How Long Do Xbox Consoles Last?

[Pr0d1gy]

Someone is a bit Jaded....

I have 3 X360s my halo 3 one has yet to fail ever. The two others have failed 3 times each RROD. Then another’s DVD drive started getting bad so I replaced that through Microsoft. It really is his hit and miss. I would say overall X360 reliability is wanting and has some QC issues.

Meanwhile my 2 LAUNCH PS3s never have had any problem at all and are still going strong.

My PC's generally eventually fail in the power supply department after a few years. But that's an easy fix; either gets a new PSU or RMA the old one.

Electronics these days are fun. I’m not complaining.

7 failures on on 3 Xboxes and I'm jaded? My launch PS3 died and all my Xboxes died too. Thus they're all trash. I have a 10 year old TV that I've dropped at least 2 or 3 times that still works like the day I bought it. Why is it acceptable for consoles to take a dump within 3 years?

 

[Raduque]

My launch day X360 died sometime earlier this year, I posted a thread on it, don't remember the exact date.

 

[ronbo613]

Why is it acceptable for consoles to take a dump within 3 years?

Because these giant corporations know that most people who buy game consoles are serious about it and even though we bitch and moan about all the problems, we keep buying them.

 

[Pr0d1gy]

Because these giant corporations know that most people who buy game consoles are serious about it and even though we bitch and moan about all the problems, we keep buying them.

I'm becoming less serious by the minute.

 

[shingletingle]

give it plenty of room to breathe and don't block the ports that get rid of the hot air

a lot of the issues were people putting it into small spaces where it blocked air flow

Not true. I had several RROD on me and they all had plenty of breathing room. I loved the console but I gave up on it and refuse to be one of those people that eagerly give Microsoft more money when their system breaks.

 

[Sonikku]

Slims last a lot longer then the Fats. Especially more so then the Xenon and Zepher fats. The 360 slim benefits from having both a cooler, more efficient CPU and GPU and placing them both under a big vent with a very large fan to cool them. The fat in contrast with it's older tech has chips that are positively scorching, made all the worse by sticking one of them directly under the disc drive with hardly any air flow. That white jacket thing they stick in there is about as effective at moving heat away from it as an ant is trying to move a bicycle.

If you thing yours is on it's way out, copy your saves and profile to a flash drive (you'll have to buy a transfer cable otherwise). Also, try and turn it in to gamestop for some trade in value towards a slim before it gives out completely. They often have offers to give you a bonus $50 towards any PS3 or 360 hardware turn in value on top of their usual amount, so keep your eyes open.

 

[coldmeat]

Slims last a lot longer then the Fats. Especially more so then the Xenon and Zepher fats. The 360 slim benefits from having both a cooler, more efficient CPU and GPU and placing them both under a big vent with a very large fan to cool them. The fat in contrast with it's older tech has chips that are positively scorching, made all the worse by sticking one of them directly under the disc drive with hardly any air flow. That white jacket thing they stick in there is about as effective at moving heat away from it as an ant is trying to move a bicycle.

If you thing yours is on it's way out, copy your saves and profile to a flash drive (you'll have to buy a transfer cable otherwise). Also, try and turn it in to gamestop for some trade in value towards a slim before it gives out completely. They often have offers to give you a bonus $50 towards any PS3 or 360 hardware turn in value on top of their usual amount, so keep your eyes open.

The slims haven't even been out for 2 years yet. My near-launch xbox lasted longer than that before breaking.

 

[holden j caufield]

got an original xbox 360 , rrod fix maybe 4-5 years ago? I have a laptop cooler sitting underneath it. Has lasted some time, also I plug it straight to the wall adapter. Been like at rock the last 4 years.

 

[mmntech]

If you still own a launch model 360 or PS3, there's a good chance it will die if it hasn't already. What happens if the chips run too hot, which softens the solder holding them on to the motherboard. It's more prominent in the 360 as its heatsinks and fans were too small to adequately cool it. It's a common problem with compact , high perfomance systems. The PS3 has the exact same issue, it just takes longer for them to fail thanks to their bigger cooler.

What Sony and Microsoft did to combat this in the slims was shrink the processor dies. Smaller transistors are more efficient and thus loose less energy to heat. Both the 360 and PS3 slims use a 45nm process IIRC, down from the original 90nm. Since they run more efficiently, they run cooler, and thus have a fantastic shelf life.

Lesson learned? Desktop grade components crammed into poorly ventilated cases don't mix.

 

[rh71]

My launch xbox from 2002 still runs and looks like new but I take care of my stuff too..

yup - the kids are playing racing games on my original [but chipped] xbox (original drives though) right in front of me as we speak. lol... they were born in 2008.

I resurrected it after moving twice and finally got my home office set up here. Have never gotten another console since. Found N64 roms for it too. Even those are before their time.

 

[Sonikku]

The slims haven't even been out for 2 years yet. My near-launch xbox lasted longer than that before breaking.

It doesn't take a rocket scientist to know that a version with refined, cooler chips, bigger fans and smarter placement of vents over the gpu and cpu are going to have a positive impact on the longevity of a hardware. Besides, xenons, zephers and falcons had widely reported serious problems right out of the gate for millions of owners. The problems the Slims have had in it's first two years are a fraction of the complaints the fats garnered in their own first 2. If your Fat lasted 2 years without problems that's great, but to say there's no way to know if the Slim variants are better designed or more likely to last than the horrible arrangement of the Fats arrangement of components is just silly.

