The Official Rant Thread

[xxpenguinxx]

i hav a overclocked gtx 470 and by the looks of it its going to be a very hot summer. hope the same thing doesnt happen to me :/

As long as it has a heatsink on the voltage regulators, mosfets or what you call them, it shouldn't happen. Mine didn't have a heatsink even though there was a clearly squared off area for one.

The GTX 470 is also part of a completely different generation of graphics cards, it comes with better voltage regulators right off the bat. I haven't read anything on them having this problem.

[DoorM4n]

My uncle died.

[Zaid]

My uncle died.

I'm sorry : (

[troymac1ure]

My uncle died.

My condolences. I hope you're able to join the rest of the family to celebrate his life. Although funerals aren't welcome, there really is no better time to reunite with family. It's pretty much the only time that all people will take time off to attend (and weddings).

My uncle died a few months ago and the time that I could spend with every family member was quite welcoming. My 2 year old daughter and I (my wife coudn't make it) took a 10 hour drive for 2 days with family and 10 hours back. The road trip was time spent with one I love and I'd do it again in a heartbeat. I guess what I'm saying is make the best of a unwelcome situation.

[DoorM4n]

Thanks guys. And thanks troymac. I appreciate your sympathy. He is really going to be missed. It is so shocking that he's gone.

[Grimdoomer]

Fuck matrix arithmetic, fuck it.

[OwnZ joO]

You in linear algebra too, or coding something to do with matrices? I'm right there with you either way man. On that same note fuck asian professors that can't speak english well enough to be understood while simultaneously having a fucking crazy schedule for the class that doesn't make sense. We have like 3 or so sections of homework in the last chapter do on the day of our test and don't even get the homework before that one back before the test. He even went over some of the stuff on the test the day of, WTF.

[Grimdoomer]

I was working on reverse engineering more of the 360 boot animation. If I can figure out most of the functions that manipulate matrices then I will just recreate it in a new 360 project instead of how I currently hijack into it. Most of them have to do with the directx render loop where they update the d3d device's view matrix and update the pixel shader data (colors, light pos/falloff etc) for the meshes. This is the function I was looking at when I posted that: http://pastebin.com/ABbT7UHj which is just mC = mA * mB. I have a few more of these bastards to work out, then I have to deal with vector arithmetic. Although it is more simple than matrices, it's inline which makes it more annoying to work with because there are so many instances of it instead of 1 localized function. But if I can get both of those down pat then there are just some small misc things to work out.

[DemonicSandwich]

Setup a special effects system for Halloween. Pumpkin lighting, a doormat with screaming voice box, and a strobe triggered by the former.
I hate using candles in pumpkins. Difficult to light and have to be relit when extinguished.

While doing some last minute adjustments to the microcontroller code to get the strobe working properly, I ended up creating a coding error that destroyed most of the parts on the board because my brother's kept annoying and distracting me.

At least this year most people who came Trick or Treat'ing actually had customs. Few things about the holiday annoy me more than someone ToT'ing in casual clothing.
Though we did have a small group of ToT'ers show up more than an hour before sunset. Wasn't annoying, just unorthodox.

[Grimdoomer]

Setup a special effects system for Halloween. Pumpkin lighting, a doormat with screaming voice box, and a strobe triggered by the former.
I hate using candles in pumpkins. Difficult to light and have to be relit when extinguished.

While doing some last minute adjustments to the microcontroller code to get the strobe working properly, I ended up creating a coding error that destroyed most of the parts on the board because my brother's kept annoying and distracting me.

At least this year most people who came Trick or Treat'ing actually had customs. Few things about the holiday annoy me more than someone ToT'ing in casual clothing.
Though we did have a small group of ToT'ers show up more than an hour before sunset. Wasn't annoying, just unorthodox.

There were only like 5-7 people that came to my door. Even when I was out walking around with some friends we only saw a few people. By 8pm the streets were dead and everyone's lights were off. It was pretty depressing. But I guess the storm played a big role in that.

[DemonicSandwich]

The 360 wifi adaptor is a fucking joke.
The only way to get 4/4 bars, or even 3/4 bars, of signal strength is to be in the same room as the router but at that point it's better just to hardwire it to the router instead.

There is 60 feet of open space and one wall between the adaptor and the router.
The adaptor regularly shows between 0/4 and 1/4 bars of signal strength.
My laptop which is at the same location regularly shows 5/5 for signal strength.
Disabling the laptop wifi has no effect on the 360 adaptor.

