The Evaluation and Development of an Efficient Cooling System for High Performance Computing Applications

Raaghul Senthilkumar and Ronik ShethCURENT, University of Tennessee

Final PresentationJuly 16, 2014

Knoxville, Tennessee

Presentation Outline

2

• Research Goal

• Background

• Methods

• Results

• Discussion

Research Goal

• Early models of Microsoft’s Xbox 360

suffered from such problems stemming

from an improperly designed cooling

scheme.

• The research goal was to evaluate the

cooling system of an Xbox 360 console

and to determine what caused the

console to fail.

3

Background

• Basic Understanding of Hardware

• Thermal Management

• Introduction to Red Ring of Death

4

Basics of Computer Hardware

5

CPU

GPU

Integrated Circuits

• A integrated circuit consists of

millions of transistors

• Transistors have two possible

states

6

Central Processing Unit (CPU)

7

• Xenon processorManufactured by IBM

Single Die

• Multi-Core ProcessorThree Cores

Two Threads

• 90 nm Process

Graphics Processing Units (GPU)

• Xenos Processor

Manufactured by AMD

Two Dies

eDRAM

Unified Shader Architecture

• 90 nm Process

• 48 Unified Shaders

Combined Pixel and Vertex Shaders

More Efficient

8

Thermal Management

• Passive Cooling Air Cooling Heat Sink

• Active Cooling Fans Liquid Cooling

9

Heat Sinks

• Passive Cooling

• Transfers thermal waste to

the air

• Heat Pipes

• Surface Area

10

Figure 1: Heat SinksUpper Left: 1st Gen CPU; Upper Right: 2nd Gen CPU; Bottom Left: 1st Gen GPU; Bottom Right: 2nd Gen GPU

Fans

• Active Cooling

• Air Cooling

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Intro To Red Ring of Death

• The infamous Red Ring of Death was

caused by flaws in the design of the

cooling scheme.

• Overheating weakened the soldering

connections underneath the chips

12

Methodology

• Different combinations of the heat sinks were then implemented to see

which combination keeps the Xbox 360 running without failure.

• Two different cooling fans were also used to see which fan kept

temperatures low.

• Thermal sensors were used to measure the temperature of the integrated

circuits.

13

Results

14

0 0.5 1 3 3.50

10

20

30

40

50

60

Heat of the Components Over Time with Standard Fans

2nd Generation GPU

1st Generation CPU

Time (minutes)

Temperature

(˚C)

Ends with Red Ring from Over-

heating

Results

15

0 0.5 1 5 8.5 1020

25

30

35

40

45

Heat of the CPU over Time with Improved Fans

1st Generation 2nd Generation

Time (minutes)

Temperature Plateau

(˚C)

Ends with Red Ring from Overheating

Results

16

0 0.5 1 5 7 10 15 20 250

10

20

30

40

50

60

70

Heat of the GPU over Time with Improved Fans

1st Generation 2nd Generation

Time (minutes)

Temperature

Plateau

(˚C)

2nd generation dissipates heat better

Discussions of Thermal Management

• The Xbox 360 manages thermal waste through a system of passive and

active cooling.  

• When designing an effective cooling scheme, the implementation of an

efficient ventilation system is necessary. Ventilation enables the heat to be

transferred out from the device.

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Results

18

FY06Q2 FY06Q3 FY06Q4 FY07Q1 FY07Q2 FY07Q3 FY07Q40

200

400

600

800

1000

1200

1400

Operating Loss (in millions)

Operating Loss (in millions)

Fiscal Quarter

$1.06 billion warrantyextension

Discussion of Economics

• The liabilities stemming from the repairs of Xbox 360 would lower the

profitability of the Xbox 360.

• A properly designed cooling scheme increases would have allowed for

more powerful chips.

• By shortening the “Time to Market”, they were able to reach the market

before the Playstation 3 and keep the cost of development lower.

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References

• http://www.dailytech.com/New+Xbox+360+Cooling+Hardware+Found+in+Europe/article7667.htm

• http://www.dailytech.com/Microsoft+Insider+Xbox+360+Team+Knowingly+Launched+Faulty+Hardware/article10434.htm

• http://www.ibtimes.com/ps4-vs-xbox-one-ps4-9-million-sold-microsoft-responds-sonys-success-1622396

• http://www.microsoft.com/investor/EarningsAndFinancials/Earnings/PressReleaseAndWebcast/FY14/Q3/default.aspx

• http://techreport.com/news/13974/microsoft-insider-xbox-360-was-rushed-to-market

• http://ieeexplore.ieee.org/xpl/articleDetails.jsp?tp=&arnumber=1624324&queryText%3Dxbox+360

• Jeff

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Acknowledgements

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Thanks to Terence Randall, Chris Crowder, and Dr. Kamrul Islam

This work was supported primarily by the Engineering Research Center 

Program of the National Science Foundation and the Department of Energy 

under NSF Award Number EEC-1041877 and the CURENT Industry Partnership 

Program.

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