Has anybody else experienced the red rings with the new improved Falcon model? I just got a couple of rings last night but I quickly shut off the console and restarted. After restarting the 360 everything was fine. I played for about 3 hours straight.

Should i be worried? HELP!!

Was it the three red rings?

Sometimes, if a wire is loose, then you will get a four ring error. Check your connections if you got something other than the ominous three red rings...

In the largest single thread tracking 360 failures the Falcons are holding up pretty well:

http://http://www.neogaf.com/forum/showpost.php?p=9266904&postcount=7118 (http://www.neogaf.com/forum/showpost.php?p=9266904&postcount=7118)

Still too early to tell, IMHO. I went ahead an purchased a Best Buy PRP for my Falcon 360, only the second time in my 29 years that I've paid for an extended warranty on anything.

Even with the three-year warranty on RROD, I don't want to get a refurb unit. In every forum I frequent you get the impression that the refurbs are a ticking time bomb.

Actually it looked like it was 1 or 2 quadrants that lit up. I shut it off before i could really tell exactly how many. I dont want to get stuck with a reurbished model either so im hoping its not serious.
I will check all the connections to make sure. Since I do have it sitting on the floor (on tile, not carpet). I didnt have any problems playing after the rings so im not sure if thats good or bad.

Getting two lights indicates an overheating error. That's why after leaving the console off for a bit, it started working again. How is your 360 oriented...horizontal or vertical? If it's vertical, immediately place it horizontally. When you place it vertically, you are blocking the main area the 360 uses for air intake. Even with the small offset of the rubber feet, there just isn't enough airflow to properly cool the unit.

Getting two lights indicates an overheating error. That's why after leaving the console off for a bit, it started working again. How is your 360 oriented...horizontal or vertical? If it's vertical, immediately place it horizontally. When you place it vertically, you are blocking the main area the 360 uses for air intake. Even with the small offset of the rubber feet, there just isn't enough airflow to properly cool the unit.

yea i wondered why there was all those holes on that side, lol. i have mine laying flat on a entertainment unit that has lots of air going around it so i'm good. i guess the xbox likes the horizontal mombo!

Getting two lights indicates an overheating error. That's why after leaving the console off for a bit, it started working again. How is your 360 oriented...horizontal or vertical? If it's vertical, immediately place it horizontally. When you place it vertically, you are blocking the main area the 360 uses for air intake. Even with the small offset of the rubber feet, there just isn't enough airflow to properly cool the unit.

I've had mine vertical for over a year now, about 7ish months of that in a TV stand, and have never had a cooling issue with it.

Is your 360 in a closed cabinet, or anywhere near your cable box? Make sure it has lots of room to breathe and not by any high-heat outputting devices. Even with the improved heatsinks and lower heat output of the new chips, the exhaust fans are still fairly weak and you should accomodate your systems cooling as much as possible. I know I had problems with mine in an open home theatre cabinet (front & back), because it was semi-close to my cable box which you could fry an egg on.

I got one red on my Falcon one time, and haven't had any problems since. I believe it was on the lower-right quadrant. As I touched the power button to turn the console off, I zapped it with static electricity and the red light appeared. The static may have had absolutely nothing to do with it...possibly just a coincidence. I restarted and the console has worked perfectly since then.

Getting two lights indicates an overheating error. That's why after leaving the console off for a bit, it started working again. How is your 360 oriented...horizontal or vertical? If it's vertical, immediately place it horizontally. When you place it vertically, you are blocking the main area the 360 uses for air intake. Even with the small offset of the rubber feet, there just isn't enough airflow to properly cool the unit.

Having the unit horizontal must help alot. I still have the launch day unit that I play every day and I never had a red light. I have always had it horizontal.

I do have my console horizontal and away from any heat sources. Its sitting on tile by itself (for now). Also, i believe it was the lower right quadrant that lit up. But i quickly shut it off before taking a second look. Since then, ive played without any problems but im just wondering if i should worry.

vertical = bad. My first one was vertical, never again. Once I seen the inside of these things for myself, I would highly recommend NOT putting it vertical EVER.

