What is Digg?62 Comments
- dchaosdx, on 10/12/2007, -2/+21better than finding peanut butter in place of thermal paste i guess.
- air12ick, on 10/12/2007, -3/+19I know for a fact that these heatsinks are placed on manually...so there was probably a person in the assembly line that did not know what he/she was doing and just applied the heatsink without removing the protective film.
Other reasons for overheating include faulty fans (including the one in the power brick) or the tiny thermal sensor within the GPU and CPU was not functioning correctly (its hard to test these on a mass scale environment, so they do test samples by pulling a few out of a batch to see if it works or not). Those that did not know there was a fan in the Power brick, its right above that glowing light, and only turns on when the console is on. - mcbesq, on 10/12/2007, -3/+16Yeah, how's that PS3 working out for you? Beaten MGS4 yet?
No overheat problems here. Oh, and my first-gen PS2 had a bad digital out, so Sony is no innocent babe either. - fluffyturtle, on 10/12/2007, -4/+16I don't understand what the issue here is. If anyone has been in the PC environment long enough they would know this is actually a valid pad. You may have seen them on slot 1 cpu's, they were kind of common during that time. It is not plastic, it can sometimes feel like plastic though. If you watch the video it is clearly not plastic. It is definitely foil.
They still sell these pads too, some review sites use them because they can be easier to clean not to mention they are reusable. When reviewers are constantly swapping out hardware they can put the foil side down so that the cpu heatsink never needs to be cleaned and the heatsink can just keep moving from one system to the next.
Laptops are also known to use them.
They don%u2019t do a bad job at cooling either, usually anyways. There is no substitute for AS3 or some ASceramique but sometimes there is a wide gap between the heatsink and core after installation so regular goo that doesn%u2019t have solid contact can actually perform worse. I know one person who thought they could cool down their laptop by putting some as3 on it but the gap was so great that the laptop wasn%u2019t even stable unless he used the pad.
Anywho I could crack a joke about console people not knowing hardware but I fear that this useful post would just be modded down (plus I own every console so neaner neaner neaner). - bpapa, on 10/12/2007, -1/+9Did you seriously write your comment in word first, and then paste it into Digg? I ask b/c of the
%u2019 - inactive, on 10/12/2007, -2/+9This is the same situation I had with my Dell Smartstep 200n (which they sold around 2-3 years ago). It had some major heat issues. After removing the heatsink, I found this weird foil. It was super thick, and super inefficient. And for the northbridge, there was something that seriously looked just like a peice of clear tape for a thermal transfer material. Replacing this gave it super stability.
- SL33PY, on 10/12/2007, -1/+7I guess Microsoft will need to talk to their suppliers/assemblers/other involved parties.
- dotorg, on 10/12/2007, -2/+7That is actually not the case. Mine died within 24 hours of getting it (less than 2 hours use) with first corrupted video and eventually total failure.
It was sitting on top of an entertainment center, with the power brick next to it (not on carpet) in a room that during the winter rarely even gets to 60 degrees.
Its location had nothing to do with any cooling issues. Whereas my replacement is inside the entertaiment center, with a glass door and the power brick next to it and its been trucking along just fine.
These problems ARE manufacturing related. If you had one die, you'd know MS knows exactly what the problems are, they don't even waste time troubleshooting it when you call them. When I told them I had video corruption followed by the red blinking light, I had the return box two days later. No questions asked. - bpapa, on 10/12/2007, -4/+9Eh? I can't think of a console that had a worse quality track record than the PS2. Not sure why dude3609 is so confident that PS3 will be different, especially since it's already been heavily delayed so corners could be cut in the end.
- doddilus, on 10/12/2007, -1/+6video of them removing said foil layer
http://youtube.com/watch?v=B-wyBafJpSI - Nick_Wilson, on 10/12/2007, -1/+510 amps from the powersupply? Has this really been confirmed? I am pretty sure if that were true, the lights would dim when I flip my 360 on. Any comments
- Tobey, on 10/12/2007, -3/+7What are you smoking? While it is true that thermal paste is somewhat of an insulator, it's not an "excellent" insulator as you seem to believe. If you want an excellent insulator, then air is what you want between the chip and the heatsink. But you'd be absolutely crazy to put a heatsink on a chip without putting thermal paste between the two surfaces.
