Has anybody recently sent their box and gotten the same one???

Just called today to get my prepaid label and box. Manufacture date of 07/06. Bought in 10/06. Had 3 red rings.

Has anybody recently sent their box and gotten the same one???

Yes. see my prior posts in this thread.

RKRocha

GAMERTAG: RICHUT96

Has anyone had their Xbox 360 repaired and:

1) Gotten an older build box back? Or,

2) Gotten the newer and "super-quiet" BenQ drive back?


Mine is on it's way now thanks to the Guitar Hero II patch.

just got my Coffin today requested it on saturday

*shipped out later in the day lets see how long it takes

4-12

The xbox is suposed to get to the repair center on the 18th.

How long do they take to repair it ? :confused:

The xbox is suposed to get to the repair center on the 18th.

How long do they take to repair it ? :confused:

I don't know, but this is some slow service. My box was shipped on the 11th. Its arriving tomorrow the 17th. When my PS3 when down I had a new system in my hands 3 days after the first call to Sony.

I also find it interesting that my status is "in warranty" when I purchased the system on launch day. Not going to complain about that.

I don't know, but this is some slow service. My box was shipped on the 11th. Its arriving tomorrow the 17th. When my PS3 when down I had a new system in my hands 3 days after the first call to Sony.

I also find it interesting that my status is "in warranty" when I purchased the system on launch day. Not going to complain about that.

damn I had 2 pay :mad:


This all seems shady from M$

The xbox is suposed to get to the repair center on the 18th.

How long do they take to repair it ? :confused:

my 360 got their 2day a day early :cool:

I wonder how long it will take them to fix it and ship it back out. Will keep you guys updated :o

My 09/30/2005 mfr. date box died on me last Wednesday, tried to boot up halo 2 and, BLAM, three red rings. I researched this site and a couple of others and found the "good" news about free warranty replacements for consoles bought before 1/1/06. So I called up old M$ and got "Mike" who I couldn't really understand, because for some reason he had a very heavy Indian accent. After going a couple of rounds with him he informed me I was in fact out of warranty and he would be glad to take my payment for $140 to replace it. I told him no way and asked to speak to a supervisor and I was put on hold for about five minutes. He then came back and told me he would take off 25% of the repair cost, I said NO I want 100% off. He put me on hold again and I spoke to his supervisor who told me he would take off 50% but that was all he could do. I told him to fcuk off and I was going to take legal action because they had admitted a flaw but now it was "a promotion they were no longer running." I steamed a little more over the weekend and finally called back today after reading the rest of this thread and accepting the fact this was the best deal I was going to get. This time I called back and spoke to "Mark" who had a very weak California impersonation of an accent (ohhkay doowd) who informed me that my xbox couldn't have been manufactured on 9/30/2005 because they didn't go on sale until Christmas of 2005. WTF!!!!!!!! I got irate at this point and told him it WAS manufactured on that date and I waited for nine hours to get the stupid fcuking thing on 11/22/05. I finally calmed down and put the $70 bucks on my credit card and am currently cooking my box so I can download the new H2 maps and play them for a little while. I know this was a rant and I apologize, but I feel A LOT better now. Thanks.

Welcome to the 'pay as you go' beta tester experience.

At least the work/parts done will be good for 12 months, but still, its a fairly bitter pill to have to swallow.

My 09/30/2005 mfr. date box died on me last Wednesday, tried to boot up halo 2 and, BLAM, three red rings. I researched this site and a couple of others and found the "good" news about free warranty replacements for consoles bought before 1/1/06. So I called up old M$ and got "Mike" who I couldn't really understand, because for some reason he had a very heavy Indian accent. After going a couple of rounds with him he informed me I was in fact out of warranty and he would be glad to take my payment for $140 to replace it. I told him no way and asked to speak to a supervisor and I was put on hold for about five minutes. He then came back and told me he would take off 25% of the repair cost, I said NO I want 100% off. He put me on hold again and I spoke to his supervisor who told me he would take off 50% but that was all he could do. I told him to fcuk off and I was going to take legal action because they had admitted a flaw but now it was "a promotion they were no longer running." I steamed a little more over the weekend and finally called back today after reading the rest of this thread and accepting the fact this was the best deal I was going to get. This time I called back and spoke to "Mark" who had a very weak California impersonation of an accent (ohhkay doowd) who informed me that my xbox couldn't have been manufactured on 9/30/2005 because they didn't go on sale until Christmas of 2005. WTF!!!!!!!! I got irate at this point and told him it WAS manufactured on that date and I waited for nine hours to get the stupid fcuking thing on 11/22/05. I finally calmed down and put the $70 bucks on my credit card and am currently cooking my box so I can download the new H2 maps and play them for a little while. I know this was a rant and I apologize, but I feel A LOT better now. Thanks.

I feel your Pain I have lost respect for M$ Its hell of shady. They should be fixing these for free :mad:

I paid $70 also

My 09/30/2005 mfr. date box died on me last Wednesday, tried to boot up halo 2 and, BLAM, three red rings. I researched this site and a couple of others and found the "good" news about free warranty replacements for consoles bought before 1/1/06. So I called up old M$ and got "Mike" who I couldn't really understand, because for some reason he had a very heavy Indian accent. After going a couple of rounds with him he informed me I was in fact out of warranty and he would be glad to take my payment for $140 to replace it. I told him no way and asked to speak to a supervisor and I was put on hold for about five minutes. He then came back and told me he would take off 25% of the repair cost, I said NO I want 100% off. He put me on hold again and I spoke to his supervisor who told me he would take off 50% but that was all he could do. I told him to fcuk off and I was going to take legal action because they had admitted a flaw but now it was "a promotion they were no longer running." I steamed a little more over the weekend and finally called back today after reading the rest of this thread and accepting the fact this was the best deal I was going to get. This time I called back and spoke to "Mark" who had a very weak California impersonation of an accent (ohhkay doowd) who informed me that my xbox couldn't have been manufactured on 9/30/2005 because they didn't go on sale until Christmas of 2005. WTF!!!!!!!! I got irate at this point and told him it WAS manufactured on that date and I waited for nine hours to get the stupid fcuking thing on 11/22/05. I finally calmed down and put the $70 bucks on my credit card and am currently cooking my box so I can download the new H2 maps and play them for a little while. I know this was a rant and I apologize, but I feel A LOT better now. Thanks.

try calling them back again and say...why do i see a $70 charge on my credit card...i thought MS said it was going to be fixed for free because it was made before 2006. i think i need to talk to a supervisor over there about this.

My 09/30/2005 mfr. date box died on me last Wednesday, tried to boot up halo 2 and, BLAM, three red rings. I researched this site and a couple of others and found the "good" news about free warranty replacements for consoles bought before 1/1/06. So I called up old M$ and got "Mike" who I couldn't really understand, because for some reason he had a very heavy Indian accent. After going a couple of rounds with him he informed me I was in fact out of warranty and he would be glad to take my payment for $140 to replace it. I told him no way and asked to speak to a supervisor and I was put on hold for about five minutes. He then came back and told me he would take off 25% of the repair cost, I said NO I want 100% off. He put me on hold again and I spoke to his supervisor who told me he would take off 50% but that was all he could do. I told him to fcuk off and I was going to take legal action because they had admitted a flaw but now it was "a promotion they were no longer running." I steamed a little more over the weekend and finally called back today after reading the rest of this thread and accepting the fact this was the best deal I was going to get. This time I called back and spoke to "Mark" who had a very weak California impersonation of an accent (ohhkay doowd) who informed me that my xbox couldn't have been manufactured on 9/30/2005 because they didn't go on sale until Christmas of 2005. WTF!!!!!!!! I got irate at this point and told him it WAS manufactured on that date and I waited for nine hours to get the stupid fcuking thing on 11/22/05. I finally calmed down and put the $70 bucks on my credit card and am currently cooking my box so I can download the new H2 maps and play them for a little while. I know this was a rant and I apologize, but I feel A LOT better now. Thanks.

This is exactly what I went through but the second time I called they said I was in warranty. I was willing to pay the $70 just for the extended warranty. There is some shady stuff going down @ MS.

How long do they take to fix it ?

Found this (http://forums.xbox-scene.com/index.php?showtopic=588032&st=0) gem while reading beyond3d. It seems that some smart people may have figured out a way to fix the RROD/RLOD. Maybe someone with a system that is out of warranty can give this a go. Although it seems like the instructions are easy to follow, I assume caution if you aren't used to taking electronics apart.

Does M$ use the same Tracking Number when they shipp the xbox360 back to you ?

Does M$ use the same Tracking Number when they shipp the xbox360 back to you ?
No.

No.

how do you know when they fix it and ship it back out to you ? :confused:

I have officially been informed by Microsoft that 9 months is now greater than 12 months!
(Which is going to make a lovely tag line in a lot of angry cut-and-pastes of this story around the various message boards I frequent!)

And people wonder why Bill Gates has BILLIONS! ****, if I could get away with redefining mathematics too I would have Gate's bankroll too! Unbelievable.

I swear to Christ, it feels like being a character in "Goodfellas" by being a 360 owner:

"So now I got Billy (Gates) as a partner. Trouble with finding good games, online service, multimedia options, I can go to Billy. But problem is that now I have to come up with Billy's money every month....'Oh, problems with your 360? **** you, pay me'....'Oh, 3 rings of death again? **** you, pay me'...'Oh, someone figured out a way to hack into LIVE accounts and steal information? **** you, pay me"....'Oh, we redefined the fundementals of mathematics and screwed you out of your warranty? **** YOU PAY ME!!!'"

I spent 49 minutes on their customer service lines with "Nick" (the clueless and hopelessly useless account rep) and "Michael" (the worthless and impotent supervisor; who apparently can type about 1,000 words a minute - judging by the constant barrage of keystrokes during our call - but only speak one word per minute; the damn cocksucker was probably playing a game while waiting me out!). The long and the short of it was that the best they would offer was a $104 repair bill for my second 360 and then a 12 month repair warranty on the repaired unit.

I kept asking them to explain how a 12 month manufacturer's warranty on the 360 I currently have (manufactured on 7/31/2006) could be "exceeded" in 9 months (as of 4/19/2007). They could not provide any answers beyond the "our warranty policy on repairs is for 90 days or the balance of the original warranty only".

What really threw me for a loop was the fact they would not budge from that position even as I broke it down for them by the relevant dates:

First 360 manufactured on 1/5/2006.
First 360 purchased on 3/5/2006.
First 360 malfunctioned on 9/10/2006 and sent for repairs on 9/14/2006.
First 360 replaced with a different unit, instead of repaired, then returned to me on 9/21/2006.
Second 360 manufactured on 7/31/2006.
Second 360 received on 9/21/2006.
Second 360 malfunctioned on 4/19/2007.

Now, I have no idea what the legality of the situation is, but I fail to understand how a manufacturer can offer a 12 month warranty on a product, then instead of repairing a unit under warranty, send out a separate, newer unit; and then later claim that the warranty does not apply to the replacement unit because it is beyond the original unit's 12 month period! That kind of assinine logic would hold up perfectly fine if I had been returned my original XBox 360 when I sent it in for repairs in Sept. 2006. But seeing as they chose to, instead of repairing the original unit, provide a "new" REFURBED unit with a different manufacturing date (but same fundemental design flaw), I don't see how that decision by Microsoft alleviates their responsibility to honor the manufacturer's warranty on their product. I am sure the attonery general for Missouri with have to help me figure that math out because for the life of me I can't do that math...

By the end of the call I had had more than enough "I'm sorry's" and "Let me see what I can do's" and just went off. Micheal, the witless mute, got to be the ear on the other end of the line for most of it. (I figured "**** it"...if they are going to extort another $100 from me to fix something they should fix for free, then one of their poorly paid slaves will just have to take one for the team today.)

Basically told him that there would not be a fourth 360 in my future. If the one they send me next breaks that I would be more than happy to just get by with a PS3 only; and that while I actually like working 360's, it is a shame they (MS) are hell bent on destroying the brand with inept Quality Control practices and piss-poor rationalizations to customers. Despite all the good things, MS is well on their way to blowing any chances of "winning" their battle with Sony for console market share and that the 360 is quickly becoming synonymous with "Worst. Reliability. Ever." And in addition to MS's already legendary reputation as "GREEDY" they can now add "MALFESCENT" to the list.

The really sad thing is that I KNOW what is causing the problems (design flaw); and that if people on the internet can figure out the problem faster than the MS engineers, then maybe its time for MS to actually FIRE these dumb asses.

Mine died last night. Called today. Started the conversation by saying it was a launch 360. I was only gonna pay $70 for the repair. He put on a supervisor and he said ok. Never gave them a chance to say $140.

how do you know when they fix it and ship it back out to you ? :confused:

From my first time, if you have an email address listed on xbox.com, and they acknowledged that when you called for the coffin, they will send you an email w/ the tracking number. BTW i got my box on 4/18, sent it same day, got there 4/20. hopefully they'll fix their crap over the weekend, and send it back sometime next week.

EDIT: this is the first e-mail you should recieve.


Dear Xbox Customer:

Thank you for contacting Xbox Customer Care. We have received your request for service. Please prepare your console and follow the instructions provided by our customer service department. You will receive an e-mail as soon as the next step in the process has begun.

Thank you,

Xbox Customer Care


Note: This is not a monitored e-mail address.

My 360 died and I sent it out in the coffin last Wednesday and have not heard anything yet. No arrival, no fixing, no shipping back, nothing.
What should I be hearing from MS?

http://service.xbox.com/register.aspx
track your ups# also

My 360 died and I sent it out in the coffin last Wednesday and have not heard anything yet. No arrival, no fixing, no shipping back, nothing.
What should I be hearing from MS?

Im in the same boat. My 360 arrived at M$ on the 17th and still nothing :(

Just got my new 360, mine died about 3 weeks ago, I bought it with my american express card, so since it was a launch console and out of warranty, I sent it to american express and they credited my card with $430. Much better than having to get a refurb unit imo.

From my first time, if you have an email address listed on xbox.com, and they acknowledged that when you called for the coffin, they will send you an email w/ the tracking number. BTW i got my box on 4/18, sent it same day, got there 4/20. hopefully they'll fix their crap over the weekend, and send it back sometime next week.

EDIT: this is the first e-mail you should recieve.


Dear Xbox Customer:

Thank you for contacting Xbox Customer Care. We have received your request for service. Please prepare your console and follow the instructions provided by our customer service department. You will receive an e-mail as soon as the next step in the process has begun.

Thank you,

Xbox Customer Care


Note: This is not a monitored e-mail address.

And here's the second email....

Dear Customer,
We have received your Xbox at our service center. It is our priority to process your Xbox in a timely manner and to get it back to you as good as new. We will contact you as soon as we are finished so you can get ready to get back into the game!

Thanks,
Xbox Customer Care

Note: This is not a monitored e-mail address.

And here's the last one!

Your Xbox Video Game system has been shipped! You can expect to receive it in 2-5 days. Thank you for your patience and get ready to get back into the action! Your shipping information is provided below for your reference:

Carrier Name: UPS
Carrier Tracking Number: ------------------
Shipment Date: 2007-04-15 16:37:14

Note: This is not a monitored e-mail address.

So there it is, 6 days and it's being sent back, pretty damn good timing, i think it's cuz when i called i was pissed and made sure they understood that my REPLACEMENT 360 died the same death as my 1st.

And here's the second email....

Dear Customer,
We have received your Xbox at our service center. It is our priority to process your Xbox in a timely manner and to get it back to you as good as new. We will contact you as soon as we are finished so you can get ready to get back into the game!

Thanks,
Xbox Customer Care

Note: This is not a monitored e-mail address.

And here's the last one!

Your Xbox Video Game system has been shipped! You can expect to receive it in 2-5 days. Thank you for your patience and get ready to get back into the action! Your shipping information is provided below for your reference:

Carrier Name: UPS
Carrier Tracking Number: ------------------
Shipment Date: 2007-04-15 16:37:14

Note: This is not a monitored e-mail address.

So there it is, 6 days and it's being sent back, pretty damn good timing, i think it's cuz when i called i was pissed and made sure they understood that my REPLACEMENT 360 died the same death as my 1st.

hopefully mine shipped put yesterday or 2morow. They got it on the 17th

I really wanna play Nba2k7 :(

To those of you who have used Best Buy's replacement plan:

My box displayed the horrid 3 rings of death today (had it since X-mas). I did purchase the extended warranty, and contacted the warranty company. However, my issue is that they want you to ship it to them (I believe at my cost) and I would really like to keep my hard drive (have quite a few arcade games, etc). How was the return process? I wish they would let you just return it to the store.

Any info from those of you who have used BB's extended warranty would be greatly appreciated.

To those of you who have used Best Buy's replacement plan:

My box displayed the horrid 3 rings of death today (had it since X-mas). I did purchase the extended warranty, and contacted the warranty company. However, my issue is that they want you to ship it to them (I believe at my cost) and I would really like to keep my hard drive (have quite a few arcade games, etc). How was the return process? I wish they would let you just return it to the store.

Any info from those of you who have used BB's extended warranty would be greatly appreciated.

That's strange. When I purchased my 360 and the 2 year warranty I was told that they would simply exchange it for another in the store if I had a problem with it. I hope I don't have any trouble exchanging it for the Elite since my current premium 360 has given me the 3 red lights.

Nearly all extended warantees are out of store now, provided by a third party, which means mailing it in. I seriously doubt anyone would exchange a Premium with an Elite, what with both still being sold.

I called and found out where my 360 was. They shipped it on the 17th 3 day service but the shipping got messed up somehow and I wont get it until the 24th now. Check out this shipping destination list, what the hell is UPS doing?