And do yourselves a favor, and get some taller rubber legs underneath it. You can get them at any home hardware, even walmart type of stores. The ones on the 360 are too short, and there is no room for air underneath the unit

"And do yourselves a favor, and get some taller rubber legs underneath it. You can get them at any home hardware, even walmart type of stores. The ones on the 360 are too short, and there is no room for air underneath the unit"

As an added bonus, the rubber feet reduce vibration tranferral to the surface that the 360 sits on. The effect is lower disc noise. Yay! :)

I posted these pics in another thread, but since the insides of the console was brought up, I figured I'd put them in here as well. Like newfmp3 mentioned, once you see the inside of the console and realize how the air moves (or doesn't), you realize how critical proper placement and ventilation is.

Picture 1

http://www.freewebs.com/badcyborg/inside%20xbox360.jpg

This is the system with the plastic casing removed. You will notice the metal motherboard "pan" that the system is setting in. The large heatsink is the CPU heatsink. The white shroud is for hot air exiting via the exhaust fans. Pay careful attention to the piece of metal residing under the DVD drive.

Picture 2

http://www.freewebs.com/badcyborg/insidex360.jpg

Closer view of the metal under the DVD drive, which just happens to be the GPU heatsink plastered right against the drive. Can you start to see why the GPU has a tendency to overheat?

Picture 3

http://www.freewebs.com/badcyborg/Xbox360cooling.jpg

Here is a view of both heatsinks with the DVD drive removed.You can see how setting the unit vertically is going to limit cooling.

If you look at the first and third pictures, the area to the right is what would effectively be the bottom if placed vertically. That area is the only good area the 360 has to breathe, especially when you clip on the external hard drive, thus blocking about 90% of the area you see on the left side.

As a note, all of those pics are from a console with the old GPU chip and heatsink configurations. Here's a pic of a Falcon console. You can see the added heatsinks. I believe that this is the heatsink configuration ithat MS is doing to repair consoles sent in with the 3-light issue as well.

http://img.hexus.net/v2/gaming/screenshots/heatsink.jpg

I posted these pics in another thread, but since the insides of the console was brought up, I figured I'd put them in here as well.Thanks for posting those pictures and for the accompanying explanations. That was fascinating.

Here is a view of both heatsinks with the DVD drive removed.You can see how setting the unit vertically is going to limit cooling.I confess that I don't really understand how the unit's orientation affects its cooling efficiency. Is it because the heat is rising from the CPU to the GPU instead of going into the shroud? Or is it because the right/bottom side is the only really good source of air intake?

Funny thing is, I ran the unit vertically for a long time and only got the RROD after placing it horizontally. Either way, from my experience building PCs I can see that the design looks like something of a mess in terms of cooling and airflow.

As I mentioned under the pictures, when you place the unit vertically you are eliminating the only real place the console has to "breathe". Even though there are the little rubber feet, there still isn't enough area to get proper ventilation.

I do a bunch of cooling mods to the units that I fix (of course, this invalidates MS warranty, as I have to open the console). The biggest improvement is running the rear exhaust fans on a full 12V. From the factory, the fans only run at 5V and the speed is variable based upon temperature. What I do is make the fan run at 12V regardless of internal temp. Before the mod, you can't get a piece of tissue to suck to the intake side. Afterwards, you can place a piece of notebook paper about 1/4" away and it will suck right to it. Big difference!

I also do some shrouding over the GPU heatsink, create a partition inside the rear fan shroud to separate the airflow between the two heatsinks as well as remove the perforated areas on both the intake side of the metal motherboard pan as well as the perforations at the rear of both the pan and the plastic casing. Looks "not pretty" when you see it from the rear, but those perforations reduce airflow about 40%. I have played a solid 3 hours of Ace Combat 6 and the air coming out is warm...almost tepid. The last thing I did to my personal console is added an 80mm fan on the intake side with it's own 12V power supply and switch. This way, when I shut the console down, I can leave the 80mm fan on for a while to aide in cooling the heatsinks down. I may go in and rewire the exhaust fans to the same external power supply so both sets remain on after console's shutdown.

