Stop Microsoft
All Things Microsoft => Microsoft Hardware => Topic started by: TonyFordz on 21 December 2005, 09:53
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I have seen & played the XBox 360 here in my town both at WalMart & GameCrazy. I was considering buying one till I saw how hot it runs. At GameCrazy you could feel the heat coming off of it, and if you touched the metal strip it was behind it would burn you. Funny how MicroSoft didn't bother to give a console that has 3 CPUs a good cooling system. There is no way in hell I am going to pop out $400.00 for one, at least not until they improve them.
My friend bought his regular XBox when they first hit the stores, and MicroSoft didn't bother placing fans on them either, the newer ones have them though, so maybe MicroSoft will do the same for XBox 360 later on. If they do have fans, they are not working right.
Anyone bought one yet?
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Yeah, I bought one. It is a pretty good system. Maybe it is because I don't treat it like a football while I am playing it.
But don't act like this is exclusive to MS, however. Sony in particular has a very poor track record with hardware quality on their game consoles.
Also a store display is the roughest enviroment for a game console, it has to deal with thousasnds of grubby meatbags manhandling the controllers, while being locked up in a displax case to stop people from walking off with it.
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I will buy it once It's chipped. Btw, many stores put the consoles in locked boxes which does decrease the ventilation. It's only a little percentage of users who have reported severe problems with the Xbox360 like artifacts and overheating. The scratched discs is another issue though but that can be easily fixed with a mod.
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That is all very true... But for the most part using MicroSoft products threw out the years. I know not to grab something fresh off the shelf. I waited until the XBox was like 2 years old before I ever touched it. My friend has one of the first from I guess about the 2nd batch that hit the shelves. Its ok, but has no fan to cool the CPU. He has had it for a long time, and he paid top dollar for his. Mine was only like 300 when I got it, and now they are around 150. I do not really regret paying 300 though, because I loved playing Halo, it took 3 months for me to beet it the first time, because my friend had it, and I came over here to play it. I own it of course now, and this is my 2nd XBox. The first one was ripped off, but not much of a loss other then all those dam saves of games I beat, and I am having to re-beat each one over again.
As for XBox 360, I really didn't see much that was impressive, and I guess until more games are released, and the stores stop displaying lame ass games, I will not bother getting one. 400 bux isn't much for some of you, but when 500-600 is all you get each month cause you're on SSI & or Disability, its a lot of money. When I worked 400 bux wasn't nothing to me, but it is now. It has taken me well over two years to get my PC from PC133 SDR to DDR333 1GB, and from 20GB to 300GB HD. Its a very slow process, and I am growing tired of trying to keep up with computers, and software, and the ever growing crap that is online and always seams to find its way into my PC. My 20GB Quantum Fireball, is one of the best HDs that I have ever had. It has been hit with everything known to man, reformatted every 15-30 days, and its still running like a charm. You don't find that in these newer drives. I have had 2 100+GB drives flop out on me, and ended up loosing tuns of files, and data. Then 2 more flopped out that was 250GB. Everyone is building cheap shit with a high price... Kinda like Sony has turned out to be, and a real shame because back in the day they made some good shit.
As for XBox 360, I still want it... But it will be a while before I touch it, because of one simple fact. Its got Bill Gates written all over it..
- Sony Playstation - I wont bother getting one, the only games I like on this system is Final Fantasy. Not worth $100.00 to me to play it, or what ever it is they want for one.
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- Sony Playstation - I wont bother getting one, the only games I like on this system is Final Fantasy. Not worth $100.00 to me to play it, or what ever it is they want for one.
What about the Nintendo Revolution? It should be cheaper, and it should have some good games. I heard a Final Fantasy game is supposed to be released too.
If I was to get one of these consoles, I'd wait for the Revolution. The Xbox 360 and the PS3 are nothing innovative (the Revolution's controller is pretty cool). Same boring machines as their predecessor, with better specs.
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I will probably end up buying all three somewhere on ebay, but I'll probably get the revolution first, since it would probably be cheapest and then the PS3, because I like their franchises, and finally the 360 because by then they probably fixed the disk problem and I won't need to dick around with things I probably would fuck up.
Apple should make a console, I bet it would be pretty damn good...
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I will probably end up buying all three somewhere on ebay, but I'll probably get the revolution first, since it would probably be cheapest and then the PS3, because I like their franchises, and finally the 360 because by then they probably fixed the disk problem and I won't need to dick around with things I probably would fuck up.
Apple should make a console, I bet it would be pretty damn good...
i can see it now
Apple i-Cube, Apple i-Box, Apple i-Station, Apple i-box 360, apple i-station 2, i-station 3. Apple i-revolution. lol
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The Pippin was a failure, get over it. Stop bringing the idea back up!
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Apple can't afford to sell consoles as loss-leaders. Nintendo, Sony, and Microsoft can, but Apple cannot. Especially in a market this over-saturated with shitty games and console competition.
There are hundreds of consumer electronics higher on my wishlist than a video game console. Although every time I have lots of money, I consider getting a gamecube so I can play the last Zelda game.
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Just think about this. Buying retail games together with a retail unmodded Xbox360 is sure gonna add to Microsoft's welth. But if you chip it and play "backups" then you'll give them the big fu, hehe.
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I wonder how long it will be before Linux makes it onto the Xbox 360.
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I wonder how long it will be before Linux makes it onto the Xbox 360.
I'd wager "not long" - work has been planned (http://www.free60.org/wiki/Main_Page) and I've heard numerous unverified accounts of one team having broken the 360's code. :cool:
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Just by looking at the pictures of the motherboard it appears that it'd be very hard to chip. The ICs appear to be soldered to the board in such a way that would make them nearly impossible to remove by hand without damaging them or the board.
EDIT:
I mean look at the motherboard (http://www.free-hp.com/userdaten/38928917/bilder/xbox360/bottom_of_the_mainboard.jpg) (warning large file)
The IC shown below probably isn't through hole, the pads will be soldered to the board underneath the chip!
(http://www.illhostit.com/files/1502416910814624/IC.JPG)
MS have made it as hard as possible to chip, the only way of making it harder would have beed to cover the ICs in epoxy resin.
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Bloody hell, surface mount.
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Surface mounting of componants is the most common method of manufacture nowadays (it was used in the origional XBox) and with practice are fairly easy to solder (I've hand-built many surface mount PCBs before). The problem with the some of the ICs on this board is the solder pads are on the back of the case, this makes things much harder.
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Isnt surface mount called BGA or something like that?
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BGA stands for Ball Grid Array and is a kind of surface mount technology, looking at it again that's what's being used here in the XBox 360.
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I don't have an iron precise enough for SMT though.
But it looks like the dual G5 people will be able to emulate it rather easily...
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Well, as long as it isn't like Packard Hell...
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I don't see what your issue with Packard Bell is. They made some good, solid machines. None of this thrown together shit you get nowadays. For instance, recently I had a 3-year old HP NIC break. What the fuck? It's not like it's extremely complicated. Their response is that 'computers only last three years'. Computers only last three years if they're trash.
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The PB computer I had(this was in the USA in the 90s, I don't know if they still do the same crap) had most of the parts integrated into the motherboard, so upgrading anything but the processor, 4 PCI devices, the drives, and the memory was nearly impossible(graphics card was integrated which was the thing that pissed me off later). To make it worse, the on board clock(not the instructions clock, but the one that was keeping time in the BIOS correct) was a Large Capacitor and not an actual battery, it died out and the BIOS would not allow me to access the Operating System. If Packard Bell still does shit like this I will not buy their computers...
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If your CMOS dies, and you know the specs of your hard drive, you can usually fool the computer into letting you at least get in and salvage some data. I've done this before.
Onboard stuff is just one of the methods that was used to keep prices down in order to insure that everyone bought a computer, even if they didn't need one. Although it was shitty at the time, it makes PCs kinda cheap now, much cheaper than they should be. Fortunately, most decent computers don't use onboard video or onboard sound anymore.
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does packard bell even exist anymore?
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does packard bell even exist anymore?
Yes, but only in Europe. And even then, they aren't exactly a huge company. Far from their glory days.
<-- Proud former Packard Bell owner, 50MHz 486 :)
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If your CMOS dies, and you know the specs of your hard drive, you can usually fool the computer into letting you at least get in and salvage some data. I've done this before.
I'd like to see that. (links?)
If your CMOS dies, that means your mobo won't post (and cannot even supply a clock for the CPU) and you aren't able to do anything at all unless you buy a new CMOS chip from the manufacturer or you hotflash it from an idtentical board...or buy a new motherboard.
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I have an old computer that just won't do a damn thing, no output at all (well, the fans spin, an LED goes on, and that's it). Would that be a broken CMOS, or should/could it beep/something if the CMOS is broken?
The graphics card I was using in it is now working well on another computer, so it wasn't the graphics card.
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it could be a corrupted CMOS... definatly a motherboard problem though. Same thing happend to me when I fried my motherboard overclocking. It'd turn on and fans would spin, but nothing. Just sat there, doing nothing.
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Have you measured across the battery with a volt meter?
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The PB computer I had(this was in the USA in the 90s, I don't know if they still do the same crap) had most of the parts integrated into the motherboard, so upgrading anything but the processor, 4 PCI devices, the drives, and the memory was nearly impossible(graphics card was integrated which was the thing that pissed me off later). To make it worse, the on board clock(not the instructions clock, but the one that was keeping time in the BIOS correct) was a Large Capacitor and not an actual battery, it died out and the BIOS would not allow me to access the Operating System. If Packard Bell still does shit like this I will not buy their computers...
You can install a real video card, and then just turn off the onboard in the BIOS. And I don't know what you're on about, I had a Packard Bell in a garage for 4 years, and the CMOS clock was only off by five minutes.
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Have you measured across the battery with a volt meter?
I have not.
It couldn't possibly be dangerous for me to try the battery from this computer on it, could it?
That might be worth trying some day.
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I have not.
It couldn't possibly be dangerous for me to try the battery from this computer on it, could it?
That might be worth trying some day.
yeah you could. it's the same battery.
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Well I tried the old computer with this battery and it still wouldn't work.
BTW, this computer would still boot perfectly without a battery.
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Well, I got a new computer and that old computer is trashed, so there is no need to continue the packard bell issue.
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I'd like to see that. (links?)
If your CMOS dies, that means your mobo won't post (and cannot even supply a clock for the CPU) and you aren't able to do anything at all unless you buy a new CMOS chip from the manufacturer or you hotflash it from an idtentical board...or buy a new motherboard.
It's not that the CMOS chip was dead, but the onboard battery that stores information for the CMOS/BIOS/POST was drained. I don't know about modern CMOS setups, but back in the Packard Bell heyday, the main problem with a dead CMOS battery was that your computer could not remember your hard drive specs. RAM and processor would still run, but the computer couldn't find a hard disk, and couldn't do anything. The key was to go into the BIOS and input the hard drive info by hand (number of sectors, cylinders, etc). It usually wasn't enough to boot Windows, but it would be good enough to get a DOS prompt and copy stuff to floppies.
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I thought you meant the actual chip when you referred to CMOS. I didn't know you meant the battery.