That's why this foil thing is a big problem. - HappyScrappy, on 10/12/2007, -0/+4I want to send a big screw you to all the people who thumbed down my last post. You know, the one that said that this isn't a problem, and that you're crazy to put so much faith in thermal compound.
MS response: It's supposed to be there, it works fine, and our return rate is below average.
Digg's new comment system is awful. It's worse than slashdot. Since people get unlimited votes, they just vote down anything they don't agree with. So the only posts left are those that reflect the common "wisdom" of the average person, whether they know anything or not.
To those equivocating about aluminum above, it is a fantastic thermal conductor. It's one of the best there is. No, it isn't as good as silver or copper, but you need not apologize for it. It's not only a great thermal conductor for its mass, it's flat out a great thermal conductor.
And finally, the conductivity of a few materials: (W/inch/degree C)
air: 0.00076
heat sink goop: 0.0168
brick: 0.0175
glass; 0.02
silver heat sink goop: 0.0282
silicon: 2.5
aluminum: 5.5
copper: 10.0
Regular heat sink goop is a better insulator than bricks. Some buildings use solid brick walls as insulators. Silver heat sink goop conducts barely better. Heat sink goop is an excellent insulator. No, it's not as good as air, but still air is a fantastic insulator, it's the primary insulator in your house (fiberglass just keeps air from circulating in order to insulate, dual-pane windows use air as an insulator too).
All of this goes to a single point: you can argue about how good an insulator heat sink goop is, but there's no arguing that it is a good enough insulator that you must avoid putting on enough to keep your heatsink from contacting the chip in question. So you're using as little of it as possible and it is spanning such a short distance that really its conductivity doesn't matter much. You could use anything in there, including any liquid that won't dry out. Anything better than air is good enough. - commandar!, on 10/12/2007, -1/+5Having watched a coworker fry a 1GHz Athlon when they were brand new doing pretty much the same thing, I don't find it that much of a stretch that a protective foil could cause overheating and stability issues.
- osrevad, on 10/12/2007, -1/+5Here's a direct link to the article:
http://www.xbox-scene.com/xbox1data/sep/EEuEAykVuZXMIPEaSP.php - inactive, on 10/12/2007, -1/+4Nothing could be quite as bad as some of the socket-370 coolers from Intel were.
A piece of think aluminium foil coated each side with waxy carbon stuff and held in place with a couple of thin strips of double sided tape :)
A full 10C drop could be had by using even the cheapest of silicone thermal goop. The wax pads AMD used were almost as bad, thank god they now use proper thermal compound.
What omniscientist/happycrappy have said is spot on (and probably detailed in the xbox manual), keep the console itself and its power brick in a well ventilated space and you'll probably have no problems. Stick them in a draw or on top of each other and you're just asking for trouble. - Kitsune818, on 10/12/2007, -2/+4Lets see, if he was talking DC voltage to from the supply to the 360, assuming its 12 VDC, that 12*10= 120 Watts. Not all that unimaginable for a processor. If he was talking 120 VAC, then it's 120*10=1200 Watts... About as much as a small heater or a hair dryer. Since my PC runs around 120-150 Watts, I'm guess that 10 amp figure is DC supply to the X-Box. If it's a switching supply, then figure 90% efficiency, so 1.10*120W=132W, 132W @ 120VAC = 1.1 Amps.. I'd be surprised if your breakers weren't at least 15 Amps.. so, no light dimming.
- slipaway172, on 10/12/2007, -1/+3makes sense to me. i had one on a cheap HS for my duron cpu and lets say that on AVERAGE it ran 70C but i took it off, applied sand paper to make it like a miror shine, put a new, quiet fan that moved almost no air on it and i applied artic silver to the HS and now im down to 30-40C.
- xLiKx, on 10/12/2007, -2/+4agree with mcbes and bpapa, the PS3 will probably pull just as much power and conduct just as much heat considering the processing power it'll probably have. but since it's still vaporware, who knows...
- xLiKx, on 10/12/2007, -1/+3i haven't had any overheating problems at all. as long as it's well ventilated like all electronics, noone should feel the need to worry about this.
