New Xbox 360 model may be Red Ring killer

With the new “Jasper” model of the Xbox 360 out, there’s a new chipset, which is supposed to be better in every single way than the old one. So that would mean that any Xbox 360 made after October 23, 2008 should have the chipset.

There are also many other changes in the new version of the 360. There’s graphics chip, that’s now 65nm, which means that it won’t run as hot as previous Xbox’s, so hopefully no overheating issues and power consumption will be less of a problem. This should fit quiet nicely into the motherboard socket, which means less system failures all together. Also since it’s smaller in size, it’s less expensive to produce which explains why Microsoft has been dropping prices like no other.

The main failure cause [with the older 90-nanometer graphics chips and the boards that came with them] was “thermal fatigue” of the leaded C4 connections between the graphics chip die and its organic carrier. The underfill had too low a glass-transition temperature for the amount of heat generated. That caused cracking over time, resulting in graphics chips coming loose.

In previous versions, Microsoft addressed this with better heat sinks. The temperature sense diode was off in a corner and didn’t reflect the true temperature in the core regions. Jasper has shifted to a material with a significantly higher transition temperature. Coming up with this fix took time, since the new material had to be identified and tested. The smaller 65nm chip die also helps since the stresses that cause the thermal fatigue are related to size.

Does this mean that the red ring of death will be no more forever?

Link