It goes through Louisville twice and it gets shipped and received by Oakland 3 times. WTF!!!! Who is running the departments in some of these cities?

PORTLAND,
OR, US 04/20/2007 7:09 P.M. ARRIVAL SCAN
04/20/2007 7:00 P.M. DEPARTURE SCAN
04/20/2007 5:22 P.M. ARRIVAL SCAN

LOUISVILLE,
KY, US 04/20/2007 4:09 P.M. DEPARTURE SCAN
04/20/2007 12:36 P.M. ARRIVAL SCAN

LAS VEGAS,
NV, US 04/20/2007 6:17 A.M. DEPARTURE SCAN
04/20/2007 5:42 A.M. ARRIVAL SCAN

ALBUQUERQUE,
NM, US 04/20/2007 5:18 A.M. DEPARTURE SCAN

ALBUQUERQUE,
NM, US 04/19/2007 6:12 P.M. ARRIVAL SCAN

LOUISVILLE,
KY, US 04/19/2007 5:23 P.M. DEPARTURE SCAN
04/19/2007 12:23 P.M. ARRIVAL SCAN

OAKLAND,
CA, US 04/19/2007 5:45 A.M. DEPARTURE SCAN
04/19/2007 2:00 A.M. ARRIVAL SCAN
04/19/2007 1:48 A.M. DEPARTURE SCAN

OAKLAND,
CA, US 04/18/2007 6:51 P.M. ARRIVAL SCAN
04/18/2007 6:31 P.M. DEPARTURE SCAN
04/18/2007 5:01 P.M. ARRIVAL SCAN

DALLAS/FT. WORTH A/P,
TX, US 04/18/2007 3:14 P.M. DEPARTURE SCAN
04/18/2007 8:51 A.M. ARRIVAL SCAN

SAN ANTONIO,
TX, US 04/18/2007 1:35 A.M. DEPARTURE SCAN

SAN ANTONIO,
TX, US 04/17/2007 10:33 P.M. ARRIVAL SCAN

MC ALLEN,
TX, US 04/17/2007 5:30 P.M. DEPARTURE SCAN
04/17/2007 2:36 P.M. ORIGIN SCAN

I feel real bad about you guys up north, i live in Dallas, TX. Getting to McAllen isn't a trip at all.

MS got my xbox today and all of a sudden I'm out of warranty. On hold with them now.

Will update.

Update: They said the website has a glitch and she is still showing it in warranty and it is being repaired.

We'll see where it goes from here.

Found this (http://forums.xbox-scene.com/index.php?showtopic=588032&st=0) gem while reading beyond3d. It seems that some smart people may have figured out a way to fix the RROD/RLOD. Maybe someone with a system that is out of warranty can give this a go. Although it seems like the instructions are easy to follow, I assume caution if you aren't used to taking electronics apart.

I bought a broken one just to try to fix it and I replaced the x-clamps by this method. It is not too hard but the clamps can be difficult to take off the first time. I have the machine back running. It had the 3 red light problem. I am not using it much until I can replace the fans with Talismoon ones then I will give it to my kids and see how long it lasts. I have about an hour on it right now.

Hi, got my hands on a broken 3 light system. Disassembled the console and pulled the mainboard yesterday. I closely observed the perimeter of the cpu, gpu and ram chips in relation to the pcb. There is no sign of warpage or lifting, let alone bga separation. At this point it's difficult to pin-down exactly what is wrong. I can't find any broken solder joints or blown circuits anywhere. Still have yet to probe every last diode so some clue may be yet to surface.

I have had success repairing older consoles like NES, SMS, Genesis, NEO.GEO, PS1&2. The 360's surface mount components are so small and it is difficult to grasp what the common trouble-spots are.

Any technical advice from those who have success resurrecting these units would be greatly appreciated.

At this point it's difficult to pin-down exactly what is wrong.

Have you established what the error code is?

With the 3 quadrants flashing red, hold down the controller sync button and press the eject button. Write down the number of flashing quadrants (they will flash faster if you do it right). Rinse and repeat 3 more times and then tell us the 4 digit code.

Hi, got my hands on a broken 3 light system. Disassembled the console and pulled the mainboard yesterday. I closely observed the perimeter of the cpu, gpu and ram chips in relation to the pcb. There is no sign of warpage or lifting, let alone bga separation. At this point it's difficult to pin-down exactly what is wrong. I can't find any broken solder joints or blown circuits anywhere. Still have yet to probe every last diode so some clue may be yet to surface.

I have had success repairing older consoles like NES, SMS, Genesis, NEO.GEO, PS1&2. The 360's surface mount components are so small and it is difficult to grasp what the common trouble-spots are.

Any technical advice from those who have success resurrecting these units would be greatly appreciated.

Your not going to find broken solder joints or bad contacts unless you xray the board. It is not going to be an obvious break. It is most likely the gpu. There are several places that show you how to fix it. The heat gun method works the best and you really only have to concentrate on the gpu for about a minute. Get rid of the x-clamps and use artic silver while your at it.

Im still waiting on M$ to finish fixing my 360 :mad:

Just got my 360 after two shipping delays from UPS and it's F***KING broken.
I think it's just the faceplate, but I'm so pissed off I had to wait this long and no conformation emails at all and it shows up messed up after all that.
Called MS and they are sending me a new faceplate and the Live card they forgot to put in the box.

Up until now I have had nothing but incredible things to say about the Xbox, but with this repair situation it has overall not been a good experience from my point of view.

Im still waiting on M$ to finish fixing my 360 :mad:

They recieved mine yesterday and shipped the new one out today. I had to call them to find this out and they gave me my tracking number.

I bought my Xbox December 1st, 2005. It has worked flawlessly for nearly 17 months. Today I turned it on (so it wasn't like it was extremely hot after a long session), went to the media blade, started streaming music while cooking dinner. About 30 seconds into the song it stops playing and the screen is all fuzzy / distorted. No buttons work on the controller. I turn it off and turn it back on..

Lo and behold the 3 rings. I checked the error code and it's 0102 which is basically unknown.

Thank goodness I bought it at CostCo! Time for it to go back!

-Tim

Have you established what the error code is?

With the 3 quadrants flashing red, hold down the controller sync button and press the eject button. Write down the number of flashing quadrants (they will flash faster if you do it right). Rinse and repeat 3 more times and then tell us the 4 digit code.

I will retrieve the code later today. Have to partially reassemble for safe power up. Hopefully this will result in one of the known codes. Thank you.

Your not going to find broken solder joints or bad contacts unless you xray the board. It is not going to be an obvious break. It is most likely the gpu. There are several places that show you how to fix it. The heat gun method works the best and you really only have to concentrate on the gpu for about a minute. Get rid of the x-clamps and use artic silver while your at it.

GPU separation is almost always the culprit then? How much hot air can the chip take before damage/what angle of approach with the heatgun should be used? What about some gentle top pressure being applied during the process? Should any flux be injected beneath the chip, or is that unnecessary?

What do you suggest replacing the x-clamps with? I had the thought of placing neoprine spacers between the pcb and chassis base in order to stabilize that flimsy excuse of a mainboard.

Thanks for your helpful advice.

GPU seperation is by far the common problem. But you will need to establish first that its not the ram or CPU. The error code should give some indication of where you should be targetting.

Heatgun is a risky business and most of the time it only achieves more board warp which gives a temporary contact.

These two threads should be your first consideration -

http://forums.xbox-scene.com/index.php?showtopic=599217
http://forums.xbox-scene.com/index.php?showtopic=599216

As farenheit states it is best to establish your error code just in case it is not an 0102. Another way to test the GPU is while using your finger to gently holding down the GPU, turn on the machine and see if the lights come on in a different pattern. If the GPU is now making proper contact the error is because you do not have the dvd-rom and i-o cable installed. The light pattern will definetly blink in a different pattern. Thus basically confirming a problem with the GPU. Not saying another problem couldn't be there but at least you would know a problem is located in the GPU. Make sure the motherboard is laying on an insulated material and you are wearing rubber gloves. That chip gets hot. If you are careful with the heatgun, then you can reestablish those contacts and by removing the x-clamps and attaching the heatsinks another way I believe you can keep the machine running for quite some time. I don't heat up the whole board thus it does not wharp the whole thing. I am still waiting on some replacement fans to see if they will help even more. Good luck and if you try it you should post and keep people informed on the length of time the workaround kept the box running. Also, if you decide to buy one of those damaged machines off of ebay, be advised, they have all ready been opened up in most cases and tried to be repaired. Make sure you ask if they have not been tampered with because if someone has fried the chips trying to do the repair, you have a case to dispute if you see that the Microsoft seal has been damaged. It happened to me once and I had no problem with my dispute. People are taking the heat gun and basically melting parts of the board and then think when they say as-is they can sell it by being deceptive. As long as they say it has never been opened, and you can proved it has, you can get your money back. Others are wrapping the whole box in a towel to heat the whole box up at once and while this does not do anything to the seal, I am not so sure what kind of damage it is doing to the inside of the board. It can't be good. It is going to get where you may need to buy a friends damaged box just to have a chance of reparing it. Right now I am 3 for 3 and the longest running one has been 2 weeks with maybe 24 hours on it. But they are being very careful with it. Once I get replacement fans for this last one I am doing, I am going to let my kids run it as much as they want as see what happens.

Guys thank you for such valuable help. This console was never tampered with prior to myself. Warranty seal was intact and factory original thermal paste undisturbed.

The error code is the dreaded 0102. I was able to dangle the dvd-rom to the side, leaving it connected while I applied firm pressure to the gpu heatsink. No go. Tried plenty of power cycles with varying degrees of pressure. The gpu is generating plenty of heat leading me to believe it may not be the trouble source.

On the other hand, the cpu heatsink is not warming up during power up...not at all. ...And yes, the sink is mounted properly with addition to silver particle grease for best thermal conduction. Applying pressure to the cpu does not affect the situation either, results in no difference.

Thoughts: could it be the ram chips next to the gpu? Perhaps the cpu is deactivating due to popped ram connections. Have to devise a way to place pressure on the ram with the gpu sink installed. I'll use some spacers or something.

EDIT to prior post...the CPU is in fact generating heat. The density of the CPU heatsink dramatically slowed its warm-up (a good thing).

Still suspecting the ram.

Wow, this is getting weird. I just let the system sit powered on with the red lights for about two minutes. Turned it off, turned it back on, green lights fired right up!!!

It will live for about a minute before flashing the reds again. Board is obviously flexing from thermal changes resulting in good connections at times. So this is good, this console can be salvaged yet.

I was able to dangle the dvd-rom to the side, leaving it connected while I applied firm pressure to the gpu heatsink. No go. Tried plenty of power cycles with varying degrees of pressure. The gpu is generating plenty of heat leading me to believe it may not be the trouble source.


You have to apply the pressure to the GPU with the heatsink removed. And you only use a slight amount of pressure.

You have to apply the pressure to the GPU with the heatsink removed. And you only use a slight amount of pressure.

I'm not that brave, don't want to risk damaging the silicon. I once baked a CPU by doing that very same thing.

Just imagined a thought of using plastic or fiberglass shimmies in order to firmly "sandwich lock" the CPU and GPU to pcb. No need for any other risky reflow techniques I hope. The pressure will mechanically force a constant good connection with the added benefit of eliminating pcb warpage.

Got my 360 back today, 1 week, nice timing. Back to gaming.

Just sent in my 2nd console, both with the dreaded 3 rings, and both were less than 6 months old, with not much time played on them! Microsoft NEEDS to admit then fix this problem! This is ridiculous, I am very careful with my electronics, and hardly plaed the second 360 at all in the 3 months I had it!

I bought a broken one just to try to fix it and I replaced the x-clamps by this method. It is not too hard but the clamps can be difficult to take off the first time. I have the machine back running. It had the 3 red light problem. I am not using it much until I can replace the fans with Talismoon ones then I will give it to my kids and see how long it lasts. I have about an hour on it right now.

I fixed my 360 today using this method. Easy, cheap... :)

Im still freakin waiting this is bs M$ :mad:

Im still freakin waiting this is bs M$ :mad:

It's been almost a month since your 360 went down, hasn't it?

Why didn't you just buy one from a local B&M and return it once you get yours fixed and back? That's what I've done. That way I had barely any down time between replacements.

-JR

It's been almost a month since your 360 went down, hasn't it?

Why didn't you just buy one from a local B&M and return it once you get yours fixed and back? That's what I've done. That way I had barely any down time between replacements.

-JR

I dont wanna go through a hassle i have a ps3 :p

But all my sports games are on my 360 and thats what i play most and i dont wanna rebuy them.

I miss NBA2k7 :(

It's been almost a month since your 360 went down, hasn't it?

Why didn't you just buy one from a local B&M and return it once you get yours fixed and back? That's what I've done. That way I had barely any down time between replacements.

-JR

I called earlier today and they said they dont know why they havent shipped it back out yet so they transfered me to a supervisor. He said he was gonna get on the repair centers asses. He said i should get a tracking number or some info 2morow. I was like you guys you fix it for free since its taking so long and give me a couple months free of xboxlive and he was like we cant, sure :mad:

He said call back if i dont get an email or call and he might do something.

I should have been playing my repaired 360 already damn M$ :(

I called earlier today and they said they dont know why they havent shipped it back out yet so they transfered me to a supervisor. He said he was gonna get on the repair centers asses. He said i should get a tracking number or some info 2morow. I was like you guys you fix it for free since its taking so long and give me a couple months free of xboxlive and he was like we cant, sure :mad:

He said call back if i dont get an email or call and he might do something.

I should have been playing my repaired 360 already damn M$ :(

Yeah you sent yours out before I did and mine is showing up today.

Sorry. Give them hell.

I want to say that I got my 360 repaired and back in the mail by MS in less than 4 hours. I had it back in less than 5 days. Also got another free month of live. The console still makes a funny noise but it works. Kudos MS.

Yeah you sent yours out before I did and mine is showing up today.

Sorry. Give them hell.

I called and gave them hell and still nothing. :(

It still hasnt shipped out and i dont know why.

I do think i made the supervisor feel like **** :p

Well mine showed up today. Works fine so far. The face plate was a little dirty but I kept my old on so it's all good.

What i find weird is that i got a launch console....with the real loud drive. sucks. oh well.

What i find weird is that i got a launch console....with the real loud drive. sucks. oh well.

I agree, the console I'm currently tinkering with is also a launch unit. Man, is that old Hitachi drive loud. Was actually stunned the first time I heard it spin up. Jet turbine comes to mind.

I bought a broken one just to try to fix it and I replaced the x-clamps by this method. It is not too hard but the clamps can be difficult to take off the first time. I have the machine back running. It had the 3 red light problem. I am not using it much until I can replace the fans with Talismoon ones then I will give it to my kids and see how long it lasts. I have about an hour on it right now.

I fixed my 360 today using this method. Easy, cheap... :)

Going to go ahead and give this a try. My idea of making custom fit shims is too elaborate and time consuming. His fix is quick and effective.

I also like how the author attempted to increase the efficiency of his system's GPU heatsink. Splining the fins to increase surface area (therefore cooling efficiency) is an old overclocking aid trick that goes way back. I will be doing that as well.

Those x-clamps are such a poor idea. Microsoft should highly consider using a better mounting mechanism. I think that they really should be fabbing the pcb at least a couple millimeters thicker as well.

For the amount of heat generated, the system board thickness is rather anemic. Positive the the x-clamps are a major contributor to the problem, yet the primary culprit is simply a skimpy pcb.

I agree, the console I'm currently tinkering with is also a launch unit. Man, is that old Hitachi drive loud. Was actually stunned the first time I heard it spin up. Jet turbine comes to mind.

Actually you have the moderate noisey one! mine is the toshiba/samsung drive, and it's not jet, it's a.....backfiring car while skidding away from a drive by.

No red rings but my just over 1 year 360 died today after downloading the Pinball game. Graphics went crazy and will no longer display, some audio is recognizable, on/off functions with the controller. I bought at Costco so hopefully they will replace.

No red rings but my just over 1 year 360 died today after downloading the Pinball game. Graphics went crazy and will no longer display, some audio is recognizable, on/off functions with the controller. I bought at Costco so hopefully they will replace.

Try clearing the system cache before assuming the worst.

* Go to the Xbox Dashboard, select the System Blade, and select Memory.
* Highlight the HD symbol and press Y.
* Press X, X, Left Bumper, Right Bumper, X, X.

See if that routine fixes things.

Going to go ahead and give this a try...............His fix is quick and effective.

Did the x-clamp replacement procedure last night..and I like it. The most difficult step was running to two Lowe's locations and a Home Depot to collect enough of the necessary parts.

Assembly is now secured completely flat with chassis base, pcb/processors and heat sinks perfectly parallel and mounted square.

I found that with my system the CPU needed snugger tightening than the GPU to achieve stability. From what I've read, the GPU is almost always the problem...but not here.

Try clearing the system cache before assuming the worst.

* Go to the Xbox Dashboard, select the System Blade, and select Memory.
* Highlight the HD symbol and press Y.
* Press X, X, Left Bumper, Right Bumper, X, X.

See if that routine fixes things.

what does this do ?

what does this do ?

It clears the cache on the 360's hard drive. It's useful if the console seems sluggish, unresponsive, or you want to get rid of a game update. The downside is that all game updates will be removed, so you'll have to download them from Live again.

I recommend that "CoreyM" do this simply because he is all ready to return his 360, even though there is probably nothing wrong with it. Bad downloads can happen corrupting the cache. Just clear it and more than likely it will function fine again.

Try clearing the system cache before assuming the worst.

* Go to the Xbox Dashboard, select the System Blade, and select Memory.
* Highlight the HD symbol and press Y.
* Press X, X, Left Bumper, Right Bumper, X, X.

