Do you have a troubled relationship with an Xbox360 gaming console? You love it because you’ve become insanely hooked to the hours of unbelievable enjoyment that it gives. You hate it because…um, need I say the infamous ring of death?

The red ring of death gives countless consumers a good amount of grief and frustration. It’s likewise given Microsoft some headaches as well…to the tune of about a billion dollars or so in warranty repairs. Now the first question that needs asking is why?

What exactly are the causes for the three red lights or the ring of death? The main reason is heat. The Xbox becomes overheated when it’s used continually over a period of time.

So how can the Xbox get so overheated? There’s two parts to the explanation here. Firstly, the graphics chip was engineered on a cheap budget by Microsoft.

Instead of going to an experienced vendor to design the chip (ASIC vendor), Microsoft decided to do the graphics chip design in house, that is, on it’s own. They did this in an effort to save a few tens of millions of dollars in design costs. We all know that to get the job done right, you have to hire an expert.

It’s well known that our “home made” efforts just will not work as well as work done by the pro’s. Microsoft’s in house job is inefficient in that it dissipates too much waste heat. The other part of the overheating problem is that the cooling system is only marginally capable of dispersing the tremendous heat put out by the home designed graphics chip.

It really doesn’t take much to make it over heat. Try running the unit for any length of time, especially in a warm, room with no air conditioning and it’ll over heat. The console doesn’t tolerate partial blockage of its cooling vents either.

For example, it’s easy enough to allow cables and cords to become all bunched up at the rear of the console. This by itself can cause the console to get too hot. Thinking of running it in a junky cluttered corner where the midday sunlight will hit it in that un-air conditioned room?

Well, it isn’t a good notion either. Of course, you probably don’t treat your toys like this, but the point that I’m making here is that consumer products are supposed to be able to tolerate some customer abuse and keep on ticking. An issue that I have no answer to is what went wrong with the quality control process at Microsoft?

There must be some sort of product testing program in place to protect the customer from defective products. Maybe it was deficient in that it didn’t simulate typical customer use of the Xbox. Or possibly it was ok, but management shipped it out the door anyway?

All conjectures aside, the great news is that Microsoft has gone to an ASIC vendor in the US and had the graphics chip redesigned. Maybe some day your ordinary Xbox gamer won’t know what you are talking of when you mention the red ring of death.

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