We all know the hardware reliability of the Xbox 360 systems has been horrid thus far. Microsoft has been aware of this issue since launch as the immediate failure rate was much higher than that of any other console. Microsoft's response was a proverbial denial however most people could see through their smoke screen. Almost two years down the road, the reliability is still horrid. According to one credible estimate, the failure rate of the Xbox 360 in the first year of its life is 30%. I tend to agree with this estimate. Out of many people I know, their failure rate was even higher than 30% although I do concede that not all of their malfunctions happened in the first year of the console's life.

The death of the vast majority of systems is due to the red ring of death. This error indicates that there is an electrical short on the motherboard. Presumably in all cases of the red ring of death, the problem was caused because the system got too hot causing at least one soldering joint on the motherboard to warp. Microsoft has not made any changes to the system to increase its reliability until very recently. This has dragged the reliability issues out past the eighteen month marker.

With such a high failure rate, Microsoft has been forced to make amends by reluctantly offering a three year warranty on all of the systems. You might be wondering whether they have really sold 11.5 million systems as they claim. The number could technically be inflated with all those replacements. Surprisingly, their number may not be as inflated as one might think. When most systems go bad, the owner is asked to send their system to Microsoft and in return, they get a working refurbished system. The problem here is that a vast majority of these refurbished systems have not only been brought back from the dead at least once, they are still highly probable of suffering from this same defect down the line. I have bought plenty of refurbished products and virtually none of them have been problem free. Microsoft has the same extensive testing philosophy as most electronic companies have. Fix it to where the power turns on and then ship it out. Forget testing to see whether it can play games or even stay on for a few hours without overheating. We are dealing with corporate philosophy here. If the power goes on, it must work! From now on when you hear people claim they are on their 5th system, do not doubt them. They are telling the truth. It happened this way because four of their five systems were refurbished units.

A few months ago, people receiving refurbished Xboxes in return for their broken systems noticed that Microsoft has finally decided to start tackling the problem. Better way too late than never? This was a fairly simple fix. It called for the use of a bigger heat sink in the system to help better dissipate the heat produced by the CPU. It was not until a week ago that Microsoft started putting these in brand new systems. These systems are easily identifiable because they are in the systems which include HDMI. Until now, the recently introduced Elite system was the only Xbox to include an HDMI output however it lacked the new heat sink. Now for the first time, new shipping systems are coming with the new bulkier heat sinks first seen months ago in refurbished Xboxes. I have no doubt that these new heat sinks will improve the reliability of the system but with such limited space in the system, a system perfected of heat problems this is not.

Luckily there should be an even better fix right down the pike. Falcon is the code name of the motherboard which will be used with a 65nm version of the Xenon CPU. Right now, the Xbox is still using 90nm technology in its processor. Allegedly, a few months down the road we should start seeing new Xboxes retrofitted with these new processors. The CPU is the single most power hungry part inside the Xbox followed closely by the GPU. The die shrink of nearly 30% should cut the heat production of the CPU by ~15%. This 15% will make the difference between expected heat output and super hot.

If Microsoft actually pays attention to the hardware of the system this time and stops placing so much faith in the cheapest bidder, they might actually have an ideal system this time around. Aside from horrid reliability, the biggest problem with the system is it's excessive noise pollution. Before the system came out, Microsoft highly touted the whole notion of the ability to toggle the fan speed so when you were not playing a game, the system would appear very quiet. When I got the system, I noticed that the feature was there and worked as expected however it was not what I had in mind. The system toggled between loud and very loud rather than the silent and quiet. Unfortunately, the loud fans and the hot CPU are mutually exclusive parts so not much has changed. Users do note that the systems with the new heat sinks are slightly quieter however nothing in the realm of desirability.

The system I have is from launch day. I consider myself lucky. Other than a handful of hardware related crashes, I have not had any unexpected hardware related problems with the system over the last 21 months. In addition to everyones' fans being very loud, my Hitachi DVD ROM drive is even louder. Many systems now have quieter drives however I consider this a luck of the draw fix more than 'they listened.' The system has sold 13m worldwide and each system requires a DVD ROM drive. It is hard for any one manufacturer to produces so many drives and that is why not every system has the same parts. Some drives are quieter than others but most if not all are at least slightly quieter than the launch Hitachi drives. As you might have guessed, the noise level of my system is my main bone with it. Given this system's history of subtle changes at a time, I do not expect much to change when the new CPUs are implemented (save for reliability). My ideal system of HDMI v1.3, very quiet fans and DVD ROM drive, a 120GB hard drive and a CPU that can actually decode video a lot better than the current CPU probably will never happen. Otherwise, I might consider buying a new system one day. Except for the hard drive size, these highlights can only be seen on the PS3, something Sony got very right.