See if that routine fixes things.
I'm willing to give this a try because so far I've been too lazy to drive to Costco, but its kind of hard to do without any video signal.

If someone wants to give me the exact amount of button pushes to open up the right menus I'd give it a shot.

It did happen right after I downloaded the pinball game but I was playing it for 10 minutes before the video went out. I've tried the VGA cable and the regular hi def cable, no output through any of the 3 options.

Finally should get by repaired xbox 360 on wed or thurs.

They should have fixed it for free since it took for ever

I was talking to a guy on PGR3 and he told me his xbox was 1 day late, yes ONE day late, and he called and complained, got 1 year of xbox live with vision cam, and some other crap for free, you should just start faxing them like crazy, saying you payed 400 dollars and want it back. yadayadayada and get some stuff.

I'm willing to give this a try because so far I've been too lazy to drive to Costco, but its kind of hard to do without any video signal.

If someone wants to give me the exact amount of button pushes to open up the right menus I'd give it a shot.

It did happen right after I downloaded the pinball game but I was playing it for 10 minutes before the video went out. I've tried the VGA cable and the regular hi def cable, no output through any of the 3 options.

Do you still have the old SD composite or s-video cables? If so, try either of those. Power up with the hard drive removed. If you still don't get a picture then your system is broken.

Do you still have the old SD composite or s-video cables? If so, try either of those. Power up with the hard drive removed. If you still don't get a picture then your system is broken.
I tried using the composite video cable that is attached to the component cables but no standalone composite cables since those didn't come with the Premium package. I tried booting with and without the hard drive using both sets of cables. I guess I'll head to Costco tomorrow. Hopefully I can keep my hard drive and if so I'll try your trick just to make sure I didn't download any bad files.

Just an update on how my system is doing after the x-clamp removal/mounting mods. In one word: "excellent".

Yesterday I played Ridge Racer 6 for eight hours straight with absolutely no graphical glitches, crashes, or error codes. Ran Gears of War for quite a while also with absolutely no problems.

The console is now fixed. I have total confidence that it will stay fixed now that the pcb is stabilized.

For those of you who do the "towel trick"...DON'T...you will eventually irreversibly damage your 360s !!!

Send it in to MS for service *or better yet* fix it even better than they will yourself:

http://rbjtech.bulldoghome.com/pages/rbjtech_bulldoghome_com/XClamp.htm

Thought I would mention something else since some of you might be interested.

That system did not come with any accessories, including the power supply. Really did not care because I knew of a more cost effective alternative.

Did a little research to find out the 360 power jack pinout. I then dug up a suitable ATX power supply (I use a neat compact micro ATX PSU). The PSU must be rated to deliver at least 16amps +12VDC _sustained (not max)_ output. This is a tough spec for most pc power supplies to meet. You will more than likely need at least a 350-400watt plus unit. The higher the +12VDC amp output rating, the better..don't worry if you believe your power supply is too powerful. +5VDC will always be rated far more than sufficient, but the console takes only what it needs.

The 360 will draw a max of 16amps +12VDC/1amp +5VDC from available current. In other words, this is a safe practice and a nice alternative to the rip-off noisy power brick.

Took my 360 back to Costco today and I almost feel guilty. They let me keep my hard drive, I did have to give back PGR3 but got the arcade pack in return. But, they refunded my shipping and handling since I originally ordered the 360 online when they were still hard to come by and the price was 30 or 40 dollars less so after getting the new 360 and some laundry detergent I've got a Costco gift card with somewhere between 40 and 50 dollars on it.

Anybody having a "3 red light" problem on the new ELITE console so far?

it happened to me just now, after pulling out the power plug and reinsering.

after reinserting again it started up just fine. this scares me as this has never happened with my old premium, not once.

it's under a week old and i hope it's not a sign of bad things to come!!!!

Finally got my 360 back. Its a replacement not my original.

The funny thing is my old 360 was loud as hell i mean loud and this new one is as quiet as my ps3 so far.

we'll see how long this last



Thanks to whoever started this thread

well, I'm from Argentina and here the 360s (premium) are having the same 3 red lights issue after 3 or 10 months of use, the main problem here (Buenos Aires) is that we don't have warranty so we lose all the money :(, and we are talking about 700 to 800 USD, for us is a lot of money I have to say. That's way I'm so interested on the new ELITE system and asking from you guys all the feedback I can get about it.

well, I'm from Argentina and here the 360s (premium) are having the same 3 red lights issue after 3 or 10 months of use, the main problem here (Buenos Aires) is that we don't have warranty so we lose all the money :(, and we are talking about 700 to 800 USD, for us is a lot of money I have to say. That's way I'm so interested on the new ELITE system and asking from you guys all the feedback I can get about it.

Thats alot of money im sorry.

I would go with a Ps3

Yeah!, but a PS3 here would cost me 1000 USD and again no warranty.... :)

Yeah!, but a PS3 here would cost me 1000 USD and again no warranty.... :)

you wouldnt have to go through this 3 rings of death bs !!

IMO the PS3's are built solid they dont mess up as much as the 360's :o

by the way go Nocioni lol

you wouldnt have to go through this 3 rings of death bs !!

IMO the PS3's are built solid they dont mess up as much as the 360's :o

I have to agree that the PS3 is of a much more rugged build quality. In addition Sony understands the importance of securing heatsinks properly. :rolleyes:

However, no design is flawless and PS3s do break as well (most common failure seems to be its Blu-ray drive crapping out).

I believe the reports of new Elite failures as well. You know why? ...Same old stupid x-clamp mount design with one hilarious exception. You're not gonna believe it, but it's true: they are beading the edges of the GPU and CPU with epoxy in a lame attempt to reduce thermal pcb flex.

...Guess you can say MS was attempting to "glaze over" the source of the problem. Yes, pun intended. ;)

Yup, I've read about the Epoxy solution applied by the very kind people of MS on the New ELITE system, though is also true that the motherboard layout has changed a little bit and some components as well, those changes plus the epoxy's "solution" keeps my Faith up on this new system.

Yup, I've read about the Epoxy solution applied by the very kind people of MS on the New ELITE system, though is also true that the motherboard layout has changed a little bit and some components as well, those changes plus the epoxy's "solution" keeps my Faith up on this new system.

I don't share your optimisim. Look at what the epoxy is attached too, thats a lamenated board. It may aswell be glued to teflon.
If the board flex is significant enough to break solder joints, then all the epoxy in the world isn't going to make a lick of difference. Elites are dying and they will continue to do so.

KewlK, glad to hear that yours is working. Hope it stays that way.
You've reached the exact same conclusions as I have regarding what is at play here and more people need to know it.

My 09/30/2005 mfr. date box died on me last Wednesday, tried to boot up halo 2 and, BLAM, three red rings. I researched this site and a couple of others and found the "good" news about free warranty replacements for consoles bought before 1/1/06. So I called up old M$ and got "Mike" who I couldn't really understand, because for some reason he had a very heavy Indian accent. After going a couple of rounds with him he informed me I was in fact out of warranty and he would be glad to take my payment for $140 to replace it. I told him no way and asked to speak to a supervisor and I was put on hold for about five minutes. He then came back and told me he would take off 25% of the repair cost, I said NO I want 100% off. He put me on hold again and I spoke to his supervisor who told me he would take off 50% but that was all he could do. I told him to fcuk off and I was going to take legal action because they had admitted a flaw but now it was "a promotion they were no longer running." I steamed a little more over the weekend and finally called back today after reading the rest of this thread and accepting the fact this was the best deal I was going to get. This time I called back and spoke to "Mark" who had a very weak California impersonation of an accent (ohhkay doowd) who informed me that my xbox couldn't have been manufactured on 9/30/2005 because they didn't go on sale until Christmas of 2005. WTF!!!!!!!! I got irate at this point and told him it WAS manufactured on that date and I waited for nine hours to get the stupid fcuking thing on 11/22/05. I finally calmed down and put the $70 bucks on my credit card and am currently cooking my box so I can download the new H2 maps and play them for a little while. I know this was a rant and I apologize, but I feel A LOT better now. Thanks.

This was my original post and I thought I would update you guys. It took about three weeks from the time I made the call to the time that I got my box back. The rep on the phone told me they would repair my original box and send it back to me, but my new one has a Feb 06 build date, whatever, as long as it keeps working. The reason I wanted to post again was I went through something kind of funny when I picked my new box up. I got home last Thursday around 5:30 and of course the UPS guy had been there less than an hour before. So I called the number on the slip and they told me to come down and pick it up after 7:30. I got to the UPS center and there were about ten other people waiting. We went in and the very first guy in line was picking up a white box that looked very familiar. The lady behind the counter asked what it was and he told her it was his xbox 360, his fourth replacement. She started laughing and said there were three other boxes sitting on the back dock that looked the same. I then chimed in and told her one was mine and we all had a big laugh. This was just an average weekday worth of deliveries in one city and these were the boxes that DIDNT get delivered to the home. The moral of this story is: FCUK M$ and their 3% return rate, they lie their asses off. I don't know of a single original xbox getting returned or any ps2's for that matter. Yet I personally know three people who have returned their 360's and I only know seven people that have them. Whatever, have a good day, hope this box lasts.
Sincerely,
Disgruntled M$ fan

KewlK, glad to hear that yours is working. Hope it stays that way.

Well, unfortunately it suffered a catastrophic failure a couple days ago. It had absolutely nothing to do with the mounting mod...I still highly recommend it.

The cause was due to my risky use of multimeter probes in place of the proprietary plug, in order to use the atx power supply as the source. One of the probes "slipped" and the 5 volt input shorted to ground. The power supply overcurrent sensor _should_ have immediately cut power, but the safey mechanism failed. *No exaggeration*....acrid smoke bellowed out of the console, the unpleasant experience of electronics death.

I reopened it to inspect the damage. To my amazement I concluded that there is hope of resuscitation. Several mosfet high power regulation transistors took the brunt of the short and self destructed by internalizing the stray current. My test probing shows that none of the capacitors were damaged or had reversed polarity and no resistors were baked. All sensitive components are unharmed, and the system even generates a 0002 power error code (due to my removal of the damaged transistors).

Exact replacement parts were dirt cheap and easy to find. They are on the way from my parts distributor. I am highly optimistic that the system has a "third wind". I am still crossing my fingers, yet believe that it can be successfully salvaged.

BTW, yesterday I worked with the new "lead free" silver-tin alloy solder and absolutely despise it. I'm going to have to stock up on the good old 60/40 stuff before it becomes difficult to buy.

This leadless stuff is junk, the melting point is way too high (around 415F vs about 370F) making desoldering overly tedious. Those 45 degrees make a huge difference in workability and flow characteristics. The newer rosin flux composition seems more acidic to me as well, not good for components.

And although the melting point for lead solder is lower it forms much stronger joints and does not allow tin whisker shorts to form over time (see link if interested: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Whisker_%28metallurgy%29 ).

I understand and sympathize why there is such a push for lead based solders to be phased out. However, as someone who performs tedious electrical repairs first hand, I should not be expected to settle for an inferior substitute. As you can see below, there is no adequate replacement for the 370 degree target melting point (bismuth is far too low and zinc alloy solders are trash) All temps are shown in Celcius:

* SnAgCu solders are used by two thirds of Japanese manufacturers for reflow and wave soldering, and by about ¾ companies for hand soldering.
o SnAg3.0Cu0.5, tin with 3% silver and 0.5% copper, has a melting point of 217-220 °C and is predominantly used in Japan. It is the JEITA recommended alloy for wave and reflow soldering, with alternatives SnCu for wave and SnAg and SnZnBi for reflow soldering.
o SnAg3.5Cu0.7 is another commonly used alloy, with melting point of 217-218 °C.
o SnAg3.5Cu0.9, with melting point of 217 °C, is determined by NIST to be truly eutectic.
o SnAg3.8Cu0.7, with melting point 217-218 °C, is preferred by the European IDEALS consortium for reflow soldering.
o SnAg3.8Cu0.7Sb0.25 is preferred by the European IDEALS consortium for wave soldering.
o SnAg3.9Cu0.6, with melting point 217-223 °C, is recommended by the US NEMI consortium for reflow soldering.
* SnCu0.7, with melting point of 227 °C, is a cheap alternative for wave soldering, recommended by the US NEMI consortium.
* SnZn9, with melting point of 199 °C, is a cheaper alloy but is prone to corrosion and oxidation.
* SnZn8Bi3, with melting point of 191-198 °C, is also prone to corrosion and oxidation due to its zinc content.
* SnSb5, tin with 5% of antimony, is the US plumbing industry standard. Its melting point is 232-240 °C. It displays good resistance to thermal fatigue and good shear strength.
* SnAg2.5Cu0.8Sb0.5 melts at 217-225 °C and is patented by AIM alliance.
* SnIn8.0Ag3.5Bi0.5 melts at 197-208 °C and is patented by Matsushita/Panasonic.
* SnBi57Ag1 melts at 137-139 °C and is patented by Motorola.
* SnBi58 melts at 138 °C.
* SnIn52 melts at 118 °C and is suitable for the cases where low-temperature soldering is needed.

Got my elite on the launch date, hooked it up.......rings. But if i reboot it a time or two it starts up and operates fine. Error code is 0102. Any ideas on what to do?

Got my elite on the launch date, hooked it up.......rings. But if i reboot it a time or two it starts up and operates fine. Error code is 0102. Any ideas on what to do?

I'd just have it replaced/fixed, better be safe than sorry. :)

-JR

I'd just have it replaced/fixed, better be safe than sorry. :)

-JR

I guess that's what I'll end up doing. I'll have to wait until Best Buy has some more in stock though. Hopefully it'll last until then.

Microsoft sent me back an email saying I've already done all the troubleshooting that I can do and that it needs to be sent in to be repaired.

Got my x360 back from repairs. Not only is it a refurb (which means i can't play xbla offline), it has scratches on the back, a chipped connection point on the A/V port, and worst of all, it sounds like a broken refrigerator (constant buzzing).

Otherwise it seems to be working fine. Total time since bricking: 26 days.

I beleive that 0102 error code is related to an issue with your AV cable, you might chech this as well.

I guess that's what I'll end up doing. I'll have to wait until Best Buy has some more in stock though. Hopefully it'll last until then.

Microsoft sent me back an email saying I've already done all the troubleshooting that I can do and that it needs to be sent in to be repaired.

Good luck, I'm sure you'll be taken care of. If you want to keep gaming while you wait for your Elite to get repaired, BB has a 30 day return policy on 360's.

-JR

I beleive that 0102 error code is related to an issue with your AV cable, you might chech this as well.
Unless the elite codes are different, then:

"0102 unknown error - literally means the console does not know what is wrong. Possibly a short or cold solder joint somewhere (2 reports of people repairing this, one was removing moisture build up inside the console, the other used a hot-air rework to reflow the BGA Ram chips)"

Just joined the red ring club and my error code seems to be 0102. Might just take it back to Costco and get a replacement.

The question here is how long can MS keep up this dog and pony show? We all know there is NO WAY the failure rate is under 3%. I mean I would be shocked if it was under 20%. And then you have to consider that many still working units are basically ticking time-bombs for the red ring of death. I am more convinced of this when I read posts from people who understand electronics and say that it is poorly designed.

Take me for example, 15 months and NO problems whatsoever, kept good care of the system. And then it freezes the other day while playing GRAW 2, reboot and bam! red ring. Whats worse is this refurb I just got as a replacement is almost a guarantee to meltdown. I mean what's the failure rate of the refurbs, over 50%? Mine looks to be in good condition but makes a weird rattling noise when I move it around. I basically want to play the crap out of it so it melts down while I'm still in warranty.

And in the end, these sad but true stories we are all experiencing are really a testament to how great of a gaming console the 360 is, as we are willing to put up with this garbage to be able to play the games.

I would just love to know someone who worked at UPS in McClellan, TX to see if they could get some numbers on how many boxes are going in and out of there. I bet it's in the millions.

I would just love to know someone who worked at UPS in McClellan, TX to see if they could get some numbers on how many boxes are going in and out of there. I bet it's in the millions.


I was just thinking about the same thing, since mine was delivered to MS today for repairs/refurb. I remember when DSL was doing the shipping and I was shocked to hear that the local DHL guy (we only have one van coming to my city...pop 15,000) said he had seen quite a few of these go in and out. That is pretty sad.

Tried the 'towel trick" last night, actually accidentally left it covered till the 360 shutdown by itself. Booted up this morning and was able to get into the Forza2 demo (which was what I was trying to do when it died, but I think thats coincidence) and played for a few minutes then watched a replay. More testing tonight after work. Not holding out much hope that its actually fixed but its an interesting development.

My 360 just got the 3 rings of death after the spring update. This is the second time this has happened to me. My warranty just expired a month ago too. This sucks.

Tried the 'towel trick" last night, actually accidentally left it covered till the 360 shutdown by itself. Booted up this morning and was able to get into the Forza2 demo (which was what I was trying to do when it died, but I think thats coincidence) and played for a few minutes then watched a replay. More testing tonight after work. Not holding out much hope that its actually fixed but its an interesting development.

What you have done is warp the mainboard (by subjecting it to ambient heat) in a way that it flexes and the broken solder joint between the chip and the board has been pushed back together again.

Unfortunately they are only just touching and are not bound so you will find with a few more thermal cycles that you'll be back to a failed state sooner rather than later.

For illustrative purposes here is vid I made that more or less shows what the towel trick acheives. It will give you an idea of what is going on under the hood http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CQgLBD3F6Bg

What you have done is warp the mainboard (by subjecting it to ambient heat) in a way that it flexes and the broken solder joint between the chip and the board has been pushed back together again.

