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How to find a Jasper Xbox 360

Engadget has an interesting (if gratuitous) disassembly of a new Jasper-era Xbox 360. But the most important thing here, of course, is the info on how you can ensure you’re getting a Jasper unit when you buy a new Xbox 360:

The Xbox 360 box has a hole at the top of it where the bar code of the console is visible. Clerks usually scan this when you buy one. What you need to do it look at the lower left corner of this box. If you peer closely you can make out at least half of the voltage/amperage rating of the unit. The # of amps used by the 12 volt rail is the key to determining which console it is. The photos below show this in detail.

14.2 amps equals a Falcon unit (65nm CPU, 90nm GPU). Please keep in mind there's nothing wrong with having one of these, I play mine a lot and it's fine. You might not be able to see the whole voltage listing just through the peep-hole, but you should at least be able to see if a 14.2A or 12.1A is just to the left of the "5V".

 

12.1 amps equals a Jasper unit (65nm CPU, 65nm GPU). This voltage rating is also listed above the power input, but of course you can't see that when it's in the box.

There has been a lot of discussion about lot #'s, power supply ratings, and things of that nature being used to find Jaspers. I have found those to be unreliable.

Brilliant.

Comments

 

meason said:

hmmmm.... do I want to invest in a Jasper Arcade just in hope of finally getting a 360 that does not sound like a vacuum cleaner

December 12, 2008 10:12 AM
 

Lindy said:

That vacuum sound is really the DVD spinning really fast.  PC's suffer from the same thing.  The latest 360's when not using the DVD drive are pretty quiet, not as quiet as a PS3 or Wii.

Watching a DVD on a 360 is painful because of the noise, especially a movie that is quiet in nature.  At one time there were going to switch to a quiet DVD drive but I am not sure that happened.

December 12, 2008 11:14 AM
 

gorath said:

I've never understood why DVD drives are so noisy when watching films, when there's no need for them to spin faster than 1x speed.

curiously, all the blu-ray drives I've used have been stunningly silent, even when reading at full-speed. I know they spin slower than DVDs due to the high data density, but they're still awesome, and make less noise than most commercial CD player drives.

December 12, 2008 12:11 PM
 

meason said:

not the dvd in my elite.  I am running games off the HD and it still sounds like a vacuum.

December 12, 2008 12:17 PM
 

lotsamystuff said:

How to find a reliable gaming console:

Look for the name "SONY PLAYSTATION 3" on the box.

It will look like this:

http://tinyurl.com/6ddqlw

December 12, 2008 12:30 PM
 

mdsharpe said:

I guess 16.5A is a bad sign then lol...

December 12, 2008 12:33 PM
 

Lindy said:

My PS3 and 360 sat side by side for a while.  Every time I fired up the 360 it was like I was starting a Yugo, noisy and with the fear of "come on baby dont RROD on me now.  The PS3 firing up was like staring a 745i.  

Many times I have the left the PS3 on because its so quiet and the power light is small I missed it.  When my kids leave the 360 on and you walk in the room its like "DAM shut that down before my power bill goes up or it melts".  The noise and brighter light just jump out at you.

December 12, 2008 2:54 PM
 

Waethorn said:

"I've never understood why DVD drives are so noisy when watching films, when there's no need for them to spin faster than 1x speed."

It's for error correction mostly.  It can read ahead and deal with errors before you actually get to see them.  In real-time, the drive would have to stop.  Video playback would fail at that point.

December 12, 2008 4:35 PM
 

gorath said:

but domestic DVD players don;t spin that fast, surely the fastest they spin is double speed.

I mean, if you're spinning the disc at 1.1x normal speed, then you've already buffered a minute's worth of video after ten minutes.

December 12, 2008 5:22 PM
 

Lindy said:

Nothing like a 52X Liteon drive in a cheap PC case going at full speed.  You get visions of the disk flying out and taking off a leg or something in the room:)

December 12, 2008 5:38 PM
 

Deutschsprachiger Microsoft Media Center BLOG said:

Golem.de hat sich die neue Generation der XBOX 360 mit dem Codenamen Jasper auf ihr Potenzial in Punkte Lautstärke und Stromsparen getestet. Das Fazit ist ernüchtern: "Sparsamer laut". Die Box hat ein neues Netzteil bekommen und in der Box selber werkelt

December 13, 2008 8:57 AM
 

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