 

[ronbo613]

I take care of my stuff, but nothing lasts forever. I don't use my old Xbox Pro as much as most people, but it's kind of like a boat; sitting around not being used doesn't necessarily mean it's going to prolong it's life.
I may just bite the bullet, buy a new Xbox Slim, take the old one apart, buff it out and give it to a friend who will use it for Netflix and Hulu and never have to worry about console bans.

 

[Fallen Kell]

If you still own a launch model 360 or PS3, there's a good chance it will die if it hasn't already. What happens if the chips run too hot, which softens the solder holding them on to the motherboard. It's more prominent in the 360 as its heatsinks and fans were too small to adequately cool it. It's a common problem with compact , high perfomance systems. The PS3 has the exact same issue, it just takes longer for them to fail thanks to their bigger cooler.

What Sony and Microsoft did to combat this in the slims was shrink the processor dies. Smaller transistors are more efficient and thus loose less energy to heat. Both the 360 and PS3 slims use a 45nm process IIRC, down from the original 90nm. Since they run more efficiently, they run cooler, and thus have a fantastic shelf life.

Lesson learned? Desktop grade components crammed into poorly ventilated cases don't mix.

The only reason the launch PS3s fail is from the thermal interface material (heatsink paste) drying up, and/or the fan getting clogged. I have an original 60GB PS3 (i.e. the one that has full backwards compatibility to PS2 and PS1 games and SD card reader) and it is still working just fine. That is because I have done proper computer maintenance on it. I open it up from time to time and remove all the dust. I also replaced all the thermal paste on the CPU and GPU about a year ago (3-4 years is a long time for thermal paste).

 

[Oyeve]

Most TV's built in this century have inputs for you to plug your computer into it. Wierd post man.

How is it wierd? PCs look like ass on most HDTVs. If you actually understood what I posted it was more to the affect that PC only gets 2-3 really good exclusive games a year. And thats being extremely generous.

 

[OVerLoRDI]

My original xbox is still kicking had to replace the hard drive once.

 

[Ferzerp]

Although it can be done, it is a violation of Xbox policy and could lead to a console ban.

I'm sure it is, but I bet it has firmware that would not allow you to use it as a regular hard drive. Maybe the firmware can be reflashed. 250G is small by today's standards, my laptop has a 500G HD, none of the hard drives I use with my computers, except for a 120G SSD, are 1TB or larger.

That's one individual's interpretation. And it's a silly interpretation, especially coming from a random xbox owner. The link for supporting documentation links to some poster claiming it to be the case, which has a link where the same users asks the question and then "verifies" it himself.

When one of ours died, we did the same thing. Bought a 4GB slim, and put the old HD in. You have to do a license transfer to get your downloaded stuff to work, but it works fine. No they aren't going to ban you for that.

 

[ronbo613]

That's one individual's interpretation. And it's a silly interpretation, especially coming from a random xbox owner. The link for supporting documentation links to some poster claiming it to be the case, which has a link where the same users asks the question and then "verifies" it himself.

I don't know if you checked it or not, but that link is to an xbox.com forum thread regarding the hard drive swapping issue. That thread was locked by a forum moderator and provided the Microsoft Terms of Use that stated swapping hard drives was not permitted.
Not sure what you mean by "random xbox owner". That's pretty much everybody, isn't it?

 

[Pr0d1gy]

How is it wierd? PCs look like ass on most HDTVs. If you actually understood what I posted it was more to the affect that PC only gets 2-3 really good exclusive games a year. And thats being extremely generous.

Yeah sorry man, your writing is so intellectually advanced, astute, and articulate that I had a hard time following it.



















lol

 

[vshah]

my summer 2008 unit is still working perfectly, if a bit noisy.

 

[Oyeve]

My newely purchased refurb slim just froze! it was while watching a movie on epix so that app may very well be shit, but I was also watching a movie on epix when my previous 360 died. Hmm.

 

[AnthonyStarks24]

I'm pretty sure that most of the time it dies just randomly, i had my xbox 360 for years though my brotherinlaw been through 3 of them in the exact same time frame

 

[American Gunner]

Well, my slim is starting to have disc drive issues. That will be my 4th Xbox with a disc drive problem. But I hardly game on it, and when I do game I do it on my PS3. So, this will be the end of the line for me.

 

[jay2nice000]

the new s models are RROD proof had it for over a year with out any type of problem

 

[Ryan Trippy]

I have a launch edition Xbox 360 that has been modified for ultimate cooling. Completely removed the metal/ plastic grates in the back in front of the fan. Replaced stock fan with whisper fan. I also cut out the grated metal casing on the side for cooling purposes. It runs almost silent, you can feel the cool air being pulled in through the sides. It's almost 10 years old! I also have an OG Xbox console from 2004 I believe. 13 years old. I am honestly impressed

 

[AMDisTheBEST]

Xbox 1 will last until Xbox scorpio comes out. That thing will have a Vega iGpu on par with a r9 390x in performance and likely 8 cores ryzen CPU too.