Got a minute?... (360 Guide lag)

[t.]

The title alone should be enough for those of you familiar with this most tedious of issues. For those of you unfamiliar with this problem (and I envy you) allow me to explain.

 

The freezing occurs everywhere from games to the Dashboard. It happens when you open the guide, usually when accepting invites to games and parties and reading messages etc. This said sometimes just opening the guide alone is enough to cause it to freeze.

 

The console itself is fine and the games continue to run quite happily in the background but you can't actually get back to the game until the freezing ends, which can take several minutes. "Several minutes" I hear you say, "Stop being so impatient" Problem is when you are gaming online a minute or two is a long time for you to be stood there defenseless in the middle of the battlefield while someone lines up their scope to give you an impromptu sex change.

 

The lag varies in strength, ranging from mild 10 - 15 second lag to full on 2 minute lag which more often than not also results in you loosing connection to any parties you were in.

 

So what's the cause of this? Well that has been the subject of great debate for a while on Xbox Live and also on the Xbox.com Forums. There are many theories ranging from laughably how much gamerscore you have right down to the more realistic suggestions of caches on the 360 HDD. Despite our best efforts no one has found out exactly what causes it. It's not a problem with my network as the games are fine as are downloads from the Marketplace (although browsing the Marketplace is dreadful thanks to all the info taking a lifetime to load). My only observation from personal experience is that it could be the 360 itself, after all we know it's a pretty poor piece of hardware. My reasons for this thinking are below;

 

 

• My old 360 suffered the same issue, once repaired the issue went. However the issue came back a few months later.
  
• Brand new 360, no issues. Alas a few months later and guide and Marketplace lag return.
  
• I rule out network on the principal that this issue existed on my old 2MB ADSL connection and now on my new 20MB Cable connection.
  
• I rule out Xbox Live because I can send a party invite that will cause my guide to freeze, but the person I have sent the invite to can still join, often before my guide has un frozen, so clearly the information gets through.
  

So basically I want to hear from any of you that have this problem, because after a trip to Xbox.com I realise I am not alone.

 

The problem is sparadic, somedays it will lag like mad, others not so. If you've suffered it I would like to hear your thoughts on it.

 

Finally, there's no need to mention the guide lagging during loading screens that is quite normal.

 

Thanks guys. :)

[Speed]

Ah I thought it was only me that noticed this. As far as my memory goes, I believe I only experienced this with the changeover to NXE, and before with the blade style LIVE no lag occured. This might be incorrect though. As far as the cache issues go, I've deleted my cache before and didn't notice any changes to when lag occured so I don't think that will be the underlying cause. Hopefully someone else might have a solution.

[t.]

With regards to NXE you're right, prior to that it was fine. I too cleared my cache and it made no real difference.

[Pherelas]

Your not storing in a cabnet or on a carpet or anything? I don't know how to solve the problem but could it be overheating?

[t.]

Nope stood on a TV stand open on all sides.

[TimBud]

I'd be inclined to go with it being an HDD issue.

The sheer volume of data we download and delete, even just for streaming movies is huge. M$ are renowned for having a poor file orgaanistion system on all version of windows (hence the need for constant defragging).

It would not surprise me at all if there was a similarly bad system on the 360. And here we don't even have a defrag tool.

...

[Nipper]

I turned off the notifications, that helps a little.

 

I also never use the guide once I start playing, I check it while on the dashboard before playing, then play. Never press that damn guide button.

 

Shame though, as before NXE it was quicker than lightning for me. :(

[iLLGT3]

Thankfully I've never really had a problem with this. Good article :thumbsup: