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Cooking With the XBox 360 172

Mr_Congeniality writes "Someone by the name of 'Brett' went all-out to prove how hot the XBox 360 can really get. So hot, the heatsink boils water on contact, but not only that, it can make a delicious meal. Be warned though, this video may not be suitable for those with weak stomachs!"

Cooking With the XBox 360

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  • Use all of your electronics to make the ultimate meal for nerds: []
    • Too bad his computer didn't actually heat the cooking oil by itself, he said he placed a heating element underneath the tray.
  • by lpangelrob (714473) on Friday November 03, 2006 @04:39AM (#16700605)

    The 360's not even a year old... I'm assuming the Lights of Death aren't a widespread problem? I would have read more about that on /. by now if it was widespread. (No, I don't own one.)

    The video isn't really worth watching, even if it is hosted on YouTube. Just another "cooking on electronics" example.

    • by interiot (50685)
      Microsoft is paying for repairs for the first batch of 360's shipped. [1] [] I've had the three-redlights problem that had to be shipped in to MS, and it sounds like quite a few others online have as well.
    • Uh-oh. A bible-bashing XBox fanboy.

      You from th'deep south, boy?
    • by OverlordQ (264228)

      If it's less then a year old, and just guessing that the warranty on the xbox360 is atleast a year . . . then what'd this guy do to void his warranty?

      Given that, isn't this non-story just a video of a guy cooking an egg on something hot?

      Slow news day?
      • by dlZ (798734)

        The warranty is only 90 days unless you buy as extended one. But they did extend the warranty on units produced in 2005. My unit was giving me the 3 light error over a month ago, and I called MS and they told me it was out of warranty. I called back about a week later on a tip from a local EB Games employee, and they did say the warranty had been extend
        • by Splab (574204)
          Why o why does consumers put up with that?

          Here in Denmark we got a mandatory 2 year warranty, the first year the seller has to produce evindence of mishandling in order to void it (very hard), the second year it's left to the consumer to prove error on the producers part (pretty easy) - but the way it works is the buisness always take in the item within the first two years. And on top of that you get the warranty extended if you have to get it repaired - that means if something breaks after 1 1/2 years, the
          • by dlZ (798734)
            We put up with it because we don't have that much of a choice. As a PC reseller, though, I don't sell any systems that come with less than a 1 year warranty. All the desktops we sell come with a 3 year warranty by default, though. But as a consumer I don't always have that option, unless I'm willing to shell out more money (sometimes easily in the hundreds) for an extended warranty.
        • by CastrTroy (595695)
          This is one of the many reasons why I bought a GameCube last generation. If the manufacturer doesn't trust their product enough to warranty it for at least 1 year, then I'm not buying it. Especially with expensive electronics. However, I'm not sure if it's all MS's doing, or if retailers push them to only warranty it for 90 days, so they can make a killing off selling the extended warranty. Still MS is evil because they have the final say on the warranty terms, but I can't help but think the retailers pu
          • by dlZ (798734)
            I have a feeling a large part of it is the retailers pushing them to have a limited warranty. I worked for a game retailer years ago, and we were told to push the warranty. And the result of having bad numbers was normally being fired. The warranty we had to push was pretty much crap, too, as they would replace the system with a refurbished one. This is when the PS2 was new. The refurbished units normally didn't work right out of the box.

            Because of this I'm very cautious when it comes to extended warr
            • by CastrTroy (595695)
              I think that what most people don't realize about the retailer warranties is that they aren't straight exchange. You don't just take your broken XBox into future shop and walk out with a new one. They have to send it away, have it checked, and then either fix your unit, or send you a replacement (which is usually refurbished). Sometimes the process can take over a month. I know a guy who works at futureshop, and he says the warranties are a ripoff, because of this waiting period.
              • by dlZ (798734)
                That is the problem in most cases, and retailers tend to advertise them like they are a straight replacement. I know the company I worked for told us to tell the customers that they would "be given a new unit right there." The unit was maybe new to them, but it was just some barely working refurb. Of course, there's was shipped off and the process started all over again. I think the people "repairing" the units for the company just checked to see if they turned on, but never actually tried a game in the
        • This is why the only consoles I'll buy at launch any more are Nintendo. I've never had any problems with any Nintendo systems. I didn't get a PS2 until the 50000 series came out (this is when they dropped the price to $179, the 50000 is the one with the quieter fan, built in IR receiver, and progressive scan DVD support)...and I didn't get an Xbox until they stopped making them (I got one just before they became impossible to find used). I'll probably do the same with the PS3. I don't think I'll ever ge
          • by dlZ (798734)
            I completely agree about Nintendo's quality. I've seen some Gamecubes get abused practically beyond recognition and still work fine. I normally don't buy systems at release, but the 360 was actually a gift, so I couldn't complain. I've really enjoyed the system so far, and even though I don't have a ton of games for it, I also don't have a ton of time to play anymore. A 20 hour game will easily last me hours. And the Live Arcade is great for a cheap diversion. Uno is strangely addicting and Street Fig
            • That reminds me of the stress testing I've seen done on both the Gamecube and the GBA. The Gamecube stress test I remember they dropped it a few times and really banged it up and it still worked. The GBA they did all kinds of things to...dropping it onto a hard surface repeatedly, extinguishing cigarettes on it, and even throwing it in the toilet and flushing it. After all of that, the GBA still worked...the only problems were some scratches on the screen. I've had my Gamecube since launch and it still
              • by ultranova (717540)