Unfortunately they are only just touching and are not bound so you will find with a few more thermal cycles that you'll be back to a failed state sooner rather than later.

For illustrative purposes here is vid I made that more or less shows what the towel trick acheives. It will give you an idea of what is going on under the hood http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CQgLBD3F6Bg

Yep, I know from reading other's stories that this is the case and im not expecting this to be a permanent fix. However it does allow me to at least keep going till Saturday when my new DLP is being delivered and when I will have more time to go and get an exchange.

Tried the 'towel trick" last night, actually accidentally left it covered till the 360 shutdown by itself. Booted up this morning and was able to get into the Forza2 demo (which was what I was trying to do when it died, but I think thats coincidence) and played for a few minutes then watched a replay. More testing tonight after work. Not holding out much hope that its actually fixed but its an interesting development.


Were you having issues with the Forza demo before the red lights. I keep getting the clean disk message and cannot get into the demo. Now I have other demos that freeze the box, so I am sending it in for repairs. Should get my 3rd box back in about 3 weeks. :mad:

My xbox 360 got the ring of death last Saturday. I have shamefully been using the towel trick while I try and decide to get a new one or send it in for repair. I was two months out of warranty and the best I could get was for them to knock 25% off the repair fee and an extension on my xboxlive account (probably only a month or two)...My error code was 0020. The towel trick seems to work for about 2 to 3 gaming sessions before the ring appears again. While it works, I have no freezing or DVD playback issues for times up to 6 hours.

My brother-in-law's box started freezing after the update and after all the basic trouble shooting. He got his in December 06. It will freeze and when you power it back on, it has the red ring. If you leave it off for a couple of minutes, it will start again, and then freeze again. His error code is 0102.

This is most depressing...

I have been trying to get a 360 but haven't had luck finding an Elite.
So after reading all this stuff I am thinking maybe I should buy a Premium console from Costco and a seperate 120g drive. When/if my console dies I won't have to give up the hard drive.... Why pay for a warranty if I already pay for Costco?

These results are very promising: http://forums.xbox-scene.com/index.php?showtopic=595746

I'll be doing the mod on mine this week. Call Lowes ahead of time to make sure they have all the parts.

Needless to say all this "red rings of death" talk is extremely dissapointing. I am on my second 360 which also failed on me about a month ago. They replaced my original and this "replacement" only lasted for about 5 months. Like alot of others here I am currently out of the warranty period and the thought of giving M$ another $140 makes me wanna puke on my own shoes!!! The failure rate on these 360 is completely and utterly unacceptable. M$ better do someting for us or the PS3 and Wii will pass them by sooner than they anticipated.
I tried the towel trick last night and it did work but for only a few gaming sessions maybe 3-4 hours of game time and the red rings came back. I guess my only recourse now is to complain to M$ and try to get the repair cost reduced which still is too much.

Were you having issues with the Forza demo before the red lights. I keep getting the clean disk message and cannot get into the demo. Now I have other demos that freeze the box, so I am sending it in for repairs. Should get my 3rd box back in about 3 weeks. :mad:

I first got the lights on my first attempt to play the Forza demo, I had also had 2 freezes with a corrupt screen while playing Marvel Ultimate Alliance within about 8 days previous to that and had also have numerous clean disk messages. So far though I have played Gears, the Forza demo and MUA and a few HD DVD's with no problem - but if it goes completely it will be off to Costco for a replacement. Though on my last trip there they didnt have any 360's on display so I'm hoping they havent stopped selling them in-store.

I'm still going strong guys! seems when they actually send you back the same console you send in and not a refurbish one, they do go inside and fix the soldering or whatever else was wrong with it.

I'm still going strong guys! seems when they actually send you back the same console you send in and not a refurbish one, they do go inside and fix the soldering or whatever else was wrong with it.

I doubt very much they do any repair work on your actual board. They most probably take your busted mainboard out, get a fresh one and flash its eeprom with your original consoles data. Then they pack it back into your original case with your original DVD-ROM drive and mail it back to you.

Your old board is then reballed or reflowed and given new eeprom data and put into a refurbished unit and then sent out to some poor sap who wasn't quite as lucky.

Well, my launch console finally gave up the ghost on me. I was in the middle of a great round of pinball, and the system froze (Not the first time it's done that). So I rebooted. And, as I was pressing the power up button, I said to myself, "Watch, the 3 red lights are going to...", and bing! There they were. Damn, damn, damn, damn ,damn!

So I called and got my warranty stuff kicked off. Should have the coffin in 3-7 buisness days, then back in my hands 10-14 days after that. (We'll see)

Wouldn't be so bad, but I'm still off of work recovering from ankle surgery, and will be for the next 3 weeks. :(

History: I bought by X360 at Costco back in August.

Last night I popped in a HD-DVD to grab the update. The HD-DVD update seemed to work fine except while in the dash board my screen froze. Uh oh!

So I powered down, powered back up, got the big Xbox logo on the screen then some loud static noise and bam a checkerboard over the Xbox logo. Uh oh!

I again powered down, turned it back on…..3 rings of death with the (I do not know what is wrong code).

So I unplug everything for 5 minutes, plug everything back in and power up. Everything works, I am in the dashboard looking around market place and I freeze again. Reboot….3 rings of death.

So again I unplug, re-plug, power up. Everything works fine, even get in a hour of GOW online before bed.

The Question:

1) Has anyone gone through anything similar? If so what was the end result?

2) Should I return it to Costco now, get my money back and buy a new one or wait for it to officially die?

History: I bought by X360 at Costco back in August.

Last night I popped in a HD-DVD to grab the update. The HD-DVD update seemed to work fine except while in the dash board my screen froze. Uh oh!

So I powered down, powered back up, got the big Xbox logo on the screen then some loud static noise and bam a checkerboard over the Xbox logo. Uh oh!

I again powered down, turned it back on…..3 rings of death with the (I do not know what is wrong code).

So I unplug everything for 5 minutes, plug everything back in and power up. Everything works, I am in the dashboard looking around market place and I freeze again. Reboot….3 rings of death.

So again I unplug, re-plug, power up. Everything works fine, even get in a hour of GOW online before bed.

The Question:

1) Has anyone gone through anything similar? If so what was the end result?

2) Should I return it to Costco now, get my money back and buy a new one or wait for it to officially die?


Sardaan,

I did not have anything strange on screen, but I was able to power down and back up to work through the 3 rings twice. It was on the third time that nothing would work and the box had to be sent in for repairs.

Best of luck!

If you see the checkers its the beginning of the end (speaking from experience).

You have a marginal solder joint on the GPU that is expanding and contracting, making and breaking contact (with thermal cycles). This is why after a small shutdown period the console works again, but as soon as it heats up and expands, failure reoccurs. Soon it will seperate completely to the point where contraction will not yield any contact and the unit will effectively be dead.

History: I bought by X360 at Costco back in August.

Last night I popped in a HD-DVD to grab the update. The HD-DVD update seemed to work fine except while in the dash board my screen froze. Uh oh!

So I powered down, powered back up, got the big Xbox logo on the screen then some loud static noise and bam a checkerboard over the Xbox logo. Uh oh!

I again powered down, turned it back on…..3 rings of death with the (I do not know what is wrong code).

So I unplug everything for 5 minutes, plug everything back in and power up. Everything works, I am in the dashboard looking around market place and I freeze again. Reboot….3 rings of death.

So again I unplug, re-plug, power up. Everything works fine, even get in a hour of GOW online before bed.

The Question:

1) Has anyone gone through anything similar? If so what was the end result?

2) Should I return it to Costco now, get my money back and buy a new one or wait for it to officially die?


time for a trip to costco

Well today was the day, I was playing a XBLA demo and it died. Took it back to Costco (love their return policy). It would not be so bad but I just bought some HD/DVD's and now I can't watch them.

Now to find an elite to fill the void.

I wish there was a folding@home type program for the 360.

Run it for 1-3 weeks straight and see if it flakes. If it does, return it and get a new one.

Any type of stress test would be fine, I guess.

Mine just died. 3 minutes on this morning and died during Alice in Chains "We die young" (appropriate) dvd video (using HD DVD addon). It made it 5 months... I either get "3 rings of death" or corrupt video checkerboard. I know a goner when I see one. So now the 360 has a 100% failure rate in my house.

Update: They have it breathing again... Plugged directly into the wall and the time/date was set to 2005 which they say causes issues, reset that. Got my case # and I'll move forward from there... Ran it quite a bit yesterday and everything is still a go.

Update 2: Ok it died again... Time for the swap of fate. I next to never have anyone over to watch a HD DVD movie and well you know how this goes. Boom! Out... lol cry lol

Mine died yesterday, i contacted MS support to find they wanted to charge me £86 for a repair.

I've since found that mine is one of the pre 2006 manufactured models hence MS knew and as much have admitted it is likely to become faulty. However, they have since rescinded the offer of free repairs to pre 2006 consoles.

Has anyone in the uk looked at taking MS through the small claims court in this instance or am I in the not entirely unique position of being shafted by MS on a console they knew was faulty and they now refuse to repair for free?

First timer here. Died last night after about 10 minutes of RBsix Vegas. It started freezing occasionally last week and last night I got the video distortion followed by three rings. It was purchased 11/2006 so it's only about 7 months old. So how have long do the replacements last in general? I take very good care of my equimpment. It's well ventilated and probably never more than 4 hours straight. It appears that that concept of the 360 is great, but the execution is greatly lacking.

First timer here. Died last night after about 10 minutes of RBsix Vegas. It started freezing occasionally last week and last night I got the video distortion followed by three rings. It was purchased 11/2006 so it's only about 7 months old. So how have long do the replacements last in general? I take very good care of my equimpment. It's well ventilated and probably never more than 4 hours straight. It appears that that concept of the 360 is great, but the execution is greatly lacking.

Man your having the same issue/timing I'm having... I'm wondering if there is a firmware reason to this at all. It's very difficult to say and MS is so tight lipped about this because they most likely know they are skirting a possible lawsuit, so you don't get any direction from them. But this past Saturday and then last night are the first times for me as well... Coincidence? My system has been babied as well for any CE device let alone a console which historically you can take them here, there and batter them some.

I know. I took extra care because I had read all of the threads about the console being subject to break. I figured surely any launch time design issues would have been corrected by the time I bought mine. I guess they worked on streamlining the replacement process instead.

I guess it could have been the spring update but who knows. It may have just been the fact I was playing it more. I spent 3/4 hours a night playing RB6 which is more than I normally play.

I had a launch system that was performing well before it died out of nowhere 4 months ago. Thankfully I bought my 360 at Costco so I returned my defective system and picked up a replacement.

Well, on Monday night while playing the Halo 3 beta, my system died on me again. Three red lights. I ended up ordering an Elite from Costco.com and will return my defective 360 as soon as the migration cable from MS comes.

I really like my 360, but can't deny that there are some serious hardware issues. Thank goodness for Costco and their great return policy!

I finally got around to doing the X-Clamp replacement (lawdawg's method) and my $45, 3ROD, wouldn't-even-power-up 360 is running excellent. Cost for parts = $6.72 + one trip to Lowe's. So, for just over $50 and about an hour of my time, I'm now finally entering the 360 proud owner universe. (No way in hell I'm giving MS $400) We'll see how long the "mod" lasts. Two hours logged, and no issues so far whatsoever. :D

The thermal paste MS uses and their application method was a joke, btw. After seeing and removing those POS clamps, it's obvious what the flaw was. I'll be doing another unit tomorrow and post the results afterward.

I'm the latest member of the RROD club. I was playing Aegis Wing for about 15 minutes last night when the game froze. I restarted and it froze on the XBOX 360 intro screen. I restarted again, expecting the Red rings, and lo and behold I got them.

I tried starting it again this morning and it was able to boot to the dashboard and then it froze, but I couldn't get it to give me the red rings again

Just wanted to say that MS is surely cornering the "Of Death" market. Blue screen OF DEATH (you would think they would have at least changed the color or change the way a system crashes over the years to get rid of that moniker, I didn't know it was honorable). Red Rings OF DEATH (you'd think they would add better thermal paste or something over 18 months time).

Didn't Bill Gates name decode into 666 via a hexidecimal conversion or something, hmm....

Just brought my 2nd 360 back from the dead today. Yesterday's fix still running strong...CoD 3 hours last night with no issues. :)

:mad: The Root of All Evil and Microsoft's Shame: :mad:

http://i112.photobucket.com/albums/n172/spyderswebphotos/P1010017.jpg

I can't decide what to do with these POS parts. :confused:
Throwing them in the garbage would be an insult to trash everywhere. ;)

Has anybody who received a replacement NOT had to send their second one back?

I'm just wondering if I'm now about to enter the endless cycle of replacements

Has anybody who received a replacement NOT had to send their second one back?

I'm just wondering if I'm now about to enter the endless cycle of replacements
Sell the replacement and buy a PS3 or do a permanent fix yourself. Those are your choices.

Does anyone know of a leading location on the net that is making a semi-crusade to getting a real answer from MS? As bad as it's been it seems, it still isn't getting it's proper level of reporting.

My second one is in the closet cause I bought a replacment while it was being fixed. Who knows if it even works.

If both die I would definitely consider ps3. Though I do like the xbox live availability.

Dont know if that truly is the cause or not. Mine died on me and I replaced the thermal paste. No red lights or anything. Just dead video. All has been well again. Been running for a solid week now and put many many hours into it since the fix. Mainly playing Oblivion and GOW. Those games give your system a good workout. My system runs cooler now. While taking mine apart. I found some of the screws were not torqued right like the other ones. Others were tight. Some a little loose. When putting it back together. Made sure those screws were tight. Time will tell. But like I said. I dont think those clamps are the problems. Its the screws not being tight enough from the factory. Or another take on it. Say it is the clamps. But by changing the thermal paste. It drops the temp enough for the x clamps dont have the problems they have been having.

Just brought my 2nd 360 back from the dead today. Yesterday's fix still running strong...CoD 3 hours last night with no issues. :)

:mad: The Root of All Evil and Microsoft's Shame: :mad:

http://i112.photobucket.com/albums/n172/spyderswebphotos/P1010017.jpg

I can't decide what to do with these POS parts. :confused:
Throwing them in the garbage would be an insult to trash everywhere. ;)

^ Boardwarp is what does the damage. The board warps thanks in part to those x-clamps. Reseating your your heatsinks redistributes the pressure on the chips and most probably would explain why your console now boots. You've got a marginal solder joint that has failed and you've now pushed the joints together again. But the problem you now have is that you've used the same flawed components to put it back together again.

Your console will fail sooner rather than later. I've gone down the exact same path as you and 26 days repreive was all I got before failure again. There are good reasons why people are getting long lasting results by doing away with the clamps. Take it from me, I'm on my 2nd console, so a little bit wiser and a little bit poorer.

Well, it happened. Got my console March of last year. Tried booting up pinball and it froze. Powered the system off and on and boom ... 3 rings. Called Microsoft and they said I was out of warrenty by 2 months. Looked and the manufactur date and guess what ... January 24th ... so I'm screwed. I don't know if I want to give them $140 for their crap-@$$ manufacture job. I think it sux that we have to pay for their poorly manufactured system ... this is ridiculous ...

Freddy C.

Ok then say your right and the X-Clamps really are the issue, by removing them from the console what do you use to take it's place?

Can the 360 really run without them?

I'm curious about all this because when my warranty runs out i'm going to attempt these fixes.

I'm currently waiting on my replacement to be shipped to me,it's getting a little tireding playing the waiting game with microsoft and their shipping the console back and forth. I'm been without my console for a total of 2 1/2 weeks now it sucks.

...But the problem you now have is that you've used the same flawed components to put it back together again.

...There are good reasons why people are getting long lasting results by doing away with the clamps...
Agreed. Toss those POS clamps! Use them for ninja stars, tracing the big X for X-mas cards, whatever. Just don't put them back in the unit!

Ok then say your right and the X-Clamps really are the issue, by removing them from the console what do you use to take it's place?

Can the 360 really run without them?...
The 360 can absolutely run without those POS clamps...and it will run much, much more efficiently. You use some nylon/metal washers and 8 screws (or since those weren't available for my second mod, 8 nuts).

Tossing the X-Clamp eliminates the center pressure point, and seats the heatsinks evenly across the die. One of the main things to get right is the AS5 application. Dropping a dab on the center and trusting the sink to mash the paste evenly is a mistake, imo. MS drops the spot on the die and when the pressure is applied, nearly every last bit of paste is pushed off the die and onto the surrounding edges, in effect, defeating the purpose of the paste entirely. I applied the paste evenly and uniformly and lightly set the sinks on top, then tightened the screws/bolts in an even pattern, similar to lug nuts on a wheel.

Add one more 360 owner who's been plauged by the infamous 3 red lights. Got mine in December and except for a month where it was used alot (at least by my standards) it is used maybe 10 hours a week and that includes using it as a DVD/HD DVD player. Very dissapointed, this is infact the second one to go bad on me, the first was my friend's that I was babysitting while he was out fo town for a month. Called tech support this morning and actually talked to someone who doesn't speak english as a second language but when I told her about the error code she had no idea what I was talking about. Regardless, my white coffin will be on the way tomorrow and hope to have it shipped off before next weekend. My buddy was lucky enough to ship his out on a Wed and get a refurb back by the following Tuesday. I'm hoping I'm as lucky.

My turn. I'm not even going to do the towel trick. I may just put the money towards a gun to shoot the damn thing.

mine died about a month ago. Since then I bought a ps3. I do admit I miss GOW a little but oh well.... was a launch system. Never agian will I buy a M$ product because of this. In 19 years of gaming Ive never had a system die on me. Untill now...

