And since it was now crippled in two key capabilities, I couldn’t in good faith donate it. Although the console’s Wi-Fi still worked fine, its now-archaic 802.11n bandwidth was insufficient to enable its ongoing use as a robust Windows Media Extender for HD-streamed content. Today, I’ll be tearing down an Xbox 360 S, whose wired Ethernet facilities (like those of its predecessor) had failed, following the prior demise of its HDMI output (which I’d worked around by connecting it to the TV via VGA instead). 【Free Webinar】MOSFIT: Infineon Automotive MOSFET Riding Innovative Design And the graphics memory, while still implemented on a standard die, was included under the same package lid as the CPU/GPU combo, which greatly simplified the system’s heat sink and fan architecture. By this point, the CPU and GPU were both fabricated on a 45 nm process and could be combined on the same die. A more dramatic console redesign occurred with the Xbox 360 S (“Slim”), introduced in late 2010. In order to improve the Xbox 360’s thermals, along with reducing the console’s bill-of-materials cost, Microsoft iterated the first-generation design multiple times, repeatedly shrinking the Xenon CPU and Xenos GPU’s manufacturing lithographies in the process (pun intended). Fast forward to today, in fact, and Microsoft and Sony are the only dedicated home console players left early leader Sega departed years ago, followed by Nintendo (who in fairness, it should be noted, remains a dominant player in the portable console market). Plus, by getting the hardware (accompanied by all-important compelling content, of course) to market in late 2005, one year ahead of competitor Sony, Microsoft guaranteed itself a leadership position in only its second console generation. Microsoft robustly supported its early adopters with replacement units through an extended warranty period, while retrofitting those failed consoles with improved replacement internals and returning them to the market. That said, to this day I remain convinced that Microsoft’s decision to speed the console to market with sub-par thermals was the right one. Reader interest was fueled in no small part by the console’s extensively-documented red ring of death (RROD) issue, the result of high heat generated by the system’s 90-nm fabricated (initially, at least) CPU and GPU, which eventually resulted in solder joint failure through successive iterations of temperature cycles (and even “bit” yours truly). The teardown analysis I did of the “Elite” variant of the original Microsoft Xbox 360, published in mid-2007, was one of EDN’s most popular Prying Eyes columns. Following up on the dissection of the original Xbox 360 Elite, this teardown explores the more integrated, cooler-running Xbox 360 S.
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January 2023
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