                I will be giving it away once the Wii comes out point in keeping the GC since the Wii is backward compatible.

                Word of advice. "Backward compatible" means "most old games will run on it". It does not mean "all old games will work on it exactly as they should", unless the Wii actually contains all of GC's electronics. Otherwise there is going to be some differences, and the odd game that chokes on them - and that will certainly be the game you want to play most.

                For example, Crimson Skies does

                • True...backward compatibility is never perfect. But I'm sure it'll be better than PS2/PS1 backward compatibility...and even that wasn't that bad. I never had a problem getting any of my PS1 games to run, and except for a slight sound glitch in Xenogears and a slight graphic glitch in another of my PS1 games (don't even remember which), I didn't have any problems. I'm sure the Wii will fare better in that it's much more architecturally similar to the GC than the PS2 was to the PS1.
    • the red ring of death happened to my xbox360 too but when I called Microsoft they said they extended the warranty by a year or something (I only bought mine like 4 or 5 months ago) which is awesome, because for $50cdn when I bought my console I payed for the 3 year extended warranty from MS and apparently they just appended that extra time onto my existing warranty.

      So I guess long story short is: either this guy was too cheap to buy a decently priced warranty, or he had done something to his xbox360
      • by steveo777 (183629)
        So I guess long story short is: either this guy was too cheap to buy a decently priced warranty, or he had done something to his xbox360 to void the warranty.

        Okay, I buy the warrantee when it's feasable (say, 10-20 bucks), but that should not be nessessary. The product is exepcted to be selling for 5 years, right? Then why the hell wouldn't they build every one of them to last at least 5 years? This isn't the motor vehicle industry, this is consoles. And people excpect thier consoles to last damn near

        • The problem is that the level of complexity rises with each generation. Of course your NES and SNES are going to work forever because as long as it doesn't get power spiked, the PC boards are going to stay intact. That's the beauty of those solid state systems, no moving parts, no hard drives, no optical drives, no operating systems, etc. Ever since consoles have started using ***-ROM drives, hard drives, operating systems, wireless/IR receivers, multicore processors, complex graphics processing units, hea

          • by steveo777 (183629)
            Well, I'm not exactly calling for a 5 year warranty, but I am saying that Sony/MS/Nintendo could certainly make it easier to get your machine fixed if there is a problem. Say, only charging for a part, or shipping back it troubleshooting is going to cost more than the console. But, yes, I think a 2 year warranty would be perfectly reasonable given the amout of problems the PS1, PS2, XBox, and 360 had (I know two people who have been through multiple 360's, one of them is on his fourth). And more than lik
      • by CastrTroy (595695)
        this guy was too cheap to buy a decently priced warranty
        You shouldn't have to pay extra for a real warranty. 3 months is nothing. If you buy it for your kids for Christmas, the warranty could be half gone by the time you open the box. I think that MS is being really underhanded in selling a $400 piece of electronics, which the previous model had known failures, and only giving a 90 day warranty.
    • The video isn't really worth watching

      You can say that again.

      OMG!!!!! A heat sink with NO FANS and a BOX built around it so that it gets absolutely NO AIRFLOW can get incredibly hot!!!!! Who'd have guessed it?????? I wonder....if you remove the heatsink entirely, do you think there's any chance the chip itself might get hot too??????????
    • by Blackwulf (34848)
      When you call the Xbox customer support line, there is actually a choice in their automated menu for if you are experiencing Three Flashing Red Lights.

      Anything that's an actual choice on the menu is a widespread problem, I'd say.

