out inless than your 20 minute fix time.
I agree the Heatgun method achieves nothing.
You need to re-think your last statement as the statement you have just made about poor soldering is not correct
Edit: I have a lot of respect for Chancer as I have read quite a few of his posts and agree with him on a high percentage of what he says, even the quoted statement above to a certain degree.
I will concede that I did oversimplify the problem and could have potentially mislead people with my statment with other equipment. BUT:
You sort of contradict both points you make. How can you say a cold solder joint does not require movement or heat to cause problems but then go on to say that "normal" heating and cooling will cause it to go bad? Heating and cooling causes expansion and contraction which IS movement, and it is obviously heat. Heat that is enough to cause a joint to expand and contract is beyond the scope of "normal" operation. Either excess current drawn through a lead or inefficient cooling will cause the lead to expand and contract. I don't think anyone would argue that a cold solder joint will go bad without a somewhat extreme temperature change because otherwise reports of consoles not working for the first time when the customer got home would be appearing. The bad solder joints would just poof into thin air during shipping and the console would never turn on for the first time. In fact that is untrue. Yes, we have all dealt with cold solder joints in ALL equipment and in every case it is due to heat. A lot of the time the solder joint was perfectly fine but the expansion and contraction of the board was too much stress on it and caused it to pull away. It is impossible to make the case you're trying to make.
When I speak on Xbox 360's behalf I am speaking from my own experience as at this point I truly believe it is indicative of all other's experiences. I would assure you that if you get your console running at an acceptable temperature that your problems will go away cold solder joints or not. I know I have in every case and I don't see why anyone would be any different.
The problem COULD be easily remedied contrary to poplar belief. The reasons why are most likely not cost but for a few different reasons. #1 being noise. How many people do you remember from xbox that when fan speed in the bios became user defineable wanted something actually BELOW default? There were quite a few. If you've ever increased your fan speed on your 360 you realize that you now have a hairdryer running in the background while you're playing. It's ridiculous, but increased airflow would help drastically. #2 Changing the manufacuring process to not use the material they put between the gpu and heatsink. These two things would decrease the amount of failing 360's by a large margin if not almost completely iradicate the issue.
Also, I did not mean to imply that you mods were bickering or anything. It is just the first time I've seen 4 mods disagree with each other in the same thread over an issue that is pretty straight-forward.
Post by: Chancer on October 17, 2006, 08:57:00 AM
The problems experienced early on in a some new boxes do not bear out your overheating theory causing the soldered joints to go bad. Even with excessive amounts of heat it takes years for the heat generated to melt the solder to an extent where the component legs part company with the board. This would alsorequire localised excess heat. Poor manufacturing process in the first place seems a more likely explanation.
Some people have gone to extreme lengths with cooling yet still have problems. Some people have none.
Edit
You are allowed to disagree with me and I prefer it that people do all put their points of view forward it makes for a more interesting read as well. :-)
Post by: C o s m o on October 17, 2006, 09:39:00 AM
The thing about statistics, I could manipulate the numbers to reflect just about anything I want. Still, the numbers from which I draw are random, as best as I could get. Let's say that I'm off by 10%. That's still roughly a 10% failure rate, which is drastically higher than what M$ stated, and it is unacceptable.
Chancer is exactly right...it's not overheating that is causing the problem. It's the manufacturing process. M$ isn't increasing the cooling on consoles. They are remanufacturing them to correct the shoddy manufacturing.
Post by: BCfosheezy on October 17, 2006, 10:18:00 AM
QUOTE(C o s m o @ Oct 17 2006, 10:46 AM)
Is there controversy? Cause if there is, then I change my stance. My research sucks, and I now agree with everything Chancer and Expert said. I'm a robot.
The thing about statistics, I could manipulate the numbers to reflect just about anything I want. Still, the numbers from which I draw are random, as best as I could get. Let's say that I'm off by 10%. That's still roughly a 10% failure rate, which is drastically higher than what M$ stated, and it is unacceptable.
Chancer is exactly right...it's not overheating that is causing the problem. It's the manufacturing process. M$ isn't increasing the cooling on consoles. They are remanufacturing them to correct the shoddy manufacturing.
The thing about statistics, I could manipulate the numbers to reflect just about anything I want. Still, the numbers from which I draw are random, as best as I could get. Let's say that I'm off by 10%. That's still roughly a 10% failure rate, which is drastically higher than what M$ stated, and it is unacceptable.
