No, not really... Laptops and graphics cards, both bga, both high heat and don't suffer anywhere near as bad.
They do and look all over the net about people who apply the same fixes for those items. Laptops and video cards are designed to be throwaway items after a few years. The 360 gets noticed because its in almost every living room. Additionally, we as the video game generations, expect our consoles to be more reliable than our computers.
Laptops and graphics card issue is NOWHERE near as bad as xbox 360. You make it sound like BGA in the way xbox 360 uses it is a new thing, it isnt. Also failure rates are not as bad in other items as they are in the 360. These are both facts. Graphics cards have been certain models/cards - again design or manufacturing issue, rather than an issue with BGA directly. As I said originally, its bad design and lead free solder that is the issue really. The xbox motherboard is pretty thin compared to others, it also has a lot of flex. The cpu and gpu are located in the centre where the most flexing happens. Lead free solder is brittle compared to leaded solder. All those things lead to the problems its had. You are just over simplifying the issue, as most people do as they do not understand it.
not really, it goes without saying almost all modern bga's are lead free. everyone jumps on the i hate ms bandwagon, but fact is 360's are in alot more homes than any one laptop or vc, and people expect them to last alot longer, and expect quality product. just look up on google about the same failures on bga northbridge chips. bga with high heat veriance, in the unleaded solder world is junk. it always will be. btw i used my xbox 360 about 5 times, so im not a fanboy. I just see the same failures in laptops, vid cards and northbridge chips. in the nonconsole world... we just replace or rma the componant.
Failure rates of xbox are higher than all other electronics with BGA. Electronics failure rate is around 3%. Hell even Wii and PS3 are around that and both use BGA and are both consoles... Xbox 360 has been anywhere between 15 and 40% on earlier models. Simple facts. Nothing directly to do with being BGA or not. How many people do you know who have had 5 laptops or graphics cards break within a couple of years? now I know at least a dozen who have had that many xboxes replaced by MS. You could take your own advice and consult google. Edit: Question: have you ever soldered a BGA chip? do you get asked to repair laptops/xboxes etc? Because I have a BGA rework station and do this type of thing too. So not only do I have market numbers thanks to google, but personal experience with my own 3x RROD xboxes and all my friends vs the hand full of laptops with faulty graphics chips, etc. All this data is easily researchable, I just dont want incorrect information being posted here as fact, when it just isnt.
Bga is horrifying.My ps3 60gb(600e).die with yellow light one day after garantie expires.(thanks bga) :Rock: All my other early consoles,without bga,works perfect over the years.
The laptops and GPUs within have known failure rates in batches of particular laptops and/or GPUs. The 360 is a single device with a high failure rate. Only certain GPUs have higher than statistical averages of failure rates and/or certain laptops. Every GPU and every laptop? No. A single video game console? Yes. Critical thinking skills people.
I have a reflow station, and I really only have used it on xbox 360's for friends. Bad video cards and laptops get thrown away. I can't sell an old non-dell/apple laptop for more than 100 dollars, and even less if the battery is canned. And you can only give away an old video card. I really only use the station for extracting components and making new proto-boards.
Did you just really imply that Dell and Apple products sell better used than other brands...? Honestly, I'm against Dell and Apple as you're mainly paying for the brand, and get stuck with horrible components.
Yep! I'm not a big fan, but put a dell or apple up on Craigslist and they sell very quick, for stupid prices. I see people buy refurbished dells and sell them on CL for full price( I sold my mini 9 for 20$ more than I bought it from dell, 1 year later)
http://www.ebay.com/itm/Jovy-System...566?pt=LH_DefaultDomain_0&hash=item45fef66b1e BGA rework station (that I have). I suspect you are talking about hot air rework station. Not the same thing. But you are still talking nonsense. I have thrown away maybe 1 video card that has failed EVER. I have personally had 3-4 RROD xboxes in the last 7 years. Most other people are the same. You cant suggest other electronics have anywhere near the same failure rate as the xbox 360. Just as you cant blame it all on BGA. You have no facts to backup your argument other than "you throw old video cards away!". Facts are, you do not understand why xboxes fail and you have heard something about BGA and just used that as the reason.