      Mine got hit with it two weeks ago on my launch day 360.
  • by Anonymous Coward []

    I start the day with Brain Age (Me: 32, My Brain: 23) and then my DS teaches me cooking... :'-)
  • it dishwasher safe?
  • by jmke (776334)
    It has been done before... long time ago, hot running CPU's is nothing new... or is it? How to fry an egg on an Athlon XP []
    • by pavera (320634)
      in your link it took 11 minutes to cook the egg
      the xbox cooked the egg almost instantly. It seriously took less than 10 seconds to cook the egg.
      • by jmke (776334)
        what do you want from a multi-core CPU? ;)
        • by pavera (320634)
          I just got my new macbook pro core 2 duo 2.33... it runs at least 75% cooler than my old dell single core pentium M 1.67
          I couldn't use the dell on my lap for more than about 15-20 minutes, the macbook is seriously the coolest (temperature wise) laptop I've ever used.
          • by jmke (776334)
            doesnt IBM make the 360 CPU? Three cores at 3.2Ghz powerPC config, they are not known for being very cool (remember the water cooled apple G5?) so put three of those cores on a single CHIP and it will use a lot more than older PCs:)
          • by Jesus_666 (702802)
            AMD64 is a very cool-as-in-temperature architecture (and quite cool-as-in-nifty, too). My X2 runs cooler on full load than my last 32bit Athlon did while idling. Actually, I can even let the computer run with the water cooling system's pump switched off without risking stability problems. Heck, if they make the low-consumption X2s/C2Ds a bit cooler we might get back to passively cooled CPUs!
  • It is a benchmark of how hot console CPUs are getting. It was unimaginable to think that a playstation or a SNES would be able to fry an egg... But...
    • It's more like a benchmark of how easy (and inefficient) it is to put a regular PC into a fancy white case.
  • COMMENT SCORE UP (Score:4, Informative)

    by Klaidas (981300) on Friday November 03, 2006 @05:34AM (#16700827)
    The link: []
    Ok, no need to mod me up. This is not informative at all. I just wanted to take this post away from karma wh**es ;)
  • by CrackedButter (646746) on Friday November 03, 2006 @05:38AM (#16700847) Homepage Journal
    I'll cook some scrambled eggs off a heat sink from the xBox 360. How do I get to look really stupid on Slashdot? By using a metal fork! Well done.
    • by Jim Hall (2985)


      You prefer that he use a plastic spork, do you? :-)

    • "How do I get to look really stupid on Slashdot? By using a metal fork! Well done."

      I dare him to do that with a PS3!
    • by BillX (307153)
      What does a metal fork matter? The heatsink is made of a solid piece of... metal...
  • As per the linked article: "Some dude by the name of Brett has gotten the dreaded Three Red Lights of Death on his Xbox 360,"

    Does the Three Red Lights of Death have any relationship to the MS Windows Blue Screen of Death?

    Same shit, just different colour.
  • .. but I'll wait for the XBox 361 with wok adapter.
  • I used to work in an Activision-owned studio. One day the IT guy comes through trying to with our power issues. He insists that we move the little dorm fridge (where we keep all the Coca Cola that powers us programmers) onto another circuit to help with the issue.

    So, complaining, we do. And go back to work on our 20-odd brand-spankin'-new Xbox 360 dev kits.

    Only later do I look at the back of the fridge and determine that it uses only half the power of a SINGLE Xbox 360.

    It's amazing the entire building di
    • The fridge is an inductive load and can cause phase and waveform issues with the power. Power issues aren't limited to the wattage a given device consumes.

        -1, Wrong. If the fridge was manufactured any time in the last decade it is almost certain to have power factor correction capacitors. This is now a requirement for consumer electronics and electrical applicances (in the EU, at least)...

        • -1, Presumptive.

          Who says the fridge was either:

          a. Made in the EU
          b. Made in the last ten years

          Fridges tend to be pretty damn durable and could have been made in the last 25 years for all you know.
  • Okay, so, he's got the hot grits...

    I'm sure we've run this joke into the ground by now.
  • mmmmmmm heat sink cooked scrambled eggs..
  • Poor Sony (Score:5, Funny)

    by FreakyLefty (803946) on Friday November 03, 2006 @06:15AM (#16700963) Homepage
    I'd like to see the PS3 do this. If Sony's offering can't make me a bacon sandwich then I'll just have to stick with Microsoft for all my culinary needs.
  • ... you get the second call from Otis in Dead Rising, the egg's soft boiled?
  • Why is there a music track instead of commentry?
  • Yeah, the heatsink's pretty hot being able to cook an egg and everything. Wonder if they bothered to watch the video before posting it, because it's really hard to read black text on a dark background.
  • 4 778/ [] []

    Microsoft will be moving to a 65nm process in the first quarter of 2007. This should result in a significant reduction in the heat and power consumption. It is the main reason I'm not buying one yet. Whether Microsoft will reduce the price of the console when the make the change is up in the air, but it will almost certainly cut the price at some time.

  • "This is your brain. This is your brain on Xbox. Any questions?"

    What a dork.

Neutrinos are into physicists.