Outstanding to think to think that they used to charge $100 for this POS.
Edit: And now it doesn't work at all. Shit lasted less than 3 weeks.

[Click16]

The 360 wifi adaptor is a fucking joke.
The only way to get 4/4 bars, or even 3/4 bars, of signal strength is to be in the same room as the router but at that point it's better just to hardwire it to the router instead.

There is 60 feet of open space and one wall between the adaptor and the router.
The adaptor regularly shows between 0/4 and 1/4 bars of signal strength.
My laptop which is at the same location regularly shows 5/5 for signal strength.
Disabling the laptop wifi has no effect on the 360 adaptor.

Outstanding to think to think that they used to charge $100 for this POS.
Edit: And now it doesn't work at all. Shit lasted less than 3 weeks.

I only use wifi because it is built in, but I would defiantly not purchase a wifi adapter, easier to just get some LAN Cables.

[Zaid]

Some people can't use cables though...

[Ogrish]

My wifi adaptor worked well, but i gave it away after buying the 360elite.
The wifi on it works good too.

But because mine runs off wifi, i cant mod my profile and play the reach campaign as a grunt unless my router is off.

[Grimdoomer]

So 90 hours into Skyrim I realized that there is a dragon priest mask I need to open a portal, that I cannot get because it is only avaible at a certain point in a quest I completed long ago. I'm not gunna go redo 40 hours of game play for one item, but I'm also not gunna give up that easy. A quick look at the Skyrim game saves prove my initial theory, it's all serialized instance game/VM data. While I can modify some useless stats, I can't add an item to my inventory very easily. Next idea, since i know the location of the place the mask is found at, I'll just climb the cliff using some glitches and get it. Wrong, there is a barrier at the top of the cliff. Well a quick looksy at the game executable in IDA, 5 minutes later, and I had removed the barriers from the game. So I get to the top of the cliff and proved yet another theory. The dungen is not here because while the game map shows it is here, it is in a seperate world cell. Fuck, back to ida. An hour or so later and I have removed the insuficent gold, insuficent magicka charge, encomberance, no magicka/stamina, skill level, lock picking, pick pocketing, crime related, key related, dragon soul related, perk point related, merchant related, horse related, and even more crap, checks/blocks from the game. Cool, I guess, but I still want this fucking mask So I'm gunna have to wait until the pc toolset is released, in hopes I can open the 360 files and get some more info like the cell/item id of the dungen/mask. I may be able to get the game to spawn me in the dungen or spawn the mask using the ids. In the mean time I will continue looking for hack related ways to spawn this mask.

[neodos]

Got Halo Anniversary.

Got RROD (before I could even start a game).

Fuck.

[Click16]

Got Halo Anniversary.

Got RROD (before I could even start a game).

Fuck.

What version xbox and how many rings?

[neodos]

No idea, I bought it a year after the release of the 360.

It wasn't doing any RROD, just when I played it like 3 months ago (halo reach) I did get a few crashes, the screen would freeze and the image would be a bit scrambled, looks like either graphics card or chipset overheat/fail
Today I plugged it back after 3 months and it just kept on crashing when I got to the halo anniversary menu, I had to do a dashboard update before this btw and no problems during the update.
Then i started turning it on and off as it crashed when I got the game loaded and that's when I got the RROD, 3 rings.

[NotZachary82]

So 90 hours into Skyrim I realized that there is a dragon priest mask I need to open a portal, that I cannot get because it is only avaible at a certain point in a quest I completed long ago. I'm not gunna go redo 40 hours of game play for one item, but I'm also not gunna give up that easy. A quick look at the Skyrim game saves prove my initial theory, it's all serialized instance game/VM data. While I can modify some useless stats, I can't add an item to my inventory very easily. Next idea, since i know the location of the place the mask is found at, I'll just climb the cliff using some glitches and get it. Wrong, there is a barrier at the top of the cliff. Well a quick looksy at the game executable in IDA, 5 minutes later, and I had removed the barriers from the game. So I get to the top of the cliff and proved yet another theory. The dungen is not here because while the game map shows it is here, it is in a seperate world cell. Fuck, back to ida. An hour or so later and I have removed the insuficent gold, insuficent magicka charge, encomberance, no magicka/stamina, skill level, lock picking, pick pocketing, crime related, key related, dragon soul related, perk point related, merchant related, horse related, and even more crap, checks/blocks from the game. Cool, I guess, but I still want this fucking mask So I'm gunna have to wait until the pc toolset is released, in hopes I can open the 360 files and get some more info like the cell/item id of the dungen/mask. I may be able to get the game to spawn me in the dungen or spawn the mask using the ids. In the mean time I will continue looking for hack related ways to spawn this mask.

