A disassembled Xbox 360.

AUG. 31, 2007 • According to Nikkei Electronics technicians who disassembled several Xbox 360s, the problem afflicting the console, causing thousands of warranty repairs, is inadequate cooling for the graphics chipset. The heat sink for the chipset was judged too small for adequate cooling, an apparent design decision to allow for inclusion of the DVD drive within the system. The team took apart a Xbox 360 manufactured late in 2005. Subsequently, a separate unit that had been sent back to Microsoft for repair in May 2007, was disassembled. The repaired unit had stock components replaced, with no additional measures taken aid cooling. In Xbox 360 Pros with HDMI manufactured in 2007, a new heatsink for the graphics chip has been added. It features a heat pipe that leads to a secondary “daughter” heatsink to further cool the GPU.

Impact: Taking a chance on minimal thermal tolerances seems like an oversight we’d expect to see from a company new to designing video game consoles. That Microsoft rolled the dice on its second system seems like a very bad decision. Whether it was a response to critical comments about the original Xbox’s clunky aesthetics, or just an oversight, the decision has resulted in a huge $1.06 billion charge against earnings to extend the warranty period for the Xbox 360 to three years.