4956653

Re: I think I give up on PC gaming?

July 23rd, 2009 10:33 PM

What does the Red ring o' death mean anyways? I saw some dirt-cheap 360's for sale that had that problem, and the seller said it was fixable. Of coarse all of your points are true, but if they ever happen to break, they are overall much cheaper to maintain if you have 0 technical knowledge. While they work, you can boot up and play almost immediately, with no hassling over installation problems, driver problems, getting the right settings with the right FPS, etc. They are all standardized, and (most) game builders take advantage of this to make sure your game runs right. Also, if I recall correctly, I've never heard my friend's 360 or wii the times I've played with him. Maybe the fan was broken, which is why it died at this time of the year, with these record-breaking temperatures.

To put it simply, Game systems are designed for those who have virtually no technical knowledge, and don't want to spend hours learning/tweaking things to play a good game once in a while. Maybe Yellowboy assumed it would be the same with a PC.

4956683

Re: I think I give up on PC gaming?

July 23rd, 2009 11:43 PM

"Red Ring of Death" refers to a change in color of the light on the 360 power button, which is normally a green semi circle. When it turns red it's an indication the system has shut down, which is almost always caused by overheating.

Hardware wise there have been 3 incarnations of the 360. The first upgrade was a smaller die size CPU called the Falcon chip, which requires less power and produces less heat. These models shipped with smaller, lower wattage power adapters.

The last incarnation of the 360 involved upgrading the GPU (graphics processor) to a smaller die chip called the Jasper. Some have said RRoD still can happen, though it seemed to be less prevalent even with the first upgrade.

I recommend getting the latest incarnation and better yet, invest in a laptop cooling unit to place under it, esp if you plan to engage frequently in long gaming sessions and/or live in a hot climate with no air conditioning. The LT coolers can be had for around $20