4 ms·

Given the RROD, I don't think its worth putting time into Xbox360. Unless there has been some development on the 360 hardware, I doubt people will be using thei

Given the RROD, I don't think its worth putting time into Xbox360. Unless there has been some development on the 360 hardware, I doubt people will be using theirs for too long. I went through 4 RRODs before the final RROD was in 2019. I thought that xbox360 was going to be pals with my son at my parents...

codepoet80 3y ago
My 2016 XBox 360 still runs great. Watched a HD-DVD off it just yesterday!
- robotnikman 3y ago
  >HD-DVD I nearly forgot how HD-DVD used to be a thing. I remember back when HD-DVD was surpassed by bluray, they had a whole shelf of those Xbox 360 HD-DVD drives on fire sale at Fry's electronics (RIP) for $10.
linusg789 3y ago
There are some near end-of-life Xbox 360 models that are less prone to RROD's, but i'm not sure if you could still install linux/modchips on the newer ones. I think they put more security on those.
- IntelMiner 3y ago
  All 360 models are susceptible to the "reset glitch hack (RGH)" more commonly known as voltage spiking the CPU The 360 "Slim" units are extremely reliable, with the 360 "E" units even further die shrunk but using much cheaper components
tslmy 3y ago
IMHO The point of this project wasn't for practicality; it's for fun in the process. For a hacker like the author, anything is a good learning practice and thus good time spent. That being said, you have a good point -- For people really looking for a serious alternative to computers, they shouldn't look too deep into Xbox 360. Thanks for putting the warning about RROD here. You've added a valuable warning sign to the original content.
babypuncher 3y ago
RROD hasn't really been much of a thing since the older fat models. If you have a slim Xbox 360 you're basically golden. Corona, Jasper, and Trinity boards are widely considered the most reliable revisions. This coveres late fat and all slim models produced from ~2008 up to 2013. The "E" model introduced in 2013 is also pretty reliable, but some units are not good for modding.
- theandrewbailey 3y ago
  Yeah, I thought RRODs were less frequent with units made after 2010. The S and E models? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Xbox_360_retail_configurations https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Xbox_360_retail_config...
  - babypuncher 3y ago
    They started becoming less prevalent throughout 2008, as manufacturers got better at working with RoHS-compliant solder and die shrinks meant less heat. However, the failure rate for the early models was only 25%. An astronomically high number for any consumer electronic and 10x that of the Nintendo Wii, but still a minority of consoles. Plenty of people got "bad" consoles in 2006, 2007 and didn't have a failure until 2009 or 2010. There were also plenty of "refurbished" consoles floating around game stores and ebay for years that would eventually fail again.
mk_stjames 3y ago
The real serious RROD on the 360 was caused by failure of the solder joints between the GPU flip-chip and the substrate due to thermal cycling. Since this linux install won't ever utilize the GPU of the 360 in a way that would get it very hot (or if the number of thermal cycles is just kept very low in total, that failure mode may simply never be an issue. And this is definitely the type of project someone is doing for fun anyway. Unfortunately even at idle the 360 isn't super power efficient, drawing ~70 watts or more, or else this could actually be a pretty neat project for repurposing a 360 as a NAS or something.
- throwaway894345 3y ago
  Wow, I forgot about that. I remember there was a last-ditch hack to try and resurrect a RRODed 360 which was to wrap a towel around it to force it to overheat, thus (possibly) re-melting the solder joints. This worked for us once, but only for a short time and subsequent towel-hacks did not bring it back. They did eventually release a new version of the 360 that doesn't RROD, which I eventually bought (realistically MS should have given these out to customers who experienced RRODs for free, but of course they had to scam kids out of whatever little money they had). Now that I have a series X, the "only" major problem is that microsoft's controllers interfere with every wireless headset I've tried (including Microsoft's own wireless headset) super consistently (yes, everything has updated firmware). I'm sure hardware development isn't easy, but microsoft seems reliably bad at it.
  - deaddodo 3y ago
    > They did eventually release a new version of the 360 that doesn't RROD, which I eventually bought (realistically MS should have given these out to customers who experienced RRODs for free, but of course they had to scam kids out of whatever little money they had). They did? They had a very generous policy where you were covered for three years after purchase, in which time they would repair or replace the hardware free of charge. If you RRoD'd in the later span of that, you would almost definitely have received an improved model (rather than them bothering to repair yours).
    - 3y ago
wolrah 3y ago
> Given the RROD, I don't think its worth putting time into Xbox360. Unless there has been some development on the 360 hardware, I doubt people will be using theirs for too long. You're 15 years behind on this one. While the original "Xenon" Xbox 360s are probably almost all dead by now, as are the first-gen Elites with the "Zephyr" board, the late-2007 "Falcon" revision that brought HDMI to the mass market models was a significant improvement and the late-2008 "Jasper" revision basically solved the problem. RRoDs on "Phat" consoles with the Jasper boards or any of the "Slim" variants are incredibly rare and unrelated to the flaw that impacted older revisions. My own anecdotal experience matches the internet reports as well. I was deep in the OG Xbox modding world so a lot of my friends are also big Xbox fans and as a result we've owned a lot of Xbox 360s. As far as I'm aware no one I know still has a functioning Xenon or Zephyr. Falcon and Opus are roughly 50/50, and I don't know of a single Jasper or later console that has failed randomly. A few have been taken out through obvious external forces like lightning, children, and/or gravity but nothing like the earlier consoles where you could just be playing a game, it freezes, reboots, and then the lights we all feared come on. A bunch of those consoles now have succumbed to optical drive failures and most of the rest are getting pickier about what discs they'll load, but that's an entirely different thing common to all sorts of older hardware. All those machines still play any games you want to off the hard drive.
yomlica8 3y ago
Went to fire up my old 360 that was in the basement to play some old kinetic dance game with the kids. RROD. Seemed a waste to throw more good money/time after bad trying to fix it.

codepoet80 3y ago

My 2016 XBox 360 still runs great. Watched a HD-DVD off it just yesterday!

robotnikman 3y ago
>HD-DVD I nearly forgot how HD-DVD used to be a thing. I remember back when HD-DVD was surpassed by bluray, they had a whole shelf of those Xbox 360 HD-DVD drives on fire sale at Fry's electronics (RIP) for $10.

linusg789 3y ago

There are some near end-of-life Xbox 360 models that are less prone to RROD's, but i'm not sure if you could still install linux/modchips on the newer ones. I think they put more security on those.