I just happened to have my console at my office today, so here are some pics that might explain what I do...to the outside at least. Sorry for the bad pics, I had to take them with my phone. This also shows the cool skin that a friend of mine printed off for me on vinyl. I have a matching one for my Gen 1 Xbox.

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v66/bugman72/Xbox/01-29-08_0941.jpg

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v66/bugman72/Xbox/01-29-08_0942.jpg

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v66/bugman72/Xbox/01-29-08_0943.jpg

Mine has been vertical for almost two years, if it is going to die it does not matter how it is oriented. They are just poorly made.

thanks for all of you input guys! Hopefuly all the tips will help my 360 from malfunctioning. I really enjoy playing it so, fingers crossed.....

Heatsink shroud mod:
http://rbjtech.bulldoghome.com/pages/rbjtech_bulldoghome_com/Xbox360.htm

here is the home page for that mod, he has other mods and cooling testing before/after temperatures.
http://rbjtech.bulldoghome.com/pages/rbjtech_bulldoghome_com/XboxHome.htm

enjoy!!! I did similar mods to my Falcon ( had cpu heatsink shroud extend past to draw air by gpu heatpipe heatsink).

51ccpe:

one red ring in 4th quadrant stands for hardware failure. Can often be cause by low voltage. do you have one of those extra coolers? Also the new falcon powersupplies just kind of sit in their socket. They don't snap in like the old ones do. Double check your cords.

It is my understanding that the RRoD result primarily from overheating of the GPU, not the CPU. Since Falcon systems currently only shrink the size of the GPU, they are just as prone to red ring (though it's reasonable to assume that the situation is marginally improved by the cooler-running CPU contributing less heat to its neighboring GPU) as the older Zephyr chips. Supposedly we will not see this problem addressed head-on until they start using the Jasper chips for both the CPU and GPU later this year.

I don't say this as a way of convincing people to wait on a 360 purchase. I just bought an Elite 2 weeks ago, and although I haven't checked, I'm fairly certain it's not a Falcon. With the three year warranty extension, why not go ahead and roll the dice? Worst case scenario, you get a coffin and a month-long wait. Or, if you're really worried, get it at Costco or Best Buy with a warranty.

Falcons have smaller CPUs and GPUs. They have both been replaced with smaller, cooler chips.

Falcons have smaller CPUs and GPUs. They have both been replaced with smaller, cooler chips.

The Falcon has a smaller CPU, the GPU is still 90nm.

oh no! holly cow! just received mine from amazon, pro package with 175 watts printed on the box!I hope all new ones have 3 years warranty too?

Cpu, gpu and eDRAM are all believe to have shrank in die size.

link: http://www.anandtech.com/printarticle.aspx?i=3152

huge power savings on new system.

Cpu, gpu and eDRAM are all believe to have shrank in die size.

link: http://www.anandtech.com/printarticle.aspx?i=3152

huge power savings on new system.

I was just about to post a link to that story.

Looks like the Falcons are 65nm CPU / 80nm GPU.

oh no! holly cow! just received mine from amazon, pro package with 175 watts printed on the box!I hope all new ones have 3 years warranty too?

You're fine, you got a good one. Enjoy.

My buddy bought a new Falcon and it died with the RROD within 3 days. He took it back and got another Falcon and it has been fine for 6 weeks. I know the rest of the system will be cooler because of the cooler CPU, but if they are still using the same 90nm GPU then shouldn't the GPU still be generating the same amount of heat?

My buddy bought a new Falcon and it died with the RROD within 3 days. He took it back and got another Falcon and it has been fine for 6 weeks. I know the rest of the system will be cooler because of the cooler CPU, but if they are still using the same 90nm GPU then shouldn't the GPU still be generating the same amount of heat?

It is not the same 90nm GPU. It has been shrunk, as well. Anand Tech assumes that it has been shrunk to 80nm since it didn't shrink as much as it should have to get to 65nm. But it is still smaller than the original GPU.