Chancer is exactly right...it's not overheating that is causing the problem. It's the manufacturing process. M$ isn't increasing the cooling on consoles. They are remanufacturing them to correct the shoddy manufacturing.
I would say there is controversy. I would also say that no matter what the exact numbers are on hardware failures they are high. So I agree with you on that. No matter what the immediate failure of the console is, you can blame it on the manufacturing process. I believe the majority of consoles are overheating and that is due to the manufacturing process. So we agree yet disagree on that. I do not believe that the consoles have poor solder jobs. The 100% success I've had with repairs is what holds that true in my mind.
Post by: BCfosheezy on October 17, 2006, 10:30:00 AM
QUOTE(Chancer @ Oct 17 2006, 10:04 AM)
The point I was making is not that thermal expansion does not play a part in affecting a bad solder connection but rather that it does not need to be overheating or excessive heat that causes it. Normal heat and cooling conditions will if the connection is bad cause problems. In other words poor soldered connections will be affected by by normal operating conditions and temperatures where as a sound soldered connection will not, it is not the fact of the overheating that causes it. (Did that make it easier to follow what I mean, probably not:-) )
The problems experienced early on in a some new boxes do not bear out your overheating theory causing the soldered joints to go bad. Even with excessive amounts of heat it takes years for the heat generated to melt the solder to an extent where the component legs part company with the board. This would alsorequire localised excess heat. Poor manufacturing process in the first place seems a more likely explanation.
Some people have gone to extreme lengths with cooling yet still have problems. Some people have none.
Edit
You are allowed to disagree with me and I prefer it that people do all put their points of view forward it makes for a more interesting read as well. :-)
The problems experienced early on in a some new boxes do not bear out your overheating theory causing the soldered joints to go bad. Even with excessive amounts of heat it takes years for the heat generated to melt the solder to an extent where the component legs part company with the board. This would alsorequire localised excess heat. Poor manufacturing process in the first place seems a more likely explanation.
Some people have gone to extreme lengths with cooling yet still have problems. Some people have none.
Edit
You are allowed to disagree with me and I prefer it that people do all put their points of view forward it makes for a more interesting read as well. :-)
I understood where you were coming from after your first post and I suppose I'm at fault for not making that clear. I still maintain that cold solder joints will not cause the pattern of problems we're seeing. Even after your posts I do not believe your scenario is applicable to our current problems. If it is, let's just wiggle the components until we figure out which ones are not being properly soldered in the process
Let's get compressed air and spray it on the joints until the console works Those are the typical ways to troubleshoot this issue. I don't care if I'm right or wrong. I just think since the majority of people experience the same issues, let's narrow it down the same way we did with the foxlink psu's in xbox. Let's come up with the main cause plaguing these consoles and tell people the most likely thing that will fix their console instead of arguing over what is causing it. The next bad 360 I get I will document the symptoms. The consoles reaction to certain variables and the process I used to remedy the problem. This will certainly not involve a hot air rework station or heatgun 
Post by: mrRobinson on October 17, 2006, 10:33:00 AM
Post by: kiddkynetik on October 17, 2006, 11:34:00 AM
Post by: Reaper527 on October 17, 2006, 12:42:00 PM
Post by: Chancer on October 17, 2006, 01:31:00 PM
I suppose at the end of the day the only failure rate statistic we all truly bother about is the failure rate of our own 360. If its someone elses we can sympathise but man if its our own its disaster
Forget doom and gloom about 360s Get outdoors and coach Girls soccer (The little gits have driven me insane this evening much more than a faulty 360 could)
Post by: Boiker on October 17, 2006, 04:12:00 PM
I too believe that nearly all the problems with the 360 are heat related. It doesn't take a genius to see that a couple of fans spinning at fairly low speeds aren't up to the job of cooling one of the most powerful processors and one of the most powerful GPUs going.
However, mine's been going strong since March 30th
Not a sausage, apart from the odd glitch in PGR3 sometimes. I get weird coloured triangular shapes. But as soon as I position a fan perpendicular to the fans blowing air out the problem is solved. Every other game works with no problems, even the supposedly more demanding Dead Rising. I guess I got lucky; though, by my gamer score, it's clear I don't spend too much time on it, so that may have a lot to do with it I guess.
Post by: bigjimmy on October 18, 2006, 03:04:00 AM