New 360 "Slim" Has Built-In Overheat Protection

Andy Chalk

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Nov 12, 2002
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New 360 "Slim" Has Built-In Overheat Protection


The new Xbox 360 "slim" has a built-in shutdown mechanism that will automatically pull the plug on the unit if it overheats before it suffers permanent damage.

Last week's news that Microsoft had Xbox 360 "slim" [http://www.escapistmagazine.com/news/view/101469-No-Red-Ring-of-Death-for-the-New-360] by getting rid of the red rings was good for some laughs but the question of what had been done to address the underlying issues remained unanswered. So it remains, but there is some good news: The new 360 will give users a heads-up that there's a problem and then shut itself down, presumably before its brain boils past the point of recovery.

An image posted on NeoGAF [http://www.neogaf.com/forum/showthread.php?p=21970122#post21970122] shows a message warning, "The Xbox 360 is shutting down to protect the console from insufficient ventilation. You can turn the console back on after the power light stops flashing."

So the Red Ring of Death has apparently morphed into the annoying but far less destructive Red Dot of Inconvenience. How the unit will actually perform under real-world conditions remains to be seen; Microsoft said [http://www.computerandvideogames.com/article.php?id=251314] at E3 that the red ring problem had "pretty much gone away," which isn't exactly a rock-solid declaration of victory, but at least new 360 owners will have a chance to rectify their heat problems before a trip to the shop becomes necessary.

via: CVG [http://www.computerandvideogames.com/article.php?id=252761?cid=OTC-RSS&attr=CVG-General-RSS]


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Deofuta

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Nov 10, 2009
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Huh. Sounds like a good idea, although I certainly hope it does not happen that often. Does it give any time to save? I would love to think it does. Or maybe instead of just turning the machine off immediately it merely acts as a warning system.

De-evolution!
 

Mantonio

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Apr 15, 2009
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A question must be asked though: How many cases of this are there?

Because for all we know it might not be a manufacturing problem, and instead is just one guy putting a towel around his 360 to see what happens.
 

Flamezdudes

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Aug 27, 2009
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That would be annoying but atleast it warns us i guess. Maybe people should just use common sense?
 

Nincompoop

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May 24, 2009
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Nimbus said:
Able to post again! Yeah!

Andy Chalk said:
Red Dot of Inconvenience
We MUST make this a new thing.
Absolutely agree.

OT: Well, I'd rather have them fix the overheat problem, instead of just powering down each time. This is, however, a mighty improvement, financially, for the owners.

AT: Wth escapist? o.o... Don't scare me again like that.
 

Kruxxor

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Jan 18, 2009
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Over heat protection?

More like, advising you that the console is breaking instead of just breaking randomly.
 

MR.Spartacus

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Jul 7, 2009
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I always thought it should have had that. Come on now Red Rings of Minor Inconvenience would have just been kind of irritating.
 

Beastialman

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Sep 9, 2009
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I'm gonna love to hear the rage stories of "BUT I WANNA PLAY MW2 MOMMY!"

What if it does this during a period of "Do not shut off your console" or in the middle of a Halo 3 match?
 

Jared

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Jul 14, 2009
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Thats a nice lil function! Certainly useful! Should help stop making heating a problem
 

DividedUnity

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Oct 19, 2009
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Wow thats just great. Don't solve the actual problem just stop people playing whenever the xbox feels like it. Good one microsoft.
 

WilliamRLBaker

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Jan 8, 2010
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The original image was posted by a user named Kuu at systemwars at gamespot.

It Overheated as soon as he tried playing it for a while, He let it cool down and it worked for a bit longer but hes gonna be returning it and getting another.

A lemon? maybe, But we aren't seeing massive amounts of complaints from owners of the new system saying its failing in record numbers. We have a forum post on system wars, which is now being propagated throughout the net, And we will see that it will be used to claim the new system fails in massive amounts.
 

Vigormortis

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Nov 21, 2007
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So...instead of either optimizing the CPU (thus allowing it to use less electricity, ergo, run cooler) or building a more efficient heat sink/cooling system, they tack on a lazy OS script that just shuts off the console when it gets hot? What...the...hell...Microsoft?

Better hope the heat sensor doesn't misread or malfunction or else you'll have a console that'll still overheat and damage itself. Or worse, one that'll fail to boot at all because it thinks it's running hotter than it really is.

Nice job Microsoft. You get a gold star!
 

WilliamRLBaker

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Vigormortis said:
So...instead of either optimizing the CPU (thus allowing it to use less electricity, ergo, run cooler) or building a more efficient heat sink/cooling system, they tack on a lazy OS script that just shuts off the console when it gets hot? What...the...hell...Microsoft?

Better hope the heat sensor doesn't misread or malfunction or else you'll have a console that'll still overheat and damage itself. Or worse, one that'll fail to boot at all because it thinks it's running hotter than it really is.

Nice job Microsoft. You get a gold star!
because you know for a fact that they didn't do any of that stuff, they didn't use a 45nm process, didn't change the way the fan works, didn't change the case or motherboard, they did nothing just put a new script so it shuts down if it gets too hot...
 

EnzoHonda

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Mar 5, 2008
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"A problem has been detected and Windows has been shut down to prevent damage to your computer."

Yeah, never been down this road before. Not annoying at all.
 

Abedeus

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Sep 14, 2008
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EnzoHonda said:
"A problem has been detected and Windows has been shut down to prevent damage to your computer."

Yeah, never been down this road before. Not annoying at all.
I think that the anti-meltdown on GPUs and CPUs is more annoying, but then again, you shouldn't EVER have problems like that unless you keep your PC under an over or something.