Samething as you. Have owned every console within reason and my launch 360 died awile back. Have done the thermal paste fix and its running again. For how long though? Who knows. Nor do I care anymore. Im tired of having to fix M$ own problems. I will never own another M$ console either. There being made faulty and dont care about it. Think of all these poor souls that dont know anything of the problems like us and being stuck with them. Ill get a PS3 when games come out for it. So I will be waiting atleast a year.

mine died about a month ago. Since then I bought a ps3. I do admit I miss GOW a little but oh well.... was a launch system. Never agian will I buy a M$ product because of this. In 19 years of gaming Ive never had a system die on me. Untill now...

Ok then say your right and the X-Clamps really are the issue, by removing them from the console what do you use to take it's place?

http://forums.xbox-scene.com/index.php?showtopic=599217
http://forums.xbox-scene.com/index.php?showtopic=599216

http://forums.xbox-scene.com/index.php?showtopic=599217
http://forums.xbox-scene.com/index.php?showtopic=599216
Nice links. An alternative that shows two methods:

http://forums.xbox-scene.com/index.php?showtopic=595746

lawdawg's method is the simpler one of the two and is the one I used (with some modifications to the parts list).

lawdawg's method is the simpler one of the two and is the one I used (with some modifications to the parts list).

I think this is the one to do. Doesn't take long and I have had success with several machines doing it this way. I even added a fan header and an additional fan on the machine I use at home too. Plus I changed out the OEM fan with better fans. So far, the machine hasn't had even one blip and I run it all the time. I think I paid $70 for this one so it ended up being a bargain even with my upgrades. I also changed the case to a clear one. But with other ones I have done, I only replaced the clamps and paste, and they are all still running. I also do the heat gun treatment on the gpu but that may or may not be necessary. So if you are out of warranty and don't want to pay Microsoft to fix it, it can be done. You'll just be out a few dollars and a couple hours of your time.

mine died about a month ago. Since then I bought a ps3. I do admit I miss GOW a little but oh well.... was a launch system. Never agian will I buy a M$ product because of this. In 19 years of gaming Ive never had a system die on me. Untill now...

I have never seen a console with this many breakdowns ever. I was at BB yesterday and the 360 in the kiosk displayed the 3 Rings. It is so sad this console is experiencing this many problems.

My 360 came back Friday w/ a manufacturing date of 7/7/2006. We'll see how long this one lasts.

Well this is my third box going back... Man this sucks.....

I just got the three red rings, too!

BUT, I have a question for you all...

I got it while playing Rainbow Six. First it froze. Then I re-started, and it froze on the loading screen. Then it froze on the white screen you see when you power up. So, I take it out, and put in Call of Duty 2...I play CoD for about a min...no problem. I take it out. Pop Rainbow back in...I start a NEW game in Rainbow, not loading my saved file. Watched the into sequence for a bit...no probs.

Tried loading up the saved game in Rainbow, and it froze. Then red lights...what's the deal here? Maybe it WILL freeze in every game I play, and I just haven't played it enough to find out. But, as it seems, it's just freezing at this specific point in Rainbow...but I don't have enough experience with the red rings to know.

Any help? Thanks.

I found this post interesting as well from a Xbox.com poster:

"Well, I just dropped my Dec.22,2006 X-Box 360 at the local UPS store. I was shocked when she told me the number of units she ships out from there. In a town of 68,000 people, the clerk said the daily average for a month is about 12 units per day. So in a 30 day month, she ships out roughly 360 units to the repair facility. I had to laugh when I thought about the monthly total average. If I hadn't delt with the clerk numerous times in the past, I wouldn't have believed her. All out of a small Southern Wisconsin community and surrounding area. I think thats more than 3 to 5%."

I ran those numbers against the entire population of the US and a fixed total of 10 million units sold. I won't even bother posting that result.

I just got the three red rings, too!

BUT, I have a question for you all...

I got it while playing Rainbow Six. First it froze. Then I re-started, and it froze on the loading screen. Then it froze on the white screen you see when you power up. So, I take it out, and put in Call of Duty 2...I play CoD for about a min...no problem. I take it out. Pop Rainbow back in...I start a NEW game in Rainbow, not loading my saved file. Watched the into sequence for a bit...no probs.

Tried loading up the saved game in Rainbow, and it froze. Then red lights...what's the deal here? Maybe it WILL freeze in every game I play, and I just haven't played it enough to find out. But, as it seems, it's just freezing at this specific point in Rainbow...but I don't have enough experience with the red rings to know.

Any help? Thanks.

it'll be dying soon.

Really? Well, what would you recommend? It's still under Best Buy Warranty until August 2007.

BUT, this will be my FOURTH Xbox 360 since August 2006 if I trade this one in for a new one.

What would you guys suggest here? Should I start thinking about selling my 360 and buying a PS3? Do you all know if PS3 is having similar malfunctioning problems? Because this is just getting absurd.

I found this post interesting as well from a Xbox.com poster:

"Well, I just dropped my Dec.22,2006 X-Box 360 at the local UPS store. I was shocked when she told me the number of units she ships out from there. In a town of 68,000 people, the clerk said the daily average for a month is about 12 units per day. So in a 30 day month, she ships out roughly 360 units to the repair facility. I had to laugh when I thought about the monthly total average. If I hadn't delt with the clerk numerous times in the past, I wouldn't have believed her. All out of a small Southern Wisconsin community and surrounding area. I think thats more than 3 to 5%."

I ran those numbers against the entire population of the US and a fixed total of 10 million units sold. I won't even bother posting that result.

Yeah i noticed that too over there, i post there often also.

Also have any of you tried using a water cooling mod for your 360's???

I've heard many people use them and with great success in that it cooled the 360 down drastically when compared to just using the heatsink method.

Are there any sites explaining on how to install it and how much would one cost in general??

Really? Well, what would you recommend? It's still under Best Buy Warranty until August 2007.

BUT, this will be my FOURTH Xbox 360 since August 2006 if I trade this one in for a new one.

What would you guys suggest here? Should I start thinking about selling my 360 and buying a PS3? Do you all know if PS3 is having similar malfunctioning problems? Because this is just getting absurd.

Nah i wouldn't sell the 360,i would just keep it because there is a lot of great games coming out for it and you will probably regret selling it later on down the road.

I got the 3 RRoD over the weekend while watching Pan's Labyrinth on SD DVD via my HD DVD player. It sucks. :mad:

Question: my fiance purchased the XBox 360 for me in the middle of July 06. Is it still under warranty perhaps from Microsoft and/or Best Buy? She did not buy the PSP either, so that is shot.

What are my options from here? Call me a stickler, but I do not want to open it up and mod it just to get it to work. Is it too much to ask Microsoft to produce a working unit and have it last longer than a year? I've used it maybe 3 hours per week max since i got it.

This may be wishful thinking, but I do NOT want to open it up to fix it and I do NOT want to pay ANYONE another dime to fix or replace it themselves. I'm SOL aren't I?

I got the 3 RRoD over the weekend while watching Pan's Labyrinth on SD DVD via my HD DVD player. It sucks. :mad:

Question: my fiance purchased the XBox 360 for me in the middle of July 06. Is it still under warranty perhaps from Microsoft and/or Best Buy? She did not buy the PSP either, so that is shot.

What are my options from here? Call me a stickler, but I do not want to open it up and mod it just to get it to work. Is it too much to ask Microsoft to produce a working unit and have it last longer than a year? I've used it maybe 3 hours per week max since i got it.

This may be wishful thinking, but I do NOT want to open it up to fix it and I do NOT want to pay ANYONE another dime to fix or replace it themselves. I'm SOL aren't I?

When you first had your 360 did you by any chance register it on xbox.com?

If so you can check your warranty status on thie web page under the "Support" tab.

...It's still under Best Buy Warranty until August 2007...What would you guys suggest here?...
Keep exchanging it until the warantee is up, then just do the permanent fix yourself. It's easy.

Keep exchanging it until the warantee is up, then just do the permanent fix yourself. It's easy.

The permanent fix? What do you mean?

I guess I'm getting frustrated because if I exchange it at Best Buy this weekend, it will be my fourth Xbox in about 9 or 10 months. I feel like I can't rely on the console for more than a few months. And if that's the case, I'm worried if I should keep it. If I had a lifetime warranty, I guess I wouldn't care too much. But when the warranty is up in August, I don't want to have to pay MS $100 plus to get my 360 repaird every time it breaks down.

When you first had your 360 did you by any chance register it on xbox.com?

If so you can check your warranty status on thie web page under the "Support" tab.
Thanks for the tip bro! I obviously did not register it because nothing shows up under 'Registered Devices'. Should I go ahead and register it to activate the warranty?

One thing I am curious about...do most people have their 360 sitting horizontal or vertical? I am wondering if maybe the system gets overheated more when horizontal?

One thing I am curious about...do most people have their 360 sitting horizontal or vertical? I am wondering if maybe the system gets overheated more when horizontal?
Mine is horizontal.

Mine is horizontal.

Mine is dead. what a piece of sh*t. 3rd one in 18 months. damn microsoft

What is weird is I can turn the console on and get to and navigate around the dashboard just fine. It logs me into Xbox Live and everything. I opened the HD DVD drive and BAM...nothing but orange vertical stripes on he screen.

So I took the HDD off and turned on the console again and got the 3 RRoD. Did the trick and found out my error is:

0102 unknown error - literally means the console does not know what is wrong. Possibly a short or cold solder joint somewhere (2 reports of people repairing this, one was removing moisture build up inside the console, the other used a hot-air rework to reflow the BGA Ram chips)

Awesome. :mad:

On the phone w/support now...as it turns out I'm still under warranty. Went ahead and registered my console on Xbox.com. Update coming soon...hopefully they'll ship me out a refurb like others have reported.

Nothing like waiting until the last minute. :)

Last month of my manufacturer warranty. Very nice lady helped me out and they are shipping out a prepaid UPS box to ship it to them in. I tried to weasel my way into an Elite but she would have none of it. Haha.

Looks like I'll be without gaming and HD DVDs for a month...

Nothing like waiting until the last minute. :)

Last month of my manufacturer warranty. Very nice lady helped me out and they are shipping out a prepaid UPS box to ship it to them in. I tried to weasel my way into an Elite but she would have none of it. Haha.

Looks like I'll be without gaming and HD DVDs for a month...

I'm getting mine back tommorow,all in all it took around 3 weeks total, a long week without the 360 i know. :p

I made the most of my time though and borrowed my brothers PS2 to hold me over.

The permanent fix? What do you mean?...
Try reading the last two pages. Takes all of 3 minutes.

I had my first 360 (a launch unit) quit working on me back in March. Any disc I put in came back as "unreadable". Unfortunately, I was past the one year warranty and all of my arguing did nothing to get the $140 charge waived.

The unit I got back had a mfg date of 11-5-2005. It gave me the 3 red lights yesterday and an error code of 0020. The towel trick didn't work, so now I'm waiting for my coffin. 9 weeks is all it lasted.

I'm not a happy camper at the moment. :mad:

I had my first 360 (a launch unit) quit working on me back in March. Any disc I put in came back as "unreadable". Unfortunately, I was past the one year warranty and all of my arguing did nothing to get the $140 charge waived.

The unit I got back had a mfg date of 11-5-2005. It gave me the 3 red lights yesterday and an error code of 0020. The towel trick didn't work, so now I'm waiting for my coffin. 9 weeks is all it lasted.

I'm not a happy camper at the moment. :mad:


Do the xclamp fix. As long as you keep sending it to M$ you will always get the lights at some point because they dont fix the problem which is a design flaw.

The permanent fix is linked

http://forums.xbox-scene.com/index.php?showtopic=599217
http://forums.xbox-scene.com/index.php?showtopic=599216

I have done this fix(rbjtech's method) and it resurrected my 360 from its 6month grave.

Also look at this guys cooling modifications so you dont ever experience these lights again

Hey guys,

Are those 360 cooling fan attachments worth a buy? Have they been known to keep the 360's cooler and therefore less prone to overheating/red rings??

Hey guys,

Are those 360 cooling fan attachments worth a buy? Have they been known to keep the 360's cooler and therefore less prone to overheating/red rings??
NYKO Intercooler is most popular, but I don't personally believe in gimmicks, just real solutions.

Edit: My second Xbox died. Yea! Waiting on the coffin...

Hey guys,

Are those 360 cooling fan attachments worth a buy? Have they been known to keep the 360's cooler and therefore less prone to overheating/red rings??
I had one and took it off. With it on the xbox sounded like a 747 on takoff..... :eek:

Hey guys,

Are those 360 cooling fan attachments worth a buy? Have they been known to keep the 360's cooler and therefore less prone to overheating/red rings??

You may want to look at this one: http://www.radioshack.com/product/index.jsp?productId=2715474

It doesn't get the press of the other two but those that seem to have tried them all prefer this one. Features two fans blowing in from the side, instead of one from the Pelican offering that works in this manner. Uses it's own power supply.

This one here is also on the Horizon and is a cooler with other output options: http://www.ebgames.com/product.asp?product%5Fid=802686

I'm confident that any of these will make the unit run cooler and not hurt but help. Help enough? Well that is hard to tell with such small samples each of us have individually.

NYKO Intercooler is most popular, but I don't personally believe in gimmicks, just real solutions.
I'm going to repeat (and slightly modify) my stance on this by stating that it's not very hard to find a plethora of info on aftermarket coolers doing far more damage than good. Throwing bricks into the Grand Canyon isn't going to fill it up. The ONLY answer is the permanent fix! Period.

^For every bad reviews there are more good reviews. All of them drop the temp of the system down. How can that be bad? The Nyko had a few people mention they melted to the back of the 360. Fine get one of the others, I've also read Nyko believes that is so so small that they will replace and 360 with that problem. I think everyone is for a permanent fix but I also see cooler as being better and all these do cool the box down some.

Well, my launch console finally gave up the ghost on me. I was in the middle of a great round of pinball, and the system froze (Not the first time it's done that). So I rebooted. And, as I was pressing the power up button, I said to myself, "Watch, the 3 red lights are going to...", and bing! There they were. Damn, damn, damn, damn ,damn!

So I called and got my warranty stuff kicked off. Should have the coffin in 3-7 buisness days, then back in my hands 10-14 days after that. (We'll see)

Wouldn't be so bad, but I'm still off of work recovering from ankle surgery, and will be for the next 3 weeks. :(
Got it back, well, gotta refurb back, 2 days ago. I didn't have time to hook it up until today. Everything seems to be working correctly. And I shipped it off on the 22nd, the day I recieved my coffin. So 9 days turn around over a holiday weekend. Not to shabby! :D

^For every bad reviews there are more good reviews. All of them drop the temp of the system down. How can that be bad? The Nyko had a few people mention they melted to the back of the 360. Fine get one of the others, I've also read Nyko believes that is so so small that they will replace and 360 with that problem. I think everyone is for a permanent fix but I also see cooler as being better and all these do cool the box down some.
Cooler is fine, but at what risk? No way I'm going to bump the temp down a measly 2-3 degrees (reported findings with aftermarket add-on fans, not fan mods) at the risk of burning up my 360, or even worse, burning down my house! The fact remains that the Nyko is taking power meant soley for the 360 and lowering the joules to the unit, which is NOT good. :(

That Pelican looks interesting, but I'm not too fond of the wonky way things are ouput out the back...plus, typical Pelican products, for me, have proven to be absolute s#!t. Now, if Logitech ever makes a fan for the 360, I'll buy it in a heartbeat. :)

Just had my second 360 die on my tonight. I'm about as big a xbox supporter as there is, but this just sucks.

TIP: My warranty expired in March, the cost for them to fix is around $130. The support guy said he would try to get me a discount since this is my second dead xbox. He came back with a 25% and asked if I wanted to proceed. I said I would like a better discount (really don't know why I should pay for a defective product). He put me on hold for a long time, but finally came back and told me I could get a free repair, but that I would not get a free 1yr warranty extension (which costs $24).

I'm not sure if everyone can get the free repair or if I just got it because I have spent X amount of dollars on the console (games, hd-dvd, xbla, movie... etc) it's really in MS's best interest to give me a free repair. But it my opinion xbox 360 is defective and nobody should be paying to get it repaired.

I have no intention of paying over $100 to fix an xbox that is very likely to break again next year. It's like paying a $100 stupid tax every year. If MS didn't give me a free repair tonight I would very likely be picking up a PS3 (although not until they get games that I would actually want to play).

Just had my second 360 die on my tonight. I'm about as big a xbox supporter as there is, but this just sucks.

TIP: My warranty expired in March, the cost for them to fix is around $130. The support guy said he would try to get me a discount since this is my second dead xbox. He came back with a 25% and asked if I wanted to proceed. I said I would like a better discount (really don't know why I should pay for a defective product). He put me on hold for a long time, but finally came back and told me I could get a free repair, but that I would not get a free 1yr warranty extension (which costs $24).

I'm not sure if everyone can get the free repair or if I just got it because I have spent X amount of dollars on the console (games, hd-dvd, xbla, movie... etc) it's really in MS's best interest to give me a free repair. But it my opinion xbox 360 is defective and nobody should be paying to get it repaired.

I have no intention of paying over $100 to fix an xbox that is very likely to break again next year. It's like paying a $100 stupid tax every year. If MS didn't give me a free repair tonight I would very likely be picking up a PS3 (although not until they get games that I would actually want to play).

I feel similar to you (just had my second die).

When Sony gets some decent games I will be getting a PS3.

I think the 360 could be a great system, but the build quality is beyond pathetic.

I feel similar to you (just had my second die).

When Sony gets some decent games I will be getting a PS3.

I think the 360 could be a great system, but the build quality is beyond pathetic.
Thanks, thats why I posted, just to commiserate with others in similar situation.