Bad_AD84 could not be anymore correct. The Xbox 360 gets the RRoD because of bad placement of the FBGA IC's and the use of non-leaded solder. There is then the issue of cooling. Standard computer processors (CPU's) have dedicated fans on them. If you look inside of a laptop, you will see it has a heatpipe and then it goes into a heatsinked plate that has a fan in it forcing the heat out incredibly well. Graphic cards (GPU's) have also dedicated sinks with fans directly on them. Compare this to a 360 and you will notice they did not do this. Instead, there are 2 fans at the back, with a plastic shroud to force the air through the heatsinks. The GPU heatsink is a piece of shit, so it gets a lot hotter than it should. The CPU otherwise is much better. Overall it is not as good as having the fans directly flowing through them. The PS3 design is much better with the cooling I reckon. However, they too did not use leaded solder. FBGA's under extreme heat were not designed to be used with non-leaded solder, as it dries out and hence, cracks. People here on this forum are not even a engineer or technician and they know it is a flawed design. You see all those morons on YouTube doing the 'magic towel trick' to fix it. All this does is it does a very light re-flow under the heat that the CPU / GPU can put out, before the thermal controller kicks in and gives the 2 red lights (overheated). They then quickly wipe off the old thermal paste (or dried out dirt iirc from my last thermal change on a 360 ) and put a huge blob in the center of the processor dies. This lasts for possibly 3 days... They then try and do the 'x-clamp fix' and bake it again. Succeeding, it then fails a few weeks or a few months later. After this, they give up, and chuck it on eBay or trade it in. To fix it CORRECTLY. You must do a full re-ball of the CPU, GPU and X/HANA IC's with LEADED SOLDER. You must also add the improved 'heat piped' GPU heatsink found in the later models (iirc 2008 and above). So yea... lol
No I do not have a reflow station specifically made for bga's. Mine is like a mini heat gun(can go from a pencil tip size to 1.5"). I do IT work for a living, so I see way more computers than xb360's. So that may make up for my seeing lots of dead video cards and northbridges. Although I have to say the #1 non-hard drive/ram failure I see is cpu caps. Like I said before, for high heat variance, in a non-leaded solder world, BGA's are junk. The issues with the xbox probably wouldn't happen If they were soldered directly or socketed. Then again, Microsoft can do better in the cooling area, something we can both agree on:shrug:. The solder is melting, before the CPU's, which is the opposite for overheated processors in most zif based/direct solder processors(most home CPU's). What brought this up in the first place, was me making fun of all the 360 failures. ;-)
12 years in IT here, you are still talking nonsense. Lead free solder melts at over 200c Xbox gets no where near that. Solder does not melt on Xbox 360s, you just show again you do not understand.
I have 11 years in it (must be that extra year:lol. Solder becomes a liquid at that temperature. When you raise temperatures with almost any metal it becomes weaker(ie;more malleable).:thumbsup: (I learned that in Chem 101). If a large candle did the same thing (on its sides, that don't reach the "liquid state") we would call it melting. It's thermal stresses, not strait up "liquid" melting to the board, the ball eventually comes loose and doesn't contact(due to thermal expansion and contraction eventually breaking it loose, "thermal ductility"). Maybe I'm wrong about this:shrug:
My whole point with this: BGA<ZIF/Direct Solder 2nd point: I wholly believe that if ms used older methods of attaching a processor(regardless of the heat issue), and that 90% of there issues would go away. Again, I agree that the combo that they have, and haven't really changed, is unreliable(as stated in my first comment about 360's). I'm just bringing to light its not just 360's that have this issue.
If Microsoft used for example, an LGA-775 type socket, where the processor is pressed against pins, then they would not have this issue I reckon. However, they do not do this, because it is more expensive to manufacture, and they would also think that people would remove the processors and or 'hackers' could use them somehow :shrug: Another issue is that the mainboard PCB is quite thin for something that gets that hot. Those standard 'x-clamps' Microsoft used are also useless. They do not pull the heatsinks down. The board also flexes under the 'x-clamp mod' because of extreme pressure. Hence again, cracked FBGA balls. Anyway, this is wayyyyyyyyyyyy of topic. The EverDrive will last a long time is what I should have said :lol:
