Earlier this year, Microsoft appear an addendum of the Xbox 360's assurance from 1 to 3 years for consoles afflicted by the abominable Red Ring of Death (RRoD) defect. Microsoft never accepted what absolutely acquired the RRoD, or how abounding consoles would ultimately be affected, but the affection are actual able-bodied known. Your animate will alpha to freeze/lock up, eventually followed by three red lights on the advanced of the system, afterwards which you'll either be able to animate the box for abbreviate periods of time or it becomes an big-ticket allotment of avant-garde art.

The present band-aid to RRoD is appealing simple; you alarm Microsoft's abutment hotline, you accord the adumbrative some advice about your Xbox 360 (he/she will again airing you through some analytic steps, annihilation too painful), and a few canicule after you'll acquisition an abandoned box at your doorstep. Toss in your Xbox 360, affix the pre-paid aircraft characterization (Microsoft alike provides band to allowance the box) and about a ages after you'll get a refurbed or cast fresh Xbox 360, as able-bodied as a 30-day canyon for Xbox Live. While you're after your animate for as abundant as a month, at atomic there's no bulk incurred; all-embracing Microsoft takes affliction of RRoD victims absolutely well.

Many accept estimated that the acumen for the RRoD problems is because of bare GPU cooling, consistent in fractures in the lead-free adhesive amid the dent and the motherboard. We haven't been able to affirm this suspicion but we accept been able to acquisition affirmation that Microsoft abandoned abounding suggestions to advance GPU cooling in the Xbox 360, although we're not abiding why.

Simply attractive at the Xbox 360's internals you see that there's article amiss with the cooling setup; the heatsink accoutrement the GPU, admitting wide, is almost ample abundant to air-conditioned a low end desktop cartoon card, abundant beneath the college powered GPU that's in the Xbox 360. If we accept that the Xbox 360's GPU is at atomic as able as the PS3's, the cooling requirements should be about similar; accustomed that the PS3 basically had a GeForce 7800 GTX beneath its hood, the cooling requirements should be similar. What would crave a two-slot cooling band-aid in a desktop PC was accustomed a almost able heatsink on the Xbox 360 and ashore beneath a DVD drive.

Despite the acutely bare cooling, the Xbox 360 formed aloof accomplished - the barring actuality what seemed to be an disproportionate bulk of RRoD failures, but back Microsoft continued the assurance it wasn't a huge problem, aloof added of an annoyance.

It's accessible that simple tweaks in the accomplishment action could abate the likelihood of RRoD, bold that it is calefaction related. As crop curves advance over the activity of accomplishment a accurate chip, it is accessible to aftermath chips that run at lower voltages and are appropriately cooler. It could actual able-bodied be that the consoles that abort due to RRoD are artlessly application college crop GPUs that run at college voltages, and appropriately aftermath added heat, answer why the botheration seems to affect some consoles but not others. If this alternation were true, as all-embracing dent yields improve, the affairs of RRoD go down.

When rumors began bit-by-bit up about Microsoft affective to 65nm chips in the Xbox 360, abounding wondered if this could be the end of the RRoD problems, extenuative owners the cephalalgia with ambidextrous with abeyant failure. Bold that the basis account of RRoD is bare cooling, it is achievable that affective to acknowledgment chips could allay if not altogether fix the problem.

While there's no absolute way of proving whether or not these fresh Xbox 360s will abate the affairs of the alarming RRoD, the beatnik in us couldn't advice but try to go acquisition one of these babies, analysis it and booty it apart.