Rumor: MS's chip design team caused RROD fiasco

by Dustin Burg { Jun 11th 2008 at 10:00AM }

This week, EETimes.com posted an interesting article regarding what they believe to be the truth behind the Xbox 360's RROD problems which led to last year's 360 "recall". And they're firmly placing all the blame on Microsoft and their attempt to save a few bucks.

Even though they formally acknowledged it with billion dollar warranty extensions, Microsoft never completely revealed what the cause of the Xbox 360's RROD hardware problems were. The reason for this, as EETimes speculates, is because MS's 360 graphics chip design team is to blame for creating a faulty chip design that was prone to overheating. This "in house" chip development is sort of a rarity, seeing that companies usually leave the design of specialized chips to an outside application-specific integrated circuit (ASIC) vendor who has more experience in designing specialized chips. But that would have costed MS tens of millions of dollars, so they decided to leave it to their own, less experienced design team. A decision that could have led to the billion dollar RROD fiasco and a giant blow to the Xbox 360's overall image. If this speculation is true, we hope MS learned their lesson. Albeit the hard way.

Tags: microsoft, rrod, rumor, xbox-360

Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)

HE4VENSENT @ Jun 11th 2008 10:04AM

i LOL'd at that picture..

Premo @ Jun 11th 2008 10:08AM

As long as my new 360 doesn't asplode, i'll try to forget this ever happened.
MS is lucky to have me as a customer. I don't think others would be so forgiving.

mattclarkie @ Jun 11th 2008 11:12AM

I am the same. They made a hell-of-a-mess. But when it works everything is so great you forget about the problems.

Just today I was playing some PGR4 on my Elite I purchased to replace an RRoD, and the game froze loading a race and I had to turn it off and try again. But playing was so fun that I forgot about the problem.

Tony @ Jun 11th 2008 10:22AM

How many reasons have we heard for what causes this now? 12?

I do like how they titled their article as if it's outright fact, when nothing in the article can be claimed as such just yet. As people mention in the comments there, there wasn't technically a "recall"... but more importantly, we've all been under the impression that ATI made the GPU. The article doesn't reference that once.

Neuromancer @ Jun 11th 2008 10:46AM

Yeah seriously, "mammoth global recall"???!!!

There was no recall yet they say it in the title and all throughout. Someone needs to go back to Journalism 101, the class where they teach you to check your facts.

JerkfacedFed @ Jun 11th 2008 1:11PM

yea this is definitely wrong because microsoft did NOT develop the graphics chip, ATI (which is now AMD) did.

however, microsoft owns the intellectual property on the chip so they can license anything that will use its architecture, and they can provide perfect backwards compatibility with their next iteration of xbox since they own the inner workings of the graphics sub-system.

Sean @ Jun 11th 2008 4:54PM

Spot on. ATi designed the chip. It was essentially a concept for the unified architecture used in all current PC GPU's. However, ATi are actually quite poor in this field compared to nVidia, running older manufacturing processes and generally having hotter chips.

*pats his trusty 8800GT*

Phour ZwanZig @ Jun 11th 2008 10:25PM

Exactly what I was thinking when I got to that point..

Since when did MS design/build the GPX chip.. They turned to ATI.. Nintendo had them last go and MS had Nvidia.. I was a lil against the change to ATI, so I remember it clearly..

STD Spanky @ Jun 11th 2008 10:20AM

I wouldn't have been so forgiving if there wheren't so many awesome 360 exclusive games.

M$ has screwed me over countless times since I got my 360 - not responding to complaints, not cancelling direct debits etc...

oh...and of course the RRoD :p

shawn @ Jun 11th 2008 10:21AM

i got one of the newer 360s so i hope i dont see those lights or microsoft is gonna get there ass handed to them

Lianne @ Jun 11th 2008 11:56AM

I hate to tell you, but you will probably still get it. I have a newer 360 with HDMI and the new heat sinks, and I got it on May 29th. I called May 30th and somehow they screwed up and didn't send me a box. We'll see if I ever get a new 360, let alone a proper one with HDMI...

anthonyjh @ Jun 11th 2008 3:16PM

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RRiyxWBb_6M

mcr @ Jun 11th 2008 10:28AM

This is one of the most visible examples of Microsoft's general climate of corporate arrogance - it's mystifying that it continues because they have a track record that's pockmarked with many similar examples of failure that can be directly attributed to their baseless arrogance.

I find it amazing that the 360 came together to be such a good product despite these handicaps. Just imagine how much more successful it could have been if a few key decisions were made differently.

NEB @ Jun 11th 2008 11:06AM

I thought ATI designed the graphics chip for the 360.

Tony @ Jun 11th 2008 10:31AM

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Xbox_360#Hardware --

According to this the GPU is a 500 MHz API Xenos.

So who in the world comprises this internal Microsoft GPU team?

Tony @ Jun 11th 2008 10:32AM

ATI Xenos, I mean. Not API

DjDATZ @ Jun 11th 2008 10:35AM

If this is true...Then MS screwed themselves over...it's never smart to cheap out on the design process...it'll only hurt you in the long run. If they spent those tens of millions of $ on a proper chip design, then they wouldn't have to allocate a billion to their mistake. Stupid idiots. lol

protostar @ Jun 11th 2008 10:41AM

Either way you slice it, this comes to down MS trying to be cheap. Whether it was the GPU specifically or not. What concerns me the most is, even after the billion dollar warranty expansion, they still haven't figured out how to actually FIX these broken Xboxs. I had mine repaired last month and got it back and it was still broken... It is completely unacceptable I was without my Xbox for 3 weeks, and the morons didn't even bother to pop in a game and see if it works.

