xbox 360: a fault in the design causing the console to fail at high rates, within first few years of life

retailers are claiming the failure rate for xbox 360s is over 30%.

smarthouse has written an article about their readers writing in and complaining about their 360s failing. ironically, after 1 year of the 360's life. they also expose microsoft sending back different refurbished units, in exchange for the failed 360's.

smarthouse writes:

Retailers are claiming that Microsoft has had to handle a failure rate of over 30% with their Xbox 360 console. More than 100 consumers have written to SmartHouse complaining of either poor service from Microsoft or total failure of their gaming console. One consumer was even given back a refurbished unit in exchange for their original Xbox console.

the man who designed the unit, whom has had 8 consoles fail in the past, explains what is wrong with the unit in this interview.

The problem is that the cooling design of the 360 doesn’t hold up. The cooling of the CPU was well done, with a heat pipe to draw the heat away from the chip (and accordingly, away from the mainboard). The problem is that the GPU and its low-profile heatsink sit under the DVD drive, and are given a very narrow channel for air to be pulled acrosss the heatsink by the fans. When the GPU heats up enough, not only does it reflow the solder in the ball grid array slightly, it can cause the entire mainboard to flex - a phenomenon largely caused by the X-shaped brackets that hold the heatsinks on under the mainboard. They hold the heatsinks down to the chips with a tension fit that presses up directly underneath those chips.

shame on microsoft. shame!