The expectation now, with a single die and a more robust cooling system, is that the Xbox Slim will survive a few months or years longer than its white-cased brethren.
The Nyko Intercooler has also been reported to have led to a general hardware failure in a number of consoles, as well as scorching of the power AC input. Lead-free solder requires a greater amount of heat (213 degrees celsius) to solder properly when compared to older lead/tin solders (185 degrees celsius). This suggestion is, however, rejected by the majority of experts. They have suggested that the dull appearance only suggests that the joints are cold soldered, as lead-free solders, even when properly soldered, take on a dull appearance that non-professionals might mistake for a cold solder joint (as the older lead/tin solder solder-joints became dull when not heated sufficiently). Some officials claim this issue does not exist, and claim it is caused by a confusion over this issue. Because of prolonged constant temperature changes inside the console, the voids cause cracking. The added mass of the CSP chips (including the GPU and CPU) absorb the heat flow that allows proper soldering of the lead-free solders on the motherboard, therefore, the solder has not properly melted underneath these chips, which can lead to voids (air bubbles) and weak spots in the solder known as cold solder joints. One possible cause of the General Hardware Error may be cold solder joints. You can read all about it here but here’s a general description: Just as an aside, the reason Xboxen failed so often is because the GPU and some of the other components would pull away from the circuit board for a number of reasons, the primary one being overheating. First, and most important, the processor (codenamed Valhalla ), eDRAM, and GPU are now on one 40nm die, which means that the problems associated with failing heatsinks should be negligible. Do you buy a Slim? Do you replace your old 360? Or do you sit tight until the next generation? Questions, questions, questions.Īn exhaustive review is a bit of overkill for this update, so let’s just talk about what’s different. Nintendo, for example, just released a black Wii – it’s the same Wii, but black – and, not to be outdone, Microsoft just sent out their Xbox 360 S, a full-bore replacement for the space heaters known as the Xbox 360. It’s fairly hard to review the latest crop of consoles.