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by vondur6 hours ago |
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upvoteby chasil6 hours ago|
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The main issue was revealed to be solder.

"Microsoft did not reveal the cause of the issues publicly until 2021, when a 6-part documentary on the history of Xbox was released. The Red Ring issue was caused by the cracking of solder joints inside the GPU flip chip package, connecting the GPU to the substrate interposer, as a result of thermal stress from heating up and cooling back down when the system is power cycled."

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upvoteby timw4mail6 hours ago|
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And there was the same problem with early PS3s, on Nvidia's GPU package...it was a fairly widespread problem at the time.
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upvoteby rwmj5 hours ago|
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And Apple iBook G3s too. There's a whole thing with owners reflowing the GPU: https://www.instructables.com/Fixing-the-infamous-iBook-scre...
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upvoteby keyringlight5 hours ago|
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I seem to recall baking PC nvidia GPU boards in your oven was a reasonably common out-of-warranty fix around that era.
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upvoteby Moosdijk4 hours ago|
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I had to do this with my MacBook Pro models early 2015 and late 2017.

It seems like there was a period in time when solder just wasn’t done well, it seems like.

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upvoteby rangestransform2 hours ago|
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IIRC this is to do with the phase in of RoHS and bad lead free solder
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upvoteby hbn5 hours ago|
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I don't have any solid numbers on me, but I believe early 360s failing wasn't just widespread; it was straight up most of them dying within the first couple years. It's honestly insane they more or less got away with that. And I guess also speaks to how much Microsoft was killing it in that era that people were willing to go through multiple console RMAs (which I heard was a terrible, slow, and unreliable process) to play 360 games. How far they've fallen.
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upvoteby Aarostotle4 hours ago|
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Simple answer: Halo 3.
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upvoteby mrguyorama2 hours ago|
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It was something like 25% - 50% of all first version 360s died.

Microsoft spent over a billion dollars replacing and repairing consoles to maintain the good brand name of Xbox.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Xbox_360_technical_problems

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upvoteby rustystump5 hours ago|
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Family got first gen 360. Still works to this day. We hit the jackpot with that console. It out lasted 2 wiis and a ps2
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upvoteby kjkjadksj5 hours ago|
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Whenever we lost a 360 we got a pre owned 360 from gamestop. I think they went for like $70 for one without any hdd.
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upvoteby bombcar2 hours ago|
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That was the real story, by the time they started dying you could just grab a working one for "decently cheap" if you still cared.

However, I wonder how many people got "burned" by it and swore off Xbox consoles going forward.

I know that era we got a lot more use out of the Xbox (original) and the Wii.

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upvoteby thenthenthen6 hours ago|
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Sounds like the 2012(?) Macbook Pro after the switch to leadless solder (?). I had to cook my motherboard 3 times in the oven to revive it.
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upvoteby chasil6 hours ago|
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Funny!

I've heard that flash memory can also be revived with heat, either long duration or high intensity.

https://www.extremetech.com/science/142096-self-healing-self...

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upvoteby thenthenthen5 hours ago|
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Some macbook hacks involved disabling sleepmode, running a benchmark and putting it in a pile of blankets for a few hours
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upvoteby esaym4 hours ago|
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When did the industry transition to different/lead free solders? Wonder if that was part of the issue?
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upvoteby monocasa3 hours ago|
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Yeah, it was the transition to RoHS.
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