I'm not yet buying a PS3, as MS is giving me a free repair and I already own a bunch of content for 360. I pretty much need to have a 360 at this point. I'm really glad I got the free repair or else I would be SOL (no possible chance in hell to sue MS I figure).

When (not if) my 3rd xbox dies, if I can't get another free repair, hopefully the price will be reduced and hopefully the 65nm version will be out, and hopefully the 3RROD will be gone for good.

Then, when the next next generation of video game consoles comes out I will not be buying for at least one year to verify that the systems are not defective.

Cooler is fine, but at what risk? No way I'm going to bump the temp down a measly 2-3 degrees (reported findings with aftermarket add-on fans, not fan mods) at the risk of burning up my 360, or even worse, burning down my house! The fact remains that the Nyko is taking power meant soley for the 360 and lowering the joules to the unit, which is NOT good. :(

That Pelican looks interesting, but I'm not too fond of the wonky way things are ouput out the back...plus, typical Pelican products, for me, have proven to be absolute s#!t. Now, if Logitech ever makes a fan for the 360, I'll buy it in a heartbeat. :)

1. You’re not speaking from personal experience it seems.
2. The reports I’ve seen were more then 2-3 degrees, more like 20'ish for the CPU and half that on the GPU.
3. What about the 3rd option I linked above? It's neither Pelican nor does it work like the Nyko and it has it's own power supply.
4. What about a laptop cooler?
5. What about combining solutions?
6. The burning the house down isn't worth responding. Why drive? It could kill ya!

What I know is I have a heating issue and well now I'm treating it more like a pc and that is do whatever it's gonna take for it to run without breaking. Thinking outside of the console norm, right or wrong but I guess I got to take it in my own hands and right now my limit is not voiding the warranty. The problem I made was not taking the 3RoD seriously enough until it happened to me. That was my bad.

Thanks, thats why I posted, just to commiserate with others in similar situation.

I'm not yet buying a PS3, as MS is giving me a free repair and I already own a bunch of content for 360. I pretty much need to have a 360 at this point. I'm really glad I got the free repair or else I would be SOL (no possible chance in hell to sue MS I figure).

Why is that? You can take them to small claims easily. They'd fix it before they would ever show up. You thinking you have no chance is why you would lose.

Why is that? You can take them to small claims easily. They'd fix it before they would ever show up. You thinking you have no chance is why you would lose.
Really? Are people threatening lawsuits and getting a free repair? Has anyone ever asked for a free repair and not gotten one?

1. You’re not speaking from personal experience it seems.
2. The reports I’ve seen were more then 2-3 degrees, more like 20'ish for the CPU and half that on the GPU.
3. What about the 3rd option I linked above? It's neither Pelican nor does it work like the Nyko and it has it's own power supply.
4. What about a laptop cooler?
5. What about combining solutions?
6. The burning the house down isn't worth responding. Why drive? It could kill ya!

What I know is I have a heating issue and well now I'm treating it more like a pc and that is do whatever it's gonna take for it to run without breaking. Thinking outside of the console norm, right or wrong but I guess I got to take it in my own hands and right now my limit is not voiding the warranty. The problem I made was not taking the 3RoD seriously enough until it happened to me. That was my bad.
What about a 747 jet engine mounted underneath the board? :rolleyes: Sigh. Whatever makes you feel good. Keep yours in a container of liquid nitrogen while playing for all I care. What I'm getting at is that if you are absolutely insistant upon forcing 1,000,000 cfm of air through the system, it's very wise to use legitimate parts and a proven modification designed to do the job correctly, not some cheap-ass, ill-thought, add-on unit(s) just because it's cheap and easy. That said, you will void your so-called "warantee" by doing the correct mods. (Of course for those unafraid of charring their belongings and family, this "risk" is miniscule. ;) )

*While driving certainly can be potentially damgerous, I wouldn't drive a Ford Exploder with recalled Firestone tires just to save a few pennies either. :confused:

Really? Are people threatening lawsuits and getting a free repair? Has anyone ever asked for a free repair and not gotten one?

I dont think so. Threatening a lawsuit to use as a persuation tool is illeagle in itself.

What about a 747 jet engine mounted underneath the board? :rolleyes: Sigh. Whatever makes you feel good. Keep yours in a container of liquid nitrogen while playing for all I care. What I'm getting at is that if you are absolutely insistant upon forcing 1,000,000 cfm of air through the system, it's very wise to use legitimate parts and a proven modification designed to do the job correctly, not some cheap-ass, ill-thought, add-on unit(s) just because it's cheap and easy. That said, you will void your so-called "warantee" by doing the correct mods. (Of course for those unafraid of charring their belongings and family, this "risk" is miniscule. ;) )

*While driving certainly can be potentially damgerous, I wouldn't drive a Ford Exploder with recalled Firestone tires just to save a few pennies either. :confused:

Pretty much the consensus of several sites say do not mod if you are still in warranty. I'm going with the majority on this one simple as that. There have been plenty of people that had some issues, used these coolers "in warranty" and the problems disappeared. To suggest otherwise means there are a lot of liars on the internet and then what says I trust you or anyone?

I'm not against the more drastic and cunning modifications, just not for me yet. Don't know why you have to be so against some of these things keeping a complete one track-mind, there is a weigh and balance slant to this imo.

Really? Are people threatening lawsuits and getting a free repair? Has anyone ever asked for a free repair and not gotten one?

Have you ever attempted a small claims? You go down fill out some forms. You don't have to threaten them, just do it. They will most likely call you to work things out. Otherwise they have to show. You would have all your ducks in a row to present and MS would have to answer and a judge rules. The point is MS would call you and work things out. MS isn't above the law or anything, it's like people don't understand their rights. With some stories with the 360 I don't feel some would be unmoral to do this if they weren't getting what they felt was proper treatment and I'm sure you won't be the first to use this method.

...Don't know why you have to be so against some of these things keeping a complete one track-mind, there is a weigh and balance slant to this imo.
Because a vast majority of the ROD issues have zilch to do with moving air. A very applicable parallel is that if your car is overheating, adding a K&N filter isn't going to solve the problem in any way, shape, or form.*

*With the reasonable exception being that your original air filter is a block of wood. :eek:

Have you ever attempted a small claims? You go down fill out some forms. You don't have to threaten them, just do it. They will most likely call you to work things out. Otherwise they have to show. You would have all your ducks in a row to present and MS would have to answer and a judge rules. The point is MS would call you and work things out. MS isn't above the law or anything, it's like people don't understand their rights. With some stories with the 360 I don't feel some would be unmoral to do this if they weren't getting what they felt was proper treatment and I'm sure you won't be the first to use this method.
That makes sense. I don't MS would send lawyers around the country to do small claims. It would be easier just to fix the xbox. I hope I never have to go through the hassle of all that though.

Because a vast majority of the ROD issues have zilch to do with moving air. A very applicable parallel is that if your car is overheating, adding a K&N filter isn't going to solve the problem in any way, shape, or form.*

*With the reasonable exception being that your original air filter is a block of wood. :eek:

Ok you’re against it, got it. I'll keep your ideas in mind though, I'm not saying I'm against them but I'm not voiding my warranty at this time and heat seems to be a big issue and well moving air does help dissipate heat.

I know this isn't ethical, but MS isn't being very ethical with me on repairing my replacement I got about 10 months ago. I don't want to pay the $130 for repairing this junk so I'm thinking on going to BB and getting a new one and then returning it to the store in a few days with the bricked unit and keeping the new one. Anyone do this here? Will it work, or do they scan the Serial number?

My second Xbox360 did the 3 rings of death this weekend. I received it in February, my original lasted from June to February. They told me that it was $140 to fix and I asked to speak to the supervisor. They had me on hold for 3 minutes and then came back with a 75% discount, $40 total including shipping and an additional one year warentee.

I have my unit in the best cooling option available 4"-6" on all sides, cool basement and a couple of externally powered USB fans built into the cabinet with the unit plugged into a battery based UPS. The Xbox design is not optimal but as long as Microsoft is paying to fix it this is fine with me. I'm waiting to see if the lower power die shrink version due out around Christmas time will draw less power and heat.

Oh and bye the way keep you damn receipts and make copies. Microsoft was unable to come up with any record of my original purchase registration.

I know this isn't ethical, but MS isn't being very ethical with me on repairing my replacement I got about 10 months ago. I don't want to pay the $130 for repairing this junk so I'm thinking on going to BB and getting a new one and then returning it to the store in a few days with the bricked unit and keeping the new one. Anyone do this here? Will it work, or do they scan the Serial number?

they scan the #, that's why the box has a hole in it that lines up with the UPC on the back of the 360. same as buying a new one.

I found this post interesting as well from a Xbox.com poster:

"Well, I just dropped my Dec.22,2006 X-Box 360 at the local UPS store. I was shocked when she told me the number of units she ships out from there. In a town of 68,000 people, the clerk said the daily average for a month is about 12 units per day. So in a 30 day month, she ships out roughly 360 units to the repair facility. I had to laugh when I thought about the monthly total average. If I hadn't delt with the clerk numerous times in the past, I wouldn't have believed her. All out of a small Southern Wisconsin community and surrounding area. I think thats more than 3 to 5%."

I ran those numbers against the entire population of the US and a fixed total of 10 million units sold. I won't even bother posting that result.

I want to add my actual experience today as I dropped mine off at the UPS Store, I've been holding on to it for a while because I'm going out of town and I'm trying to lineup my return with the time the 360 returns, to not get into a delivery snafu. I saw this post above at Xbox.com and mentioned it as I think it's an interesting take on how to figure "how bad" this really is, without MS not telling us.

So I'm heading into my UPS Store town of 20,000 and I ask them "Do you know what this is?" She says it's an Xbox 360, now understand this is boxed up and ready to roll. I said to her "yes it is". I asked how many does she send out daily. She first replied, "You are the second one today". I asked again and she didn't say an exact number but mentioned 3-5 per week. She also said "Everyone I know sends these back for repair". I told her thanks and that I'm asking because MS isn't coming clean with the issue publicly and this maybe a way of getting a rough understanding of the problem. Ok so that is the story, now lets do the math.

My town is 20,000. Lets say 10 million XBoxes were sold in the US (This is high most likely but this number will benefit MS from being high in the math) and lets say there is 350,000,000 people in the US, that is a fair number.

350,000,000/10,000,000 = 1 in 35 people in the US own a 360. That's actually pretty impressive.

20,000 / 350,000,000 = My town represents .0057% of the population.

My town is returning a low-end 3 360's per week.

20,000 (pop)/ 35 (1 in 35 own a 360) = 571 360's on avg. were sold in my town

68 weeks, the 360 has been out for 17 months *4 avg weeks

68 (weeks) *3 (returns per week)=204 360's have been returned in total in my town.

204 (returns)/571 (total sold) gives us that magic number doesn't it? Yes it does. And also to note that means everyone is returning their Xbox through a UPS store, that doesn't have to be that way either, however they most likely get the majority and again that actually helps the number for MS as I'm not adding a percentage of returns not going through the UPS store. This will be bad enough.

Drum Roll:
38% of the 360's purchased in my small town of 20,000 have been returned. Drop that in half to be more then fair because that is what Jesus would do and it's still a very high 19%, using only1.5 returns per week in my town where it could be as high as five per week perhaps.

Houston we have a problem. For anyone that is really disappointed with the build quality of their 360, stop at your UPS store and ask them how many they are returning and run the numbers yourself to compare and let us know. Power to the people and we made need it this time. Someone has to be sweating over there. For how good it is as a game player, talk about an Achilles heel, this will affect their next generation an awful lot imo.

To note my numbers are much better (again I'm trying to skew this in MS favor anywhere I can) then what was quoted originally above.

HorrorScope, is there only one UPS store in your town? Your estimate is very rough, however, if 19% turned out to be the actual failure rate I would only be mildly surprised.

Today on Joystiq there was a story about how MS is running out of cardboard repair boxes. Very humorous.

I usually never buy an extended warranty, but with 360 I feel that I pretty much have to. There is always a risk in buying any product, and especially electronics, but there is no question in my mind that the failure rate of 360 is exceedingly high. The thing is fragile.

I'm now telling my friends to hold off buying a 360 if they can. Wait for a price drop and/or a new version that doesn't run as hot. If they really must buy a 360, an extended warranty is definitely a wise decision as the failure rate is obviously pretty high.

From reading various accounts on different forums I see that just about everyone is getting a different deal on the repair costs. Some people get 50% off, some get 100% off plus free extended warranty, some still have to pay for the warranty, I'm sure many people don't know to ask for a better deal and end up paying the full $135 to get their 360 fixed.

HorrorScope, is there only one UPS store in your town? Your estimate is very rough, however, if 19% turned out to be the actual failure rate I would only be mildly surprised.

Today on Joystiq there was a story about how MS is running out of cardboard repair boxes. Very humorous.

I usually never buy an extended warranty, but with 360 I feel that I pretty much have to. There is always a risk in buying any product, and especially electronics, but there is no question in my mind that the failure rate of 360 is exceedingly high. The thing is fragile.

I'm now telling my friends to hold off buying a 360 if they can. Wait for a price drop and/or a new version that doesn't run as hot. If they really must buy a 360, an extended warranty is definitely a wise decision as the failure rate is obviously pretty high.

From reading various accounts on different forums I see that just about everyone is getting a different deal on the repair costs. Some people get 50% off, some get 100% off plus free extended warranty, some still have to pay for the warranty, I'm sure many people don't know to ask for a better deal and end up paying the full $135 to get their 360 fixed.

Just one UPS store, there are two other general shipping stores so yes they can be getting some as well. Yeah I'm going back home next week and I was wanting to get all my old-friends on the 360 bandwagon but I won't now and I'm serious because of this overheating issue. They are more of the hunting/mechanic crowd we'd do some sports and racing games online but they aren't savvy much and a system breaking on them means rot in the corner forever.

...They are more of the hunting/mechanic crowd we'd do some sports and racing games online but they aren't savvy much and a system breaking on them means rot in the corner forever.
:confused: Hmm. Mechanics that can't take out 20 or so Torx bolts to fix the 360...not sure I'd want them working on my car! ;)

7 months to the day and I have joined the RROD Club. Code 0102. I bought my XBOX at Costco just because I knew this would happen and they would exchange it. I bought the 120 hard drive after the crash and I'm going to go use my friends 360 to transfer my data on to the 120, then off to Costco.

One side note. I went to Best Buy, where I bought the 120G Hard Drive, and begged them to swap the information since my 360 died. To swap my account and save games is a very easy process, because it's all plug and play. You just need a working 360. Well, they couldn't figure it out, (Geek Squad), so I read the instructions to them and explained that it would take 10 mins tops, from start to finish. They said ok, and asked me to bring in my XBOX, I said what? If my XBOX worked, I could do it, as I just explained to you. Then they said, oh, well we can do it on ours for $159. WHAT!!! Come on, I'd pay for your time but this is about as easy as opening and heating a can of spaghetti O's. I'm not going to pay you $159 to heat some spaghetti O's. So, they said, ok how about $100. I said how about NO.

I decided to wait 3 hours till my friend gets home, and then to Costco........ RROD...UGH!

:confused: Hmm. Mechanics that can't take out 20 or so Torx bolts to fix the 360...not sure I'd want them working on my car! ;)

Yeah mechanics that don't usually mess with computers, like most.

Got the RROD this week approximately 17 months after purchase. Lucklily had bought the best buy product replacement plan and was able to swap it for a new one today after getting a bit of a runaround. The first BB I went to said that I had to have the hard drive to return, which there was no way in hell I was giving up, so I went to a different store and swapped it out with no problem. Interestingly the first store I went to only had elites-no premiums as I had purchased-I was willing to pay the difference but they said that since I had no hard drive they would have to take the hard drive from the elite before the would accept the exchange. Kind of defeats the purpose of paying the extra $80 bucks for the elite, which was what lead me to the next store where they confirmed premiums were in stock.

The second store didn't check the hard drive (in fact didn't check anything other than the core system--I could have kept the extra controller and headset had I tried) but wouldn't let me pay $80 extra for the elite, would only swap for another premium. Whatever. I was willing to pay more for the elite, but don't need HDMI and don't need the extra storage space that much either so was happy to get a new premium and be on my way. Funny, but not surprising that 2 best buys within 3 subway stops of each other in Manhattan had completely different replacement plan policies for the 360. I swear their policies just happen to be whatever the whim of the particular clerk is at the time.

I bought another replacement plan as well since I have absolutely no faith that this new one will survive 2 years either. The customer service person said that she sees way more returns of 360s than any other gaming system (she said this after I bought the plan so I don't think it was just a sales pitch) and I noticed that they had raised the price to $60 since I had bought the replacement plan originally, probably due to the higher than expected number of returns. Love my 360 but wish MS could get the console failures under control. Anecdotally, after firing up the new system it seems to be a bit quieter on startup and launch of games. Has anyone else noticed this with a newer system?

...Anecdotally, after firing up the new system it seems to be a bit quieter on startup and launch of games. Has anyone else noticed this with a newer system?
Newer thermal paste = cooler/quieter. As time marches on, MS' s#!tty X-clamp design and thermal paste application method will most assuredly eat the one you just got as well.

Edit: If there are any doubts as to the validitiy of this post, simply look at the following one right below. Sad. :(

Un-goddam-believable!!!!

After all the BS I went through in the quote below, I have just now watched my THIRD different 360 die the 3-rings-of-death!

!$@#@%%@!!*&!&!!

I am supposedly going to be contacted by someone from MS customer support in the next 24-48 hours to discuss what else they are going to do for me besides send me another damn coffin.

I have been a 360 owner since March 5, 2006 and in that time I have gone through a console manucfactured in January 2006, July 2006 and December 2005.