- inactive, on 10/12/2007, -2/+4It'd be nice if more ppl knew that thermal paste is a pretty good insulator.
However, its a much better conductor than the air that would fill up the tiny scratches and milling marks on the heatsink.
These days, with heat spreaders being so widely used you'd think that the chip makers would be able to actually build the heatsink and heatspreader into the one unit, especially for things like the Xbox which was never designed to have a user removable/replaceable heatsink in it anyway. - Zopmaz, on 10/12/2007, -3/+5On Xbox-Scene.com too. Look on front page and they have some pictures and explinations.
- GORby, on 10/12/2007, -3/+5Ah, you gotta love the 2 year warranty period in the EU.
Less risk of customers getting screwed over by companies releasing mediocre hardware. - sklegg, on 10/12/2007, -1/+2Does Ballmer have enough chairs to throw at an entire assembly line?
- azygousguy, on 10/12/2007, -1/+2It is foil not plastic... there is a good chance that it is actually supposed to be there. Theoretically you shouldn't need thermal paste if you are sinking heat from a perfectly flat clean surface to another similar surface. The foil is incredibly thin and conducts heat as well as the grease. I haven't had the guts to open mine yet because I know there is an enormous amount of heat coming out of the back of it (something is conducting heat quite well).
- GRIMREAPER187, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1i've had problems with freezing sometimes other than that i count my self lucky it makes me wonder though if mine has that foil crap on the heat sink too
- GlenL22, on 10/12/2007, -1/+2"They still sell these pads too, some review sites use them because they can be easier to clean not to mention they are reusable. When reviewers are constantly swapping out hardware they can put the foil side down so that the cpu heatsink never needs to be cleaned and the heatsink can just keep moving from one system to the next." - fluffyturtle
Why are they using this in a production model then if reviewers commonly use the foil in test environments? Microsoft obviously doesn't want people to open their XBOX360, so I would think that they'd go with the normal thermal grease with no foil to help cooling when shipping to end-users. - SquisherX, on 10/12/2007, -1/+2Ive been waiting for 2 months to get my replacement xbox360. first time they sent me back an XBOX version 1. After getting pissed and spending countless hours on tech support, they sent back a box to send back the XBOX 1 that they had sent me. after doing so, they sent me back ANNOTHER XBOX Version 1. This is where i am right now. still xboxless.....still waiting....
- weiran, on 10/12/2007, -1/+2The foil is supposed to be there, it's used to help re-application of the heatsink after it's been taken off.
- zqwerty, on 10/12/2007, -2/+3I worked on electronic production lines as a technician for 10 years, awhile ago, and this sort of ***** happens all the time. My personal favorite is the interchanging of thermal grease with room temperature vulcanising compounds and vice versa, much of this gets out to the customer and is only discovered after failure "in the field". There are heaps of random accidental errors and some deliberate malicious sabotage plus sheer ignorance and lack of supervision contributing to this.
- ChileanGoD, on 10/12/2007, -1/+2Well, a metal foil, because its made out of metal, will transfer heat like the heat sink. The problem is in the metal to metal interface, or metal to the chip surface interface. If you want to reduce the thermal resistance you need to have the most heat exchange contact surface possible. That's why heat sinks are used so there is more contact surface with the air. So, the metal foil will never achieve the contact surface that the thermal paste will have. The paste will fill all those microscopic cracks and holes the metal foil will never reach. In the end, the thermal paste will make a much better thermal interface than the metal foil.
- Tobey, on 10/12/2007, -4/+5Wow. That could be a problem...
- Kitsune818, on 10/12/2007, -1/+1An IM home reveals the PSU for the 360 says it's rated for 203 watts, or 203W/120V= 1.69A. That's still pretty hefty for a console, but not enough to dim the lights.
- SavannahLion, on 10/12/2007, -3/+3Looking at the images (and video), this doesn't look like the same thing that you're talking about. What you're describing has aluminum on the both sides. To settle that, someone will have to take the same heatsink and lift up the compound to see what's underneath.
