RROD Answers

[YungAI]

After numerous reports about the exceptionally high Xbox 360 failure rate, Microsoft was forced to allocate 1 billion dollars to fix it.

Almost one year later, we have finally come to know the true story behind the historic RROD epidemic.

During the Design Automation Conference, Bryan Lewis, research vice president and chief analyst at Gartner, disclosed that it all begun with a single Microsoft's decision aiming to cut design costs for their Xbox 360 graphics chip.

According to Bryan Lewis, the epidemic happened because "Microsoft wanted to avoid an ASIC (application-specific integrated circuit) vendor", so they designed their own graphics chip and sent it directly to Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing for production.

Normally, semiconductor chips are designed on two stages. The first of them is the Schematic design where engineers draw a symbolic representation of the circuit. This should have been done by Microsoft. The second stage is PCB Layout design. In this stage, the abstract representation of the circuit is converted to real life Printed Circuit Board through a delicate and complex design process. Apparently, Microsoft decided to design its own PBC, but failed and ended up with an RROD epidemic.

"Had Microsoft left the graphics processor design to an ASIC vendor in the first place, would they have been able to avoid this problem?", Lewis asked before answering himself. "Probably. The ASIC vendor could have been able to design a graphics processor that dissipates much less power."

To fix the problem, Microsoft went back to an unnamed ASIC vendor based in the United States and redesigned the chip, Lewis added. (rumors have it that the ASIC vendor is most likely the former ATI, now part of AMD.)

Moral of the story: by going cheap and trying to save tens of millions of dollars in ASIC design costs, Microsoft ended up paying more than $1 billion for its Xbox 360 recall.

Link: MEGAGAMES

[Kobe24Life]

people just need to relise that xbox will always fail compared to ps3.

why bother going through all the troubble.

[TRBB]

Originally Posted by kobe24life

why bother going through all the troubble.

because some people don't give a **** about blu-ray and only want to play online with friends? you can say whatever you want, but you can't decline that the xbox has a way better online system than the ps3, and i don't care whether it's free or not. and the "trouble" is only waiting each year for 14 days for your xbox to come back from repair, i don't see why this is such a big problem, can't you live without your console for 2 weeks? so the warranty extend each year. i'll laugh at the ps3 boys when their console breaks after the warranty-years.

and i don't see what this ****ing hate against the "opponent" console is about, be happy with what you got. this stupid "whoooaaa, my console is soooo muuuuch better than yours, it's so cool, look at me, i have the better console" is just retarted.

[Kobe24Life]

^^ Im not saying just that xbox breaks down and you have to go through the problem of reparing it but the warrinty only works 1 time then you have to pay for the repairs and 60% of xbox breaks down in less than 6 months...

ps3 is also the stronger system in specs and achievments, with tons of exclusives and also STEALING xbox exclusives like bioshock.....


xbox has their games all on pc so why buy a xbox if you can play them on pc????

i agree that it has WAYY better online but not everyone plays online....

im not trying to start anything but thats all my opinion.

i dont have a ps3 or xbox 360 (can't afford any)

but my opinion is ps3 is the better system.


but its just my opinion.

[YungAI]

Theres way too many little asian kids with no friends and their face 20mm from the screen posting on this forum.

[Kobe24Life]

^^true that .

[hobes]

Originally Posted by TRBB

because some people don't give a **** about blu-ray

YEAH! EXACTLY! XBOX FAN BOYS CAN WATCH HD-DVD!!!!

Oh wait, that was cancelled.

:cowboy:

Enjoy watching DVD's on your analogue tv

[Milan]

Originally Posted by kobe24life

^^ Im not saying just that xbox breaks down and you have to go through the problem of reparing it but the warrinty only works 1 time then you have to pay for the repairs and 60% of xbox breaks down in less than 6 months...

ps3 is also the stronger system in specs and achievments, with tons of exclusives and also STEALING xbox exclusives like bioshock.....


xbox has their games all on pc so why buy a xbox if you can play them on pc????

i agree that it has WAYY better online but not everyone plays online....

im not trying to start anything but thats all my opinion.

i dont have a ps3 or xbox 360 (can't afford any)

but my opinion is ps3 is the better system.


but its just my opinion.

I bought the 360 cause it has better games. I could care less if the PS3's graphics are marginally better. The fact is, everyone had to wait 2 years for games to actually come out. And I'm not a hardcore gamer, I don't pay attention to specs. I play for fun and I want good games, not good games in 3 years. I'm also a fan of sports games. The Xbox 360 version of Madden had 60 FPS as opposed to PS3's 30. That's a big difference.

[AI3]

The 360 is a much better console! Just google it!
Graphics wise the 360 is still better. Online play is no comparison at all. Much better on the 360!

[hobes]

Why is the online play better on Xbox? I like the ps3 online.