current 360s - more reliable?

[stainboy]

A friend of my Mum's is after getting a 360 for her son, are the ones in shops now any more reliable? I assume the Elites are better but could the Premiums be any age?

[briareos_kerensky]

Right now Both Elites and Prosuse the Falcon revision, so they are more reliable that older consoles but not all 360s are Falcons, you can end up with a Zephyr (IIRC) that is basically a revised motherboard rather than a revision with a 65nm CPU (less heat, less power hungry).
You can understand if it's a Falcon from the box, the power rating is 175W.
However, I've heard of Falcons failing, so while they are more reliable, they might not be completely reliable.

[Brad]

Guy who sits opposite me had 2 falcons die in a 6 week period so I doubt that 360s are any more reliable now than they have been in the past. I might be wrong of course!

[stainboy]

Cheers, well at least they'll have been warned. At least if it dies within a year they can just take it back to the shop like anything else.

[randombs]

Isn't the new Jasper thingy coming out in September? I've got an old Premium that I'm gonna 3RL fix in the hope that it lasts until then, then I'll probably get one of those if they're quiet and more reliable

[dannywhac]

Isn't the new Jasper thingy coming out in September? I've got an old Premium that I'm gonna 3RL fix in the hope that it lasts until then, then I'll probably get one of those if they're quiet and more reliable

Yeah - Jaspers due out in 'Fall' this year, although when it'll hit Euro shelves is a bit uncertain...

Falcons are just as reliable as Zephyrs, so it's a gamble either way really....

@Billy - when you fix your 360, use this method (incase you hadn't looked already):

http://rbjtech.bulldoghome.com/pages/rbjtech_bulldoghome_com/XClamp.htm

Found that it's way more reliable than the MK3 method as it allows more adjustment on the old heatsinks

[chipsgravy]

Is the Jasper chipset avaliable yet? Or is it still a gamble?

Carl

[MattyD]

There's still no confirmed sightings in the wild. Rumour has it they are holding back on Jasper until they can finish designing the combined CPU/GPU chip die, at which point they'll introduce it along with a massive price drop thanks to the cost savings.

[Matt]

That doesn't actually make sense. The Jasper would be a little cheaper to produce than the previous versions as the GPU is on less silicon. So holding back a cheaper product to launch an even cheaper product in 6 to 12 months time isn't logical. Plus the next iteration will require a whole new mobo design, and everything that goes with it (HSF, etc).

[Hulk Davidson]

Apologies for the bump, but instead of creating a new thread, thought I'd search first.

I'd like to get a new model since my main unit sounds like a jet plane and is crashing more and more frequently. But also, I'd like to have a larger hard drive, 20GB isn't enough for me any more.

Has anyone bought a premium 60GB 360 recently and can confirm if they have the 'Jasper' 12.1A hardware? Or an Elite for that matter?

I've heard that newer Arcade units are shipping with the latest motherboards, but not sure about the other models.

Cheers!

[MattyD]

I'm pretty sure all new machines have Jasper motherboards now since the new design incorporates a larger flash RAM needed to store the NXE dashboard, avatar editor etc.

It's quite easy to spot whether a machine is a Jasper or not from the box BTW. Look through the little window on the box that lets you see the machine's serial number sticker. In the lower left-hand corner is a voltage and amperage indicator. If it says 12v...14A it's a Falcon (though you shouldn't see one by this stage) and if it's 12v...12.1A it's a Jasper. They also have 150w PSUs instead of 175 but you can't see that from outside the box of course.

[fahrenheit]

^ Only the Arcade units have the 256mb onboard flash.

If you can't see anything useful through the window (the area that says '12.1A' is usually obscured), check the sticker on the box as the next best thing.

Mine was bought in NZ, so no idea what the stock is like in your neck of the woods, but you will want to see -

TEAM: CSON
LOT NO: 0849X (or greater. '08' denotes 2008, '49' denotes the week).

Thats from my 60gb Jasper, so anything greater than that is going to also very likely be Jasper. Should see them coming soon with the Lot no: being 09, so those will no doubt be gauranteed Jaspers.

[Mayhem]

I bought an Elite last month and it was a Falcon, so it really depends on the stock and the warehousing that supply the places you can buy from.