What quest is this? I always loot those dragon priest fuckers blind when I kill them.

[Click16]

No idea, I bought it a year after the release of the 360.

It wasn't doing any RROD, just when I played it like 3 months ago (halo reach) I did get a few crashes, the screen would freeze and the image would be a bit scrambled, looks like either graphics card or chipset overheat/fail
Today I plugged it back after 3 months and it just kept on crashing when I got to the halo anniversary menu, I had to do a dashboard update before this btw and no problems during the update.
Then i started turning it on and off as it crashed when I got the game loaded and that's when I got the RROD, 3 rings.

Well is it a white 360 or slim? There are a few things you can do to fix a 3 RROD.

What I did to fix my friend's was take it apart, and remove the (double) fan. Position it so that it is only blowing off the CPU but NOT the graphics. Allow it to get VERRRY hot, after about an hour or so turn it off, and let it cool down to room temp. It worked for him, Don't know if it will work for you.

[Grimdoomer]

So 90 hours into Skyrim I realized that there is a dragon priest mask I need to open a portal, that I cannot get because it is only avaible at a certain point in a quest I completed long ago. I'm not gunna go redo 40 hours of game play for one item, but I'm also not gunna give up that easy. A quick look at the Skyrim game saves prove my initial theory, it's all serialized instance game/VM data. While I can modify some useless stats, I can't add an item to my inventory very easily. Next idea, since i know the location of the place the mask is found at, I'll just climb the cliff using some glitches and get it. Wrong, there is a barrier at the top of the cliff. Well a quick looksy at the game executable in IDA, 5 minutes later, and I had removed the barriers from the game. So I get to the top of the cliff and proved yet another theory. The dungen is not here because while the game map shows it is here, it is in a seperate world cell. Fuck, back to ida. An hour or so later and I have removed the insuficent gold, insuficent magicka charge, encomberance, no magicka/stamina, skill level, lock picking, pick pocketing, crime related, key related, dragon soul related, perk point related, merchant related, horse related, and even more crap, checks/blocks from the game. Cool, I guess, but I still want this fucking mask So I'm gunna have to wait until the pc toolset is released, in hopes I can open the 360 files and get some more info like the cell/item id of the dungen/mask. I may be able to get the game to spawn me in the dungen or spawn the mask using the ids. In the mean time I will continue looking for hack related ways to spawn this mask.

What quest is this? I always loot those dragon priest fuckers blind when I kill them.

I don't remember the name off hand, but it is when you are at Skuldafn, the place you have to ride a dragon to get to. Right before you jump through the portal in the floor there is a dragon priest you face. I was a low level, high, and didn't have many powerful weapons. So I just decided fuck it, and jumped through the portal without killing the priest. Little did I know he had a mask I needed.

[neodos]

What I did to fix my friend's was take it apart, and remove the (double) fan. Position it so that it is only blowing off the CPU but NOT the graphics. Allow it to get VERRRY hot, after about an hour or so turn it off, and let it cool down to room temp. It worked for him, Don't know if it will work for you.

Yeah its a white one, sometimes it will boot without the RROD and get to the game btu it will crash getting past the menus, guess it overheats or something.
I heard removing the fan causes overheat and it makes the soldering make and re-attach so I might try that in last resort

[Ogrish]

Ok, take your CPU off, clean the old solder/flux, pull the mother board out, flip over, put screws thru the board, and reinstall cpu.

tighten the locknuts on screws loosly at first, overheat xbox, now while it warm carefully tighten the screws.

This will keep your cpu from loosing connection and causing the RROD when the xbox gets hot.

An intercooler will help keep xbox running cooler, but i keep a small external fan running directly into a a hole in the side of my white xbox, when i use it.

I have fixed 9 360's with RROD this way, but they all had simalar error codes.

[neodos]

Yeah I have just gotten a set of Torx screwdrivers, but guess what, I need a T8 the smallest I have got from a hardware store today was T10, figured that out once I tried so I'll get one next week.
I'll remove the cooling grid clean and add a new later of whatever that liquid thing is called you put between the cooler grid and the cpu, guess i'll also try padding the ram just in case it might be that.

Otherwise i don't plan to overheat the console to temporarily fix it, I guess i'll add an internal fan over the gpu and keep the xbox open maybe.

Thanks for the tips i'll try

[Ogrish]

I believe its called heat paste.

padding the ram is an exelent thing to do anyway
Radio Shack will have the T8
Good luck