This is beyond unacceptable performance.

I owned ONE Playstation 2 - and it STILL works!
I owned ONE X-Box 1 - and it STILL works!

I have owned consoles going all the way back to the Atari 2600 and my grand total of broken consoles is now 4 and 3 of those have been XBox 360's :mad:

The crying shame in all of this is that I genuinely like the games and media options of the 360. The thing handles HD-DVD great, it plays WMV-HD files from disc flawlessly (including those ripped from HD-DVD and Blu-Ray yet burned to DL-DVDs) and it streams media from the PC very well.

For everything good about the 360 though this failure rate is wholly unacceptable. Can't wait for the class-action lawsuit because I will be signing it as soon as possible....


I have officially been informed by Microsoft that 9 months is now greater than 12 months!
(Which is going to make a lovely tag line in a lot of angry cut-and-pastes of this story around the various message boards I frequent!)

And people wonder why Bill Gates has BILLIONS! ****, if I could get away with redefining mathematics too I would have Gate's bankroll too! Unbelievable.

I swear to Christ, it feels like being a character in "Goodfellas" by being a 360 owner:

"So now I got Billy (Gates) as a partner. Trouble with finding good games, online service, multimedia options, I can go to Billy. But problem is that now I have to come up with Billy's money every month....'Oh, problems with your 360? **** you, pay me'....'Oh, 3 rings of death again? **** you, pay me'...'Oh, someone figured out a way to hack into LIVE accounts and steal information? **** you, pay me"....'Oh, we redefined the fundementals of mathematics and screwed you out of your warranty? **** YOU PAY ME!!!'"

I spent 49 minutes on their customer service lines with "Nick" (the clueless and hopelessly useless account rep) and "Michael" (the worthless and impotent supervisor; who apparently can type about 1,000 words a minute - judging by the constant barrage of keystrokes during our call - but only speak one word per minute; the damn cocksucker was probably playing a game while waiting me out!). The long and the short of it was that the best they would offer was a $104 repair bill for my second 360 and then a 12 month repair warranty on the repaired unit.

I kept asking them to explain how a 12 month manufacturer's warranty on the 360 I currently have (manufactured on 7/31/2006) could be "exceeded" in 9 months (as of 4/19/2007). They could not provide any answers beyond the "our warranty policy on repairs is for 90 days or the balance of the original warranty only".

What really threw me for a loop was the fact they would not budge from that position even as I broke it down for them by the relevant dates:

First 360 manufactured on 1/5/2006.
First 360 purchased on 3/5/2006.
First 360 malfunctioned on 9/10/2006 and sent for repairs on 9/14/2006.
First 360 replaced with a different unit, instead of repaired, then returned to me on 9/21/2006.
Second 360 manufactured on 7/31/2006.
Second 360 received on 9/21/2006.
Second 360 malfunctioned on 4/19/2007.

Now, I have no idea what the legality of the situation is, but I fail to understand how a manufacturer can offer a 12 month warranty on a product, then instead of repairing a unit under warranty, send out a separate, newer unit; and then later claim that the warranty does not apply to the replacement unit because it is beyond the original unit's 12 month period! That kind of assinine logic would hold up perfectly fine if I had been returned my original XBox 360 when I sent it in for repairs in Sept. 2006. But seeing as they chose to, instead of repairing the original unit, provide a "new" REFURBED unit with a different manufacturing date (but same fundemental design flaw), I don't see how that decision by Microsoft alleviates their responsibility to honor the manufacturer's warranty on their product. I am sure the attonery general for Missouri with have to help me figure that math out because for the life of me I can't do that math...

By the end of the call I had had more than enough "I'm sorry's" and "Let me see what I can do's" and just went off. Micheal, the witless mute, got to be the ear on the other end of the line for most of it. (I figured "**** it"...if they are going to extort another $100 from me to fix something they should fix for free, then one of their poorly paid slaves will just have to take one for the team today.)

Basically told him that there would not be a fourth 360 in my future. If the one they send me next breaks that I would be more than happy to just get by with a PS3 only; and that while I actually like working 360's, it is a shame they (MS) are hell bent on destroying the brand with inept Quality Control practices and piss-poor rationalizations to customers. Despite all the good things, MS is well on their way to blowing any chances of "winning" their battle with Sony for console market share and that the 360 is quickly becoming synonymous with "Worst. Reliability. Ever." And in addition to MS's already legendary reputation as "GREEDY" they can now add "MALFESCENT" to the list.

The really sad thing is that I KNOW what is causing the problems (design flaw); and that if people on the internet can figure out the problem faster than the MS engineers, then maybe its time for MS to actually FIRE these dumb asses.

My 360 died on thursday. A few hours earlier I was playing halo 3. Shut down the 360 and went out... came back and 3 red lights, no output to the tv or anything.

I have an antec laptop cooler beneath the 360. I'd imagine that shouldve helped keep the 360 from getting too hot.

My error coe is 1023, any ideas what it is?

I have an antec laptop cooler beneath the 360. I'd imagine that shouldve helped keep the 360 from getting too hot.

That depends entirely on the laptop cooler type used. At least several brands of Antec laptop coolers suck warm air into the cooler and expel it from the rear of the unit, instead of blowing air upwards. If the Xbox 360 draws air up from vents on the bottom of the unit (I don't own one myself so I can't check) and vents it from the back, you may have made matters worse by starving the unit of cooling air.

Something to keep in mind for all the folks thinking of doing the same thing.

In April 2006, I purchased my son's 360. It shows a manufacture date of 12/19/05. On 6/11/07, the 3 red rings appeared. I called MS and got "Roger" in Bangladesh and was told about the return, $140 cost, etc. I then asked about the free repair offer, since the unit was manufactured before 1/1/06. "Roger" seemed caught off guard and then told me that offer was no longer valid.

The info I have says:

"We've made the decision to comp repairs for consoles manufactured before January 1, 2006, and provide refunds to the small group of customers who have already paid for repairs."

It doesn't say anything about a limited time offer or having to have been purchased prior to 1/1/06.

Has anyone on this forum dealt with this issue? If I have to pay the $140, I will, but I would like some clarification.

Thanks

In April 2006, I purchased my son's 360. It shows a manufacture date of 12/19/05. On 6/11/07, the 3 red rings appeared. I called MS and got "Roger" in Bangladesh and was told about the return, $140 cost, etc. I then asked about the free repair offer, since the unit was manufactured before 1/1/06. "Roger" seemed caught off guard and then told me that offer was no longer valid.

The info I have says:

"We've made the decision to comp repairs for consoles manufactured before January 1, 2006, and provide refunds to the small group of customers who have already paid for repairs."

It doesn't say anything about a limited time offer or having to have been purchased prior to 1/1/06.

Has anyone on this forum dealt with this issue? If I have to pay the $140, I will, but I would like some clarification.

Thanks

I'm sending back my second broken 360 and both have been free of charge. So I'm pretty sure it's not against MS's policy to drop the repair fees.

They always tell me it will cost $140. I then simply ask for a better deal. They put me on hold for 5 minutes and come back with a free offer.

I really don't do any special negotiation or anything. I just read somewhere on the net that if you ask for a better deal they will give it to you. So I just simply say "I would like a better deal".

If that doesn't work, maybe you can ask to talk to a supervisor (and explain your situation). Good luck.

Most the time it's the overheating of one of those powerhouse chips. I run my 360 with the case off and radioshack fans added. the chips never get past 120F on my infared temp gun. With a sumilated dvd drive on top on the GPU, it was running at 160F. I did this mod after I got mine recently replaced under the last months of my warranty. The 360 will never break if the chips never get a chance to overheat. The end result of my cooler GPU and heatsinked RAM chips is better freamrates. I see enemies come apart with the boomshot way better. It doesn't temporarily freeze time anymore when people get blown apart on GoW. Now they just come apart. lol

im new so can't link so youtube search "360 getto cooling mod"

GT: CS OO7

I plan in watercooling this thing someday.

They took awhile to get me my pre-paid UPS box, but I finally shipped it out. It should show up to their repair facilities tomorrow.

What is the average turnaround time on repairs that you guys have experienced? I'm getting really bored now with no gaming and no HD DVD watching. lol

last year around this time, it took them just over a week to get it back to me. The replacement was sent out the same day they received mine in fact. We'll see how it goes this time, I just sent my 2nd dead unit in today.

Well, after 10 months, my x360 finally bit it. Funny though, it was working fine until last night when I turned it one, loaded up a game and then it froze. I promptly froze with every boot up since. It couldn't have been overheating because did this within just a few minutes.

Thankfully, I have a Best Buy warranty and got a new unit today. They wanted to test it to make sure it was faulty though...luckily my unit fails within a couple of minutes after loading--what if someone else's freezes up after quite a bit of time? In any case, since it failed within the mfg warranty period, I still have the remainder of my BB warranty policy. After the mfg warranty period, my BB warranty would have expired with this exchange.

Overheating isn't the problem (the 360 gives a two quadrant error message when it overhearts and automatically shuts down). What is happening is a marginal solder joint somewhere that is connecting when cold, but as soon as it receives enough current to warmup and expand, it seperates and fails.

I have a unit that is exhibiting this right now. On its very first boot up it lasts two minutes before it freezes, then the next boot gives me about 30 seconds, then the next boot freezes on the splash screen, then the next boot = RROD. This is consistant with thermal expansion and contraction. The difference between a working connection and seperation between the joints can be nanometres.

'Overheating' is when the unit reaches its maximum thermal load and cannot successfully remove the heat sufficiently and the unit then fails. That doesn't happen all that often with the 360 and is more likely to affect people with their consoles shoved into an entertainment unit with a lack of airflow.

Maybe I'm just being picky, but I do hear the word "overheating" banded around alot and its not at all an accurate word to describe what is at play.

great info ty.

Overheating isn't the problem (the 360 gives a two quadrant error message when it overhearts and automatically shuts down). What is happening is a marginal solder joint somewhere that is connecting when cold, but as soon as it receives enough current to warmup and expand, it seperates and fails...
...Maybe I'm just being picky, but I do hear the word "overheating" banded around alot and its not at all an accurate word to describe what is at play.

Well said.

Un-goddam-believable!!!!

After all the BS I went through in the quote below, I have just now watched my THIRD different 360 die the 3-rings-of-death!

!$@#@%%@!!*&!&!!

I am supposedly going to be contacted by someone from MS customer support in the next 24-48 hours to discuss what else they are going to do for me besides send me another damn coffin.

I have been a 360 owner since March 5, 2006 and in that time I have gone through a console manucfactured in January 2006, July 2006 and December 2005.

This is beyond unacceptable performance.

I owned ONE Playstation 2 - and it STILL works!
I owned ONE X-Box 1 - and it STILL works!

I have owned consoles going all the way back to the Atari 2600 and my grand total of broken consoles is now 4 and 3 of those have been XBox 360's :mad:

The crying shame in all of this is that I genuinely like the games and media options of the 360. The thing handles HD-DVD great, it plays WMV-HD files from disc flawlessly (including those ripped from HD-DVD and Blu-Ray yet burned to DL-DVDs) and it streams media from the PC very well.

For everything good about the 360 though this failure rate is wholly unacceptable. Can't wait for the class-action lawsuit because I will be signing it as soon as possible....

I am in the same boat! First console purchased March of 2006. That console failed(3 red rings) within 1 year warranty period. Second refurb console failed(3 red rings) in May 2007. I've been told that because original purchase date of console was March of 2006 its out of warranty and must pay $140 for repair.
There has to be some type of legal inaccuracy in this MS policy. I mean they sent me a new/refurb console within the last 6 months after original console failed and now they're telling me I need to pay a repair fee on a console that is less than 6 months since I received it. There is a design flaw, which MS had admitted to but they are repairing consoles built before Jan 1, 2006. Mine was built March 31, 2006.
The problem(solder/x-clamp/Gpu flaw) still exists and MS needs to own up to it.
I tried to ask for a better deal and they said best they can do is 25% off, which brings the repair to $104, which is still too much.
I tried invoking the "implied warranty of merchantability" which we have here in Massachussets but MS supervisior told me MS has their own warranty.
Has anyone had this implied warranty........ever work for them?
From reading this thread there have been some people who have been able to get a better deal if not free repair. I have had no such luck. Any suggestions?

From reading this thread there have been some people who have been able to get a better deal if not free repair. I have had no such luck. Any suggestions?
Keep; calling back again and again and again, asking for supervisors, waiting on hold, wasting your time, building your blood pressure, etc...until you finally, after many attempts, get a deal on the so-called "repair". Then simply eat yet another replacement console again in <6 months and start the whole endless cycle all over agian.

Or take a measly 30 minutes and a mere $7, fix it yourself and be done with it.

Keep; calling back again and again and again, asking for supervisors, waiting on hold, wasting your time, building your blood pressure, etc...until you finally, after many attempts, get a deal on the so-called "repair". Then simply eat yet another replacement console again in <6 months and start the whole endless cycle all over agian.

Or take a measly 30 minutes and a mere $7, fix it yourself and be done with it.

I planned on using the call and call again technique. What is this $7 dollar fix?

Removing the X clamps and adding new thermal paste.

I planned on using the call and call again technique. What is this $7 dollar fix?

Removing the X clamps and adding new thermal paste.

I figured that out, thank you! I looked at the tutorial and I would feel completely uncomfortable attempting that fix. I am not savy with the innards of a PC/Console!

I guess I'll call them until they or I give up !

My trusty 360 just suffered the 3 red rings o' death. Bummer as I felt I had one of the good ones as I've had very few lockups and all. I was planning on playing some Dirt soon but obviously not now. On a side note my brothers 360 died 2 weeks ago, odd.

Hi all i fixed my xbox360 error code 0020 by eraser and its working fine form 6-6-2007 and no problem until today i am happy ,

first add 4 rubber eraser or alminum heatsink over the GPU from bottom of the motherboard and add 2 heatsink over the memory near the gpu memory from up.

2 - add one fan to cool your xbox360. after you do this your xbox will be working fine. :D

Got 0102 now on my 10/2005 system. Now just have to wait for the box :)

MS are a bunch of MOFO's . I just called this morning and the best they can do is 25%off repair fee($104), 1yr warranty with new console and 1 month xbox live gold. This is completely unacceptable. Then CSR mentions that "well, you called yesterday a few times and twice this morning about this same issue, and you were offered the same deal".
I was like, so whats your point, I'll keep calling until you offer me something fair.
Then CSR says, "Our records show you were sent a replacement in Sept 2006".
Me: Yes, I'm aware of that, thats roughly 9 months ago, which is less than 12 months, Do you think a piece of $400 electronic equipment should fail in 9 months like the original one did in a shorter amount of time??"
Her: No reponse...pause...well thats out policy.

MS 1 yr warranty policy is completely unethical and wrong. For example if your original console dies in 9 months, they send you a replacement(not fixed your old one; a new one) for free. The replacement console has a 90 warranty. So in 90 days if the replacement console fails your are out of 3 month replacement warranty and 12 month original warranty!!! There has to be a legal gripe with this policy!

Well my 2nd Xbox 360 just took a crap again...This is a bunch of BS really...

I guess the best we can do is complain, here is a list of some places you can complain to.

MODS CAN YOU PLEASE ADD THE FOLLWING TO THE FIRST POST. SO PEOPLE KNOW WHERE TO COMPLAIN TO.

FTC https://rn.ftc.gov/pls/dod/wsolcq$.s..._ORG_CODE=PU01
BBB https://odr.bbb.org/odrweb/public/GetStarted.aspx
Washington https://fortress.wa.gov/atg/formhand...laintForm.aspx

Alabama http://www.ago.state.al.us/consumer_complaint.cfm
Alaska http://www.law.state.ak.us/departmen...complaint.html
Arizona http://www.azag.gov/consumer/OnlineInstructionsEng.html
Arkansas http://www.ag.state.ar.us/complaints...er_online.html
California http://ag.ca.gov/contact/complaint_form.php?cmplt=CL
Colorado http://www.ago.state.co.us/consline/complaint.pdf
Connecticut http://www.ct.gov/ag/cwp/browse.asp?a=2224
Delaware http://attorneygeneral.delaware.gov/...omplaint.shtml
Florida http://myfloridalegal.com/Contact.ns...conomic_Crimes
Georgia http://consumer.georgia.gov/00/chann...684688,00.html
Hawaii http://hawaii.gov/ag/main/contact_dept/
Idaho http://www2.state.id.us/ag/consumer/...ntforminfo.htm
Illinois http://www.ag.state.il.us/consumers/index.html
Indiana http://www.indianaconsumer.com/filecomplaint.asp
Iowa http://www.state.ia.us/government/ag.../online_2.html
Kansas http://www.ksag.org/content/page/id/116
Kentucky http://ag.ky.gov/consumer/complaints/default.htm
Louisiana http://www.ag.state.la.us/Complaint.aspx
Maine http://www.maine.gov/ag/index.php?r=...=complaints&t=
Maryland http://www.oag.state.md.us/Consumer/complaint.htm
Massachusetts http://www.ago.state.ma.us/sp.cfm?pageid=2316
Michigan http://www.michigan.gov/ag/0,1607,7-...2077--,00.html
Minnesota http://www.ag.state.mn.us/Consumer/Complaint.asp
Mississippi http://www.ago.state.ms.us/divisions/consumer/how.php
Missouri https://www.consumer.ago.mo.gov/
Montana http://doj.mt.gov/consumer/consumer/...rcomplaint.asp
Nebraska http://www.ago.state.ne.us/local/con...int_form.phtml
Nevada http://ag.state.nv.us/menu/action_bt..._complaint.htm
New Hampshire http://www.egov.nh.gov/consumercomplaint/
New Jersey http://www.njconsumeraffairs.gov/comp.htm
New Mexico http://www.ago.state.nm.us/divs/cons/cons_acc.htm
New York http://www.oag.state.ny.us/complaints/complaints.html
North Carolina http://www.ncdoj.com/consumerprotect...complaints.jsp
North Dakota http://www.ag.state.nd.us/CPAT/PDFFiles/SFN7418.pdf
Ohio https://agcares.ag.state.oh.us/public/consumer.aspx
Oklahoma http://www.oag.state.ok.us/oagweb.nsf/ccomp.html
Oregon http://www.doj.state.or.us/finfraud/...lanation.shtml
Pennsylvania http://www.attorneygeneral.gov/compl.../bcp_form.aspx
Rhode Island http://www.riag.state.ri.us/civil/co..._complaint.pdf
Sourth Carolina http://www.scconsumer.gov/dcacf/dcapolicy.htm
South Dakota http://www.state.sd.us/attorney/appl...ts/default.asp
Tennessee http://www.tennessee.gov/consumer/consCompFrm.html
Texas http://www.oag.state.tx.us/consumer/...er.shtml#ifyou
Utah http://attorneygeneral.utah.gov/contact.html
Vermont http://www.dii.state.vt.us/ccf/index.php
Virginia http://www.vdacs.virginia.gov/forms-...1complaint.pdf
Washington DC http://occ.dc.gov/occ/cwp/view,a,1223,q,633146.asp
West Virginia http://www.wvago.gov/takeaction.cfm
Wisconsin http://www.doj.state.wi.us/dls/ConsP...complaints.asp
Wyoming http://attorneygeneral.state.wy.us/consumer.htm

Try to find long threads at other websites about the Xbox 360's failure rate, and when you do find those threads post the above links so people know where to complain to.

