Microsoft crew pwns German heatsink video
After a video (and accompanying investigative post) showed up by German gaming site GameStore24.de purporting to show a severe oversight in the Xbox 360 production lines, the internet was ablaze with rumblings that the cause of the overheating 360s had been discovered: a small piece of foil placed over the thermal paste on the GPU's heatsink had failed to be removed. Apparently some 360s had the foil and some didn't. The assumption: that its presence was a result of a failure to be removed at the factory. The foil must have been some sort of protection to keep the paste from getting funky.
Microsoft's John Porcaro got the straight poop right from the 360 manufacturing team. His response (and his double negative): "The video and photos posted by German blog GameStore24.de show thermal interface pads that are not installed incorrectly. They areinstalled per specification. This foil eliminates the need of a protective liner, which simplifies the final assembly process and minimizes shipping concerns and contamination issues." Yup, he has the charts and graphs and product names and everything to prove it. They used the wonderfully named THERMFLOW T558 which features the "conformal metal foil carrier."
Porcaro doesn't explain why one of the 360s opened by GameStore24.de didn't contain the foil. Did it use the foil-less--but otherwise similar--THERMFLOW T557? Or is there a rogue factory worker on a misguided one-man mission to foil the 360's global gaming goals?
[Thanks to everyone who sent this in... both parts of it.]