IntelMiner 3y ago
All 360 models are susceptible to the "reset glitch hack (RGH)" more commonly known as voltage spiking the CPU The 360 "Slim" units are extremely reliable, with the 360 "E" units even further die shrunk but using much cheaper components

tslmy 3y ago

IMHO The point of this project wasn't for practicality; it's for fun in the process. For a hacker like the author, anything is a good learning practice and thus good time spent. That being said, you have a good point -- For people really looking for a serious alternative to computers, they shouldn't look too deep into Xbox 360. Thanks for putting the warning about RROD here. You've added a valuable warning sign to the original content.

babypuncher 3y ago

RROD hasn't really been much of a thing since the older fat models. If you have a slim Xbox 360 you're basically golden. Corona, Jasper, and Trinity boards are widely considered the most reliable revisions. This coveres late fat and all slim models produced from ~2008 up to 2013. The "E" model introduced in 2013 is also pretty reliable, but some units are not good for modding.

theandrewbailey 3y ago
Yeah, I thought RRODs were less frequent with units made after 2010. The S and E models? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Xbox_360_retail_configurations https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Xbox_360_retail_config...
- babypuncher 3y ago
  They started becoming less prevalent throughout 2008, as manufacturers got better at working with RoHS-compliant solder and die shrinks meant less heat. However, the failure rate for the early models was only 25%. An astronomically high number for any consumer electronic and 10x that of the Nintendo Wii, but still a minority of consoles. Plenty of people got "bad" consoles in 2006, 2007 and didn't have a failure until 2009 or 2010. There were also plenty of "refurbished" consoles floating around game stores and ebay for years that would eventually fail again.

mk_stjames 3y ago

The real serious RROD on the 360 was caused by failure of the solder joints between the GPU flip-chip and the substrate due to thermal cycling. Since this linux install won't ever utilize the GPU of the 360 in a way that would get it very hot (or if the number of thermal cycles is just kept very low in total, that failure mode may simply never be an issue. And this is definitely the type of project someone is doing for fun anyway. Unfortunately even at idle the 360 isn't super power efficient, drawing ~70 watts or more, or else this could actually be a pretty neat project for repurposing a 360 as a NAS or something.

throwaway894345 3y ago
Wow, I forgot about that. I remember there was a last-ditch hack to try and resurrect a RRODed 360 which was to wrap a towel around it to force it to overheat, thus (possibly) re-melting the solder joints. This worked for us once, but only for a short time and subsequent towel-hacks did not bring it back. They did eventually release a new version of the 360 that doesn't RROD, which I eventually bought (realistically MS should have given these out to customers who experienced RRODs for free, but of course they had to scam kids out of whatever little money they had). Now that I have a series X, the "only" major problem is that microsoft's controllers interfere with every wireless headset I've tried (including Microsoft's own wireless headset) super consistently (yes, everything has updated firmware). I'm sure hardware development isn't easy, but microsoft seems reliably bad at it.
- deaddodo 3y ago
  > They did eventually release a new version of the 360 that doesn't RROD, which I eventually bought (realistically MS should have given these out to customers who experienced RRODs for free, but of course they had to scam kids out of whatever little money they had). They did? They had a very generous policy where you were covered for three years after purchase, in which time they would repair or replace the hardware free of charge. If you RRoD'd in the later span of that, you would almost definitely have received an improved model (rather than them bothering to repair yours).
  - 3y ago

wolrah 3y ago

> Given the RROD, I don't think its worth putting time into Xbox360. Unless there has been some development on the 360 hardware, I doubt people will be using theirs for too long. You're 15 years behind on this one. While the original "Xenon" Xbox 360s are probably almost all dead by now, as are the first-gen Elites with the "Zephyr" board, the late-2007 "Falcon" revision that brought HDMI to the mass market models was a significant improvement and the late-2008 "Jasper" revision basically solved the problem. RRoDs on "Phat" consoles with the Jasper boards or any of the "Slim" variants are incredibly rare and unrelated to the flaw that impacted older revisions. My own anecdotal experience matches the internet reports as well. I was deep in the OG Xbox modding world so a lot of my friends are also big Xbox fans and as a result we've owned a lot of Xbox 360s. As far as I'm aware no one I know still has a functioning Xenon or Zephyr. Falcon and Opus are roughly 50/50, and I don't know of a single Jasper or later console that has failed randomly. A few have been taken out through obvious external forces like lightning, children, and/or gravity but nothing like the earlier consoles where you could just be playing a game, it freezes, reboots, and then the lights we all feared come on. A bunch of those consoles now have succumbed to optical drive failures and most of the rest are getting pickier about what discs they'll load, but that's an entirely different thing common to all sorts of older hardware. All those machines still play any games you want to off the hard drive.

yomlica8 3y ago

Went to fire up my old 360 that was in the basement to play some old kinetic dance game with the kids. RROD. Seemed a waste to throw more good money/time after bad trying to fix it.