MS are a bunch of MOFO's . I just called this morning and the best they can do is 25%off repair fee($104), 1yr warranty with new console and 1 month xbox live gold. This is completely unacceptable. Then CSR mentions that "well, you called yesterday a few times and twice this morning about this same issue, and you were offered the same deal".
I was like, so whats your point, I'll keep calling until you offer me something fair.
Then CSR says, "Our records show you were sent a replacement in Sept 2006".
Me: Yes, I'm aware of that, thats roughly 9 months ago, which is less than 12 months, Do you think a piece of $400 electronic equipment should fail in 9 months like the original one did in a shorter amount of time??"
Her: No reponse...pause...well thats out policy.

MS 1 yr warranty policy is completely unethical and wrong. For example if your original console dies in 9 months, they send you a replacement(not fixed your old one; a new one) for free. The replacement console has a 90 warranty. So in 90 days if the replacement console fails your are out of 3 month replacement warranty and 12 month original warranty!!! There has to be a legal gripe with this policy!

They are fixing mine and giving me a year warranty from the time it is fixed. Course I have to pay for it to be fixed as it is out of warranty.

MS are a bunch of MOFO's . I just called this morning and the best they can do is 25%off repair fee($104), 1yr warranty with new console and 1 month xbox live gold. This is completely unacceptable. Then CSR mentions that "well, you called yesterday a few times and twice this morning about this same issue, and you were offered the same deal".
I was like, so whats your point, I'll keep calling until you offer me something fair.
Then CSR says, "Our records show you were sent a replacement in Sept 2006".
Me: Yes, I'm aware of that, thats roughly 9 months ago, which is less than 12 months, Do you think a piece of $400 electronic equipment should fail in 9 months like the original one did in a shorter amount of time??"
Her: No reponse...pause...well thats out policy.

MS 1 yr warranty policy is completely unethical and wrong. For example if your original console dies in 9 months, they send you a replacement(not fixed your old one; a new one) for free. The replacement console has a 90 warranty. So in 90 days if the replacement console fails your are out of 3 month replacement warranty and 12 month original warranty!!! There has to be a legal gripe with this policy!

The 1 yr warranty is not unethical, most electronics equipment has less than a year warranty, the warranty is actually pretty good. The problem is that so many consoles are dying. No warranty is good enough for a console that on average can't even last a year. They need to fix the console.

My launch console has been acting up lately. First after a game update it locked up, 3 rings, was able to finally get on the box and clear the cache, reapplied the game update and ran solid for 2 weeks. Then last night same thing, new game update, box locked up, this time nothing I could do to get it to boot up. I waited until this morning and it seemed to come on fine and played a few games for a while with no lock ups. The wierd thing is both times the box 3 ringed it wasn't on for more then 3 minutes and both right after updates?!?! WTF

I think I'm going to give it one more try and if it does it again I'll see what Moneysoft wants to do. If they are going to charge me a grip to fix this I'm doing it myself. (X-clamp fix) But the way it's acting I'm leaning more to a software problem then hardware. Any thoughts?

Oh and if you do send your box in are you getting the same one back now or are they still shipping returds?

RROD last week, called Microsoft yesterday, coffin is on it's way. Console was built in Sep. 06 and purchased in November.

Code 0102.

:(
Dreamaster

My launch console has been acting up lately. First after a game update it locked up, 3 rings, was able to finally get on the box and clear the cache, reapplied the game update and ran solid for 2 weeks. Then last night same thing, new game update, box locked up, this time nothing I could do to get it to boot up. I waited until this morning and it seemed to come on fine and played a few games for a while with no lock ups. The wierd thing is both times the box 3 ringed it wasn't on for more then 3 minutes and both right after updates?!?! WTF

I think I'm going to give it one more try and if it does it again I'll see what Moneysoft wants to do. If they are going to charge me a grip to fix this I'm doing it myself. (X-clamp fix) But the way it's acting I'm leaning more to a software problem then hardware. Any thoughts?

Oh and if you do send your box in are you getting the same one back now or are they still shipping returds?


They told me they were going to repair it, but who knows I guess.

AFAIK, they just send a refurb out on all of them. They probably just toss it on the pile to be fixed later and sent back out to someone else.

My launch console has been acting up lately. First after a game update it locked up...The wierd thing is both times the box 3 ringed it wasn't on for more then 3 minutes and both right after updates?!?! WTF
MS Chief Executive: "Hmmmm. We're not making an enormous fortune anymore now that people are fixing their own harware problems rather than give us the astronomical sum of $140 for a 'repair' that does nothing. Any ideas on how we can scrape up some more easy cash with this unit?"

MS Engineer: "Hey! I know! Let's offer free downloads and kill their machines with hidden programming that 'accidentally' got into the mix. By the time we're done raping everyone's this way, we'll have figured out how to send a pulse over the power lines and through the power cord that fries the unit completely."

Bill Gates: "Genius, pure genius. Boys, give that man a $3 million raise...you know, the same one we gave to Ted, the inventor of the X-Clamp. Now, if you'll excuse me, I'm going to go roll around in the cashpile inside the vault."

my launch console died last week. argued with a couple of people at MS, but i couldn't get it fixed for free. did the x-clamp fix over the weekend and its working flawlessly now. its not very hard, just takes some time and a few parts from lowes. i would recommend that anyone getting the 3RLOD try the x-clamp fix. what's the point of sending the console back when you're just getting a refurb that will undoubtedly crap out on you in no time?

/\ Sweet. :D

Yeah and to think. You wont have to worry about them mistreating your console, losing it or going through the refurb cycle like all these other poor souls. Plus some come back doa fresh out of the box from repair.

my launch console died last week. argued with a couple of people at MS, but i couldn't get it fixed for free. did the x-clamp fix over the weekend and its working flawlessly now. its not very hard, just takes some time and a few parts from lowes. i would recommend that anyone getting the 3RLOD try the x-clamp fix. what's the point of sending the console back when you're just getting a refurb that will undoubtedly crap out on you in no time?

Yeah and to think. You wont have to worry about them mistreating your console, losing it or going through the refurb cycle like all these other poor souls. Plus some come back doa fresh out of the box from repair.
exactly. i love the 360, but i think microsoft is handling this whole situation poorly. the x-clamp fix seems to be a solution, though. i left my 360 on from saturday night to sunday morning just to see if it could take it. games, hd-dvds, everything works great now. no freezes, no more red lights.

Yup my box is out of warranty and they want full fare to fix it. F-U! I'm trying the X-clamp fix if it locks up and 3 rings again. With my luck I'd get back a returd that will die a week after its warranty runs out. I mean come on with all the friggin money MS makes they should at least do the people that line their pockets and stand by their broke ass products, (Windows all versions, 360, etc...) a favor and just fix what they know is a poorly designed gaming console. They don't have to admit defeat but we'd all be lining up that much quicker to beta test their next crappy product if they were a little better at the customer service end!

I'm still surprised no one has class action lawsuited their ass just to make a point about the 360 failure rates. 3-4 units going bad for some users in less then 2 years. Come on no one's luck is that bad!

I just got my first return back. Runs hot as hell.

I now have an interesting situation. My stepson is staying with us now and he has a 360 with a Nyko Intercooler, his is about 1 year old, started as a core and built up from there. They are now next to each other standing up, there is a good 12" between them. His runs at a heat level you would expect, slightly warm. The Nyko blows air out at a rapid pace.

Now the one I just got back I didn't have a Nyko on it as I didn't have another one of those. This return is a freakin hot box, I have like no faith this unit is going to last at this moment. I went out and bought that new Pelican unit that looks like the Nyko Intercooler but it has all the added ports on it, the one just released, you can go to EB and do a search for it. Now the ports are awesome, saves a ton of money on extra cables etc. but it doesn't blow air anywhere close to the Nyko and it isn't as loud either but imo getting rid of heat is the main priority even over the noise level.

In a little bit I'm going to switch these add-ons on the back of each unit and see how both units run after the switch. My gut guess is the unit I just got back from MS will inherently run hot, if however the switch does reverse the results on each unit, you can bet I'm off to get the Nyko Intercooler for the unit tomorrow as it makes a world of difference then and I’d give it my highest marks as a must-get.

I just got my first return back. Runs hot as hell.

I now have an interesting situation. My stepson is staying with us now and he has a 360 with a Nyko Intercooler, his is about 1 year old, started as a core and built up from there. They are now next to each other standing up, there is a good 12" between them. His runs at a heat level you would expect, slightly warm. The Nyko blows air out at a rapid pace.

Now the one I just got back I didn't have a Nyko on it as I didn't have another one of those. This return is a freakin hot box, I have like no faith this unit is going to last at this moment. I went out and bought that new Pelican unit that looks like the Nyko Intercooler but it has all the added ports on it, the one just released, you can go to EB and do a search for it. Now the ports are awesome, saves a ton of money on extra cables etc. but it doesn't blow air anywhere close to the Nyko and it isn't as loud either but imo getting rid of heat is the main priority even over the noise level.

In a little bit I'm going to switch these add-ons on the back of each unit and see how both units run after the switch. My gut guess is the unit I just got back from MS will inherently run hot, if however the switch does reverse the results on each unit, you can bet I'm off to get the Nyko Intercooler for the unit tomorrow as it makes a world of difference then and I’d give it my highest marks as a must-get.

What do you mean by "runs hot"? Are you saying that the air being vented seems hotter? If that is the case, then you should be pleased it is being vented, because I'd be far more worried if it wasn't. Better out than in.... The 360's all share the same GPU and CPU chips, there isn't to the best of my knowlegdge any huge variability with the thermal performances from one unit to the next....so therefore it comes down to the effectiveness of the heatsink and fans. The application of the thermal grease used between the die and the heatsink is probably what has greatest degree of variation. The console will always produce 'X' amount of watts of heat, so removal of that heat out the back fans is a good thing.

Now as for the intercooler, its giving you a misrepresentation of what is being pumped out. Merely feeling with your hand is a flawed way to assess its cooling performance. Even placing a thermometer into the airstream will give you an inaccurate result. When you place fans ontop of other fans, you are creating a turnstile for the outgoing air.

If it is such an efficient design, then howcome Nyko aren't creaming the PC market with a similar product?

I'm judging hotness by how hot the plastic of the box gets (Top/Bottom, Front/Back) not by the air blowing out, you are correct that would be a good sign blowing out hot air. But don't think your talking to a spring chicken over here. It's the box itself that is hot and not judging air temp, however the Nyko blows out a ton more air and that usually is good thing.

So I put the Nyko Intercooler on the unit the Air Flo 360 was on, the just returned unit from MS that was running hot. It makes a big difference, it still runs a bit warmer then my stepsons unit so that is inherent to the actual unit but still a lot cooler then no Nyko or a using an Air Flo 360. I like the ports of the Air Flo but the added coolness will make me return that and get a second Nyko for sure.

I know what you mean on the "they all have the same parts they should run the same" but beyond science I have living fact over here that the two systems aren't created equal in some manner which I cannot explain in words. My stepsons unit runs noticeably cooler by touching any part of the 360's case, not judging the temperature of the air coming out. For me I’m 100% satisfied and confident with reporting that.

Boy were you fickle though, lighten up. Why isn't Nyko cramming the PC Market? Because we already have a ton of solutions that work in the pc world is my answer. The 360 has about 4-5 choices of coolers, don't get me wrong I'm not saying it's the greatest cooler ever no matter the electronic device. I can say it is better then the Air Flo 360 and all the units that blow air in from the side/bottom when standing, as I've tested those myself. In the end I’ll I can say is I see a difference I’m reporting it and I’m not lying.

Ok, if the case panels temperature is hotter than it should be then yes, that is a problem.

How do you orientate the consoles? Do you lay them horizontally? If so, I highly recommend you raise them up by at least an inch on some rubber feet. The bottom seems to get the hottest and that stupid concave design doesn't do much for airflow under the case. The vents are practically smothered. The heat tends to radiate back off the underlaying surface and onto the console. Just putting an inch between them seems to make a world of difference. Especially so if the underlaying surface happens to be metal, I found that out rather quickly.

I think the only way to evaluate the intercooler's true worth (or any such devices), is to take a temperature reading from the inside of the console, with and without it.
Otherwise you are just taking a leap of faith that the product is of some benefit. Your faith that it is beneficial is probably as strong as my skeptisim that it is not, so we'll just have to leave it at that. I will add that I do think people don't put enough emphasis on the ramp down of temperatures once the console is off. What use is an after market cooler when the console shuts down? You finish your session and you shutdown and the fans switch off and you walk away while your console gentlely bakes.... I use the play and charge kit after every single session. It ensures that I have active cooling without an active CPU/GPU for at least some period.

Yes, I'm very fickle and you'll have to excuse me for taking this topic seriously, but I've lost over $1000NZ on my first 360 which I imported from the US and painted/customised at great expense only to have it die on me 4 months later. I'm fairly determined to not feel that sting again. Sorting the real fixes/preventative methods from the voodoo is an important issue for me.

Do what you have to for peace of mind, but aslong as you draw your own conclusions, then I'm happy. Nyko can't be trusted to tell you their products worth and neither can I at the end of the day. Even the best preventative medicine might not be good enough to save these consoles from certain death. If MS had of done their job, I guess there wouldn't have been companies like Nyko capitalising on peoples fears and we wouldn't be having this conversation :(

Horrorscope, and everyone else, it has been confirmed that Microsoft is adding an additional heat sink to the GPU of returned/refurbished consoles. That might explain why the "box feels hotter", perhaps the heat it is removing from the chip is radiating to the outside of the box more prominently.

That's just my theory though. As for the Nyko cooler, it has been reviewed and confirmed to lower internal temperatures of the Xbox, but a lot of people have complained about them "melting to the case" and some people think they are the cause of their failures, but I believe it's just the inherent design flaw and it just 'seems' like their cooler was the cause.

Cooler comparison with temperature charts (http://console.hardocp.com/article.html?art=MTA5MiwyLCxoY29uc29sZQ==)

Dreamaster

Understand Dreamaster. About the Nyko's melting, 1. there was supposed to have been a revision months ago to improve that. 2. Nyko mentioned they have a system replacement warranty that if that melting actually happened they would buy you a new 360. The one system I have it on would never get hot enough to melt that plastic you can just tell, the second unit just got it's Nyko today. I sure hope I have the new heatsinks etc, if there was a way to tell without opening I'd surely report back if I had one or not.

Well I performed the X-clamp fix this afternoon(it wasn't as hard as I though it would be). I am happy to report my 360 has been resuscitated and is alive and well after 2 months since it failed!! The fix went pretty much according to plan thanks to Lawdogg's method from xbox-scene. Many thanks to him and the others at that site for their input on this repair.
Hopefully it lasts. I am going to strongly look into further cooling methods since this repair which hopefully extend the life of the console. I may consider the Nyko, but maybe just cutting the back grill off would pay dividends ?! Oh well I'm psyced that this work but I'm keeping my fingers crossed. Much thanks to the guys/gals at avsforum I would have never found the link for this fix without AVS!!!

...Much thanks to the guys/gals at avsforum I would have never found the link for this fix without AVS!!!
You're very welcome. It's always good for me to hear that something I posted (along with others) helped a fellow AVS member out in some way. Lord knows, I've found much help myself here, so paying it forward is a nice feeling. :)

Congrats on your resurrection!

You're very welcome. It's always good for me to hear that something I posted (along with others) helped a fellow AVS member out in some way. Lord knows, I've found much help myself here, so paying it forward is a nice feeling. :)

Congrats on your resurrection!Yes nice to hear but the bottom line here is that MS has some real issues and this **** is gonna keep happening..

Third 360 brought back from the dead today. It's so freakin' easy, I didn't even refer to the instructions this time. 50 minutes total start to finish, and that's simply because I'm ridiculously thorough with the old thermal paste removal (35 minutes on thermal paste removal alone). That's $420 saved as of today with another $140 tomorrow on the way. MS must hate me. :D