Tony @ Jun 11th 2008 10:51AM

Well, I think we all know this is a freaking mess and MS should really just redesign this thing entirely... I wish they'd just properly address it already. At this stage anyone can write up an article with a "reason", post it and it will gain traction. I think that's what's getting so tiresome.

I'm on my third one now. I'm not happy about it. But certainly there are faults with this article and many of the previous ones. I wish MS would explain the problem and be done with it. Then we can all know once and for all why these things are pieces of shit lol.

AxFactor @ Jun 11th 2008 12:23PM

Ya know I've had my box for about a year and a half with no problems. I bought a 360 last year with my tax refund and 3 hours after taking it home it destroyed a disc, so I swaped it out and the 2nd one has been great.

*Will now go home tonight where Xbox will RRoD at a critical point in a game*

elmersglue @ Jun 11th 2008 12:28PM

Funny thing is, it never red rings in the middle of a game. It might freeze on you and then when you restart it, it rrod's. Or you everything might seem perfectly fine and you turn it off cuz you're done playing..then when you turn it back on it red rings (as was the case with me). From what I can tell, if you left your xbox on 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, it'll never red ring lol.

bown @ Jun 11th 2008 7:02PM

"would have costed"???

That's some great English there.

Trogdor @ Jun 11th 2008 11:32AM

I call BS. This is just some industry goon trying to look smart. I remember clearly when the Xbox 360 was announced they said that ATI was designing the GPU. So unless MS lied about that, this article is bunk.

emirabal @ Jun 11th 2008 11:35AM

Whatever, M$ payed dearly for their mistake, and I'm glad they came out of pocket

Vcize @ Jun 11th 2008 11:36AM

As a buddy of mine once called it...

Xbox 360: the greatest piece of shit ever made.

elmersglue @ Jun 11th 2008 11:51AM

i just recently got the rrod after having my xbox for 2 years now. I wasn't exactly surprised, but i was kinda pissed cuz i really want to keep playing NG2!! But, the replacement process is as pain free as i could've hoped for, and while i wait for the prepaid box to arrive, the xbox works every once in a while, its strange....

anyone else have their rrod'd xbox work every once in a while?

Player1 @ Jun 11th 2008 11:58AM

Yes, that's typical. It will start to show issues until it Red Rings, then it may start up again a few times after that but eventually it will just Red Ring every time. I'm on my fourth so I know the experience well.

elmersglue @ Jun 11th 2008 12:25PM

have they been replacing your 360 with newer refurbished models or older ones? Just curious cuz i wanna know what to expect.

Alex @ Jun 11th 2008 12:33PM

Yeah im on my 4th which has just broken.

Problem is that it's not the rrod... my dvd drive has just packed in.

Which isn't covered under teh extended warrenty. (apparently).

What i'd like to know, is that from the date of my last replacement, does my warrenty start again? so if my last was repaired 9 months ago, do i still have 3 months of warrenty left?

ugh.

The support people say its going to be £60 to repair.

(i didnt ask them the above)

elmersglue @ Jun 11th 2008 12:45PM

why dont you just call back and tell them it rrod'd again. Then if they have your previous inquiry about the dvd drive on file, tell them it fixed itself and that wasnt an issue anymore. The issue is now RROD....they have to replace it!

Alex @ Jun 11th 2008 1:09PM

but surely when i send it in, and they find its working (in terms of turning on) they'll send it back, and not replace the dvd drive.

Ryan @ Jun 11th 2008 1:13PM

I love how you people keep sending M$ your broken 360s only to have them send you back the same or different unit that is still broken. M$ does not fix these units..its only a temporary fix. haha I bought a service from ebay for $40 where the company replaced the faulty X clamps that bend when the 360 overheats. They also replaced the sh!tty heat sink paste with Arctic 5 paste which is much better. On top of that they replaced my fans with more powerful ones and cleaned my system so its spotless inside and out. I mailed my system out..2 days later they had it...they fixed it in 1 day and I had it back within 2 days after that. So in all I was without my 360 for less then 1 week! You people should seriously do the same. Had my console for a while now and not 1 hiccup since. Plus the console has a lifetime warranty from the company who fixed...if anything ever happens I send it back and they fix it free of charge!!!

xboxrulez1985 @ Jun 11th 2008 1:33PM

you all can just do what i did as a permanent fix....go buy a ps3. everything on xbox will probably end up on ps3 in the long run anyways. Honestly, i do kinda miss playing Halo tho!

Rig @ Jun 11th 2008 3:32PM

So what you mean is ps3rules then.

youngbuc @ Jun 11th 2008 4:41PM

its funny...all of us are so loyal to xbox and microsoft and even then they can't release a 360 system that is free from this mess up

if they were to come out with a system that had no problems - 60% of this board would go out and buy it, just from sheer love of the games...i don't understand why MS doesn't see that

i'm still waiting for my xbox to come back from their repair site. i was getting far in gtaiv and miss playing!

- youngbuc18