Achtung! Xbox 360 overheating explained!
by Ken Weeks 
{ Mar 10th 2006 at 3:00AM }
Ever get drunk and piss on the toilet seat without lifting the lid? I'll explain. The ever-resourceful Deutschland modding community has reportedly discovered the reason behind the 360's overheating issue. Xbox-Scene informs that a group of German tech-heads from ModControl.com and GameStore24.de took apart two independently purchased consoles and discovered the protective foil on the heatsink had not been removed
On the left [see above pic] you see the CPU heatsink and how the thermal compound should normally look like. On the right you see the ATI GPU heatsink and people who are used to assemble PCs themself known this isn't how it should look like. It's not just a thick layer of compound ... there's actaully a plastic protective foil on top of the thermal compound.
On the right a close-up of the protective layer/foil on top of the heat transfer pad. On the left the protective foil has been removed and placed next to the heat pad. This protective layer is probably placed by the manifacturer of the heatsink and is used to protect the heat transfer pad from dust, but should normally be removed just prior installing the heatsink on the GPU. The way it's installed now by MS the GPU chip makes contact with the plastic protection foil instead of the heat transfer pad. This can of course cause cooling issues for the graphics chip as for optimal cooling performance there should just be a thin layer of thermal pad between the GPU chip and heatsink.
They also have a video (in German) that appears to point out the offending foil.
How many consoles could be affected by this basic issue? Was the overheating scandal really as simple as Friday Happy Hour on the assembly lines? Hardware-savvy readers please weigh in. Also would any German-speakers care to translate?
[Previously: Motion filed to dismiss overheating lawsuit]
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
Sev4 Pri1 @ Mar 10th 2006 3:28AM
Brilliant!
DefJef @ Mar 10th 2006 3:37AM
No need to translate the Video, its almost the same as you pointed out in your article. Closing line is: "Maybe we found the reason why so many xboxes crash". I say: you did!
Ben Cox @ Mar 10th 2006 3:37AM
I am a german speaker and well basically all they say is what is mentioned in the post above.
They mention the strange metal foil and say that microsoft are not managing to pull it off before the cool body(?) is added to the processor. He then mentioned that they have probably found the reason why so many xbox 360s worldwide are grinding to a halt.
nizzy1115 @ Mar 10th 2006 7:53AM
I'm positive mine does that too!
I knew mine was a graphics card problem because while it doesnt overheat and crash, it still overheats and i get everyonce and a while wierd lines across the screen exactly in the same fashion as my old graphics card did with the stock cooler. Replacing the cooler fixed it. I may be cracking open my box to see if any issues remain.
Someone should make an after market huge all copper heatsink for the xbox 360. I would buy it!
Popular Blogs @ Mar 10th 2006 8:37AM
All this trouble that the xbox 360 is having would seem to sugest that they are playing in to the hands of the play station 3
DA360 @ Mar 10th 2006 8:57AM
These things are mass produced so the manufacturing machines that make these 360s are going to mess up somewhere at first (causing the first (launch) batch defects), so I am not surprised the machines slipped up somewhere and didn't remove the protection on the thermal pad.
At-least now since the defects are known, they can correct the errors in these plants and we might not have these defects again.
Kuroshi @ Mar 10th 2006 10:54AM
My console is often on even when I'm not playing it. I havn't had any problem with heat at all. I wonder if this was a problem with one run of consoles or maybe one particular factory. BTW MS does not actually manufacture the consoles themselves. Would be intersting to know if this problem can be localized or if it is all machines. If it can be localized then you could tell by serial # if your machine has the problem.
Scott @ Mar 10th 2006 11:10AM
The guys at xbox-scene have already debunked this. The foil isn't unusual.
http://forums.xbox-scene.com/index.php?showtopic=496524&st=30
OMAC @ Mar 10th 2006 12:42PM
As a builder of PCs I would have to say leaving the foil on is a huge oversight. The whole idea of thermal compound is to ensure efficient thermal transfer.
From the pictures provided, it looks like the foil has some texture to it. If the foil is has ANYTHING BUT a mirror finish, it will inhibit the transfer of heat.
Saying the foil is there in case someone has to remove the heatsink at a future date is ridiculous. Of course, the only way to prove this is to have someone run an Xbox 360 with the thermal pad and foil in place and another with a glob of arctic silver in its place, or find one that has an overheating problem and us arctic silver in it instead of the pad.
Scott @ Mar 10th 2006 3:17PM
#8, I don't think that would be a fair comparison because Arctic Silver will always perform better than a thermal pad.
A better test would be to have someone test the thermal pad with the foil or without and see what happens to the temps.
char @ Mar 10th 2006 8:13PM
I
Ben Hollis @ Mar 11th 2006 5:34AM
More importantly, the Xbox guys have debunked it. Check it out: http://gamerscoreblog.com/team/archive/2006/03/10/533618.aspx
Perhaps this post could be updated so I don't have to sit through more Slashdot-misinformation 360-bashing around the watercooler?
sproket @ Mar 13th 2006 1:16PM
I hate to say it but I feel the M$ guys are lying about the foil being there on purpose to aid in cooling.
First off. That would mean that they have made other manufacturing errors due to the fact that some xbox 360 DON'T have the foil while others do. So which ones were assembled improperly?
Secondly. The whole idea behind thermal compound is that it molds the imperfect areas between two imperfect surfaces for better heat conductivity.
Foil is in itself an imperfect surface. So putting a layer of thermal compound and then a layer of foil between a cpu and a heatsink cannot possibly hope to be MORE effective at cooling unless of course your aim is to make the cpu run hotter.
Transferring heat between one layer of thermal paste is ALWAYS going to be more effective at heat transfer than trying to go between 2 layers of anything.
Every time you add a layer to the mix you are adding another opportunity for heat to transfer less effectively to the next (more gaps, molecular cracks and conductive irregularities.
Would it cool decently with the foil there? Possibly. Does the foil actually make it run cooler? Not on your life.
Their reason to lie? Hmmmm...would YOU want to recall all of your xbox 360s? I didn't think so.
sproket @ Mar 13th 2006 1:25PM
I was re-reading some of the above posts and noticed OMAC pointed out that unless the foil was a "mirror finish" it would not help in heat transfer.
It's worth pointing out that even if the foil WAS a mirror finish, it would need to be placed against another mirror finish surface to dissapate heat well. Not just mirror finish but also 100% flat and without irregularity.
There is almost no situation, unless you are designing parts to NASA standards (and certainly not in a mass production low cost processor heat-sink line) where the level of perfection required for these mirror surfaces would exist.
That is why every last heatsink you see shipped from athon and intel as well as those shipped by 3rd parties have thermal compound included with them.
sproket @ Mar 13th 2006 1:32PM
quote:
"The guys at xbox-scene have already debunked this. The foil isn't unusual.
http://forums.xbox-scene.com/index.php?showtopic=496524&st=30"
Actually it is unusual. And it hasn't been debunked. What is mentioned there is a foil with compound on BOTH SIDES to account for irregularites on both surfaces.
There is no such thing in existance on the xbox 360 foil. It only has compound on ONE SIDE, which is a drastically different design.
They are comparing apples to oranges here.