Besides, using aluminum like that is nutters anyways. Aluminum disperses heat well, but it's a poor conducter. Look at any decent (ie high end) aluminum cookware or automotive radiator and you'll see what I mean. That's why Arctic Silver is a hot ticket item. - VSKBadCRC, on 10/12/2007, -3/+3I doubt a recall will happen, they'll keep letting people call and complain until they get a new one sent to them, Microsoft takes the ones with the faulty heatsinks, repairs whatever needs fixing then resells it again. And a 90-day warranty will guarantee that those who don't have problems now but have problems within the first year will be forking the bill for the repairs.
I still don't believe that the fault rate was 5% or less, I just don't buy that. - matt0817, on 10/12/2007, -1/+115 amps...
- S1ay, on 10/12/2007, -3/+3This is a manufacturing defect not a design flaw. This could of happened any time through out the products life. It was some worker on the assembly line that messed up. If your waiting for "kinks" like this to be sorted out. I suggest you never buy another manufactured product again. Stick with hand made furniture and houses.
- HappyScrappy, on 10/12/2007, -1/+115A, but at 16V or something like that.
It's "only" 180W. I know that's a lot, but it's nothing like the 1200W you'd get from a wall outlet at 10A.
You're basically looking at device about as powerful as a Pentium 3-era ATX power supply put into an external brick. - Jejagua, on 10/12/2007, -2/+2Wait until one bursts on fire. Then you'll see some fast and furious recalls. Remember the XBOX v1 power cord debacle? I still want a 360.
(checking smoke detector batteries) - sniffer, on 10/12/2007, -1/+1I work at a computer store and i direct the technical division and I actually saw these things on several "Box versions" of P4's socket 478. They were more common during the 2.6/2.8Ghz time.
We usually removed them because they sucked as a thermal conductor and put ordinary thermal grease, BUT they were meant to be there and installed along the CPU. That was the thermal grease of those Cpu's. - Kitsune818, on 10/12/2007, -1/+1Heh, You'll never see your 360 again... No way you are going to convince them you sent them a 360 when they think they owe you an original. I hope you kept copies of serial numbers, etc.
- JDOG, on 10/12/2007, -1/+1damn dude...unlucky. How much bitching have you done to MS though?
- MikeCampo, on 10/12/2007, -2/+1I think it's time that they move the production lines out of the sweat shops...
- torrentjm, on 10/12/2007, -2/+1Woops!
- edrift101, on 10/12/2007, -4/+3Looked at this last night...glad I decided to wait until they worked out the kinks.
- xciton, on 10/12/2007, -2/+1There's nothing wrong with the vendor (probably Flextronics). It's not a sweat shop issue. If this is actually an error, it's because an operator didn't read the MI (Manufacturing Instructions) properly or the MI wasn't properly written.
- inactive, on 10/12/2007, -2/+1I used to work on those. I wondered what was up with that.
- fluffyturtle, on 10/12/2007, -2/+1"The foil is NOT supposed to be there, it is there to protect the thermal paste so that it wouldn't come apart in transit when shipping to the assembly plant. The purpose of the thermal paste is to create a bond between the CPU and the heat sink such that heat gets conducted from the CPU to the heat sink.
If not removed the foil BLOCKS the heat from getting transferred, which cause the CPU to overheat. The foil is a good insulator which is why you wrap stuff in foil when you bake (sometimes)."
More ignorance. They put plastic, as in baby blue or pink plastic with a built in tab to pull it off. As you can see in the video the guy has a hard time pulling the foil off and even tears the foil in the process. The logic isn't there.
Why does no one think this stuff through?
It blocks it? So you better remove your alum heatsink on your cpu then because it is blocking the heat transfer. Didn’t think so. If you have ever prepared a turkey for thanksgiving try cooking it without the foil and get back to me. - drbroccoli, on 10/12/2007, -2/+1These people are the reason whipped cream cans say "Remove cap for best results."
- fluffyturtle, on 10/12/2007, -2/+1This is ridiculous. I made it clear that review sites use it because of one of its perks. That doesn't make it unfit for production systems. In some cases it makes it the best choice as I have noted. Gap issues is one of them and also flexing to a smaller degree.
Laptop manufactures would disagree that this isn't fit for production environments. -
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