Another Dead X360

Danimal · Post by **Danimal** » Tue Oct 21, 2008 3:01 pm

Rodster wrote:
Danimal wrote:I got my launch one turned around in just 8 days. I sent it out on a Monday and had it the following Thursday, so i would be concerned with that status. The good news is they sent me a brand new one with what has to be the latest chipset based on the manufacture date of August. The thing is quiet and cool, it performs better then the new 60 gig I bought.
I'm a little confused as to which model they sent you? To my knowledge the 60GB systems started showing up this August. My dead 20GB 360 I bought at Gamestop was replaced with the 60GB system which also was manufactured in August.

The rumored Jasper chipset is supposed to arrive in 2009.

I bought a 60 gig when I thought they wouldn't replace mine, then I called in and found out they thought my extended warranty was to Dec, I had it at June so who knows.

They sent me a new system, minus the 20 gig drive which I kept from my original. It has a HDMI port, new serial number and a man. date of august.

I'm not saying it's a Jasper but they released some kind of new chip in the July / August time frame as well so whatever that one was called.

Regardless the thing is quieter and gives off a lot less heat as my rack systems fan doesn't go off in 5 minutes like it used to.

Rodster · Post by **Rodster** » Tue Oct 21, 2008 3:47 pm

Yeah my 60GB system runs very cool and it's decently quiet but not like the PS3.

DivotMaker · Post by **DivotMaker** » Tue Oct 21, 2008 3:59 pm

Replacing my fourth launch console today. This will be my first experience with MS Support on a repair/replacement, so it will be interesting. Finally ran one long enough to run out of the CompUSA extended warranty.

Rodster · Post by **Rodster** » Tue Oct 21, 2008 4:22 pm

Target has a sweet deal next week. An Arcade 360 with a $25 GC. The next 360 I buy will be from target. I'll buy an Arcade along with a 3 year extended warranty for $19.99

btmmayor · Post by **btmmayor** » Tue Oct 21, 2008 8:19 pm

Rodster wrote:I'll buy an Arcade along with a 3 year extended warranty for $19.99

I would not recommend the Target warranty. Its not one of those replacement plans where you can just take it back to the store and they will exchange it. The item still has to be sent out for repair. I bought the Target warranty with my Elite and when I got the RROD it was useless since Microsoft already has that covered for 3 years . It would have just been another step in the repair process.

Rodster · Post by **Rodster** » Tue Oct 21, 2008 8:33 pm

It was explained to me by Target employees that you do send it out but they will send you a voucher for a new machine. Did you have to pay for shipping?

I may have to go the Best Buy route then.

sportdan30 · Post by **sportdan30** » Tue Oct 21, 2008 8:53 pm

Rodster wrote:It was explained to me by Target employees that you do send it out but they will send you a voucher for a new machine. Did you have to pay for shipping?

I may have to go the Best Buy route then.

Don't quote me on this, but I believe Best Buy did away with their replacement plan. If you have a problem with your system, 360 or PS3, they send it out for service. They call it a service plan now.

Rodster · Post by **Rodster** » Tue Oct 21, 2008 9:11 pm

Best Buy offers two types of plans. The service plan which you referred to and the product replacement plan. As of last week they still offer the PRP. I would be shocked if they did away with that.

I would never buy a Best Buy service plan. They have really lousy service.

Danimal · Post by **Danimal** » Tue Oct 21, 2008 11:30 pm

sportdan30 wrote:
Rodster wrote:It was explained to me by Target employees that you do send it out but they will send you a voucher for a new machine. Did you have to pay for shipping?

I may have to go the Best Buy route then.
Don't quote me on this, but I believe Best Buy did away with their replacement plan. If you have a problem with your system, 360 or PS3, they send it out for service. They call it a service plan now.

That would be incorrect since I just bought one a month ago with the plan where you walk in and get a new one no questions asked.

dbdynsty25 · Post by **dbdynsty25** » Wed Oct 22, 2008 12:12 am

Yeah...I have the Replacement Plan as well. Bought it when I bought my new machine a few months ago, and my brother in law got his last month and got the replacement plan. No one would buy it if it were a service plan.

DChaps · Post by **DChaps** » Sun Jan 11, 2009 12:16 pm

Well it looks like I will be putting the Best Buy replacement plan to the test shortly. I bought my first 360 in early October 08. Since then I have turned it on maybe 10 times for less than 20 hours total gaming time. Last night it just started locking up in the new friends menu after booting up. No game disc in or anything. I shut down, got it working, went to a demo of NBA2K9 and it locked again. Shut it down, loaded up RB2, then it locked up in the selection screens. I certainly expected I would eventually get an RROD, but I never thought it would happen so soon, especially given how little this unit has been played. Oh well....

Rodster · Post by **Rodster** » Sun Jan 11, 2009 12:50 pm

DChaps wrote:Well it looks like I will be putting the Best Buy replacement plan to the test shortly. I bought my first 360 in early October 08. Since then I have turned it on maybe 10 times for less than 20 hours total gaming time. Last night it just started locking up in the new friends menu after booting up. No game disc in or anything. I shut down, got it working, went to a demo of NBA2K9 and it locked again. Shut it down, loaded up RB2, then it locked up in the selection screens. I certainly expected I would eventually get an RROD, but I never thought it would happen so soon, especially given how little this unit has been played. Oh well....

You have the Falcon 360 which has the updated heat sinks which makes them run cooler. That's weird it's giving trouble with so little usage.

It's just me but I suspect data corruption more than a hardware failure. The first thing I would try is to clear out the cache. A few pages back I believe I posted how to do it. It's real easy.

The next thing I would look at is maybe formatting the hard drive as you could have data corruption with a game save that's causing you problems as well.

If you want to zero in on the hard drive as being the culprit, just remove it and turn on the 360 and try to play a game and see if it locks up. Is it just one game that locks up the system or is it more?

I was reading that Best Buy has changed their policy wrt replacing consoles. Now they send them off to get repaired. I got the info over at cheapassgamer.com so I don't know how accurate that is.

Danimal · Post by **Danimal** » Sun Jan 11, 2009 3:10 pm

Rodster wrote: I was reading that Best Buy has changed their policy wrt replacing consoles. Now they send them off to get repaired. I got the info over at cheapassgamer.com so I don't know how accurate that is.

I'm not sure how they can sell you a plan and then change it without notification. If I go to return my unit and they pull that I'll get my money back for the plan and then go to MS for the repair which would be free. All you have to do is say it RROD, they don't even check them.

Macca00 · Post by **Macca00** » Sun Jan 11, 2009 3:18 pm

Danimal wrote: I'm not sure how they can sell you a plan and then change it without notification.

Futureshop in Canada (owned by Best Buy) did this to me when my 360 died 2 weeks ago - told me they changed their Replacement Plan to a Service Plan. Niiice.

greggsand · Post by **greggsand** » Sun Jan 11, 2009 3:22 pm

Danimal wrote:
Rodster wrote: I was reading that Best Buy has changed their policy wrt replacing consoles. Now they send them off to get repaired. I got the info over at cheapassgamer.com so I don't know how accurate that is.
I'm not sure how they can sell you a plan and then change it without notification. If I go to return my unit and they pull that I'll get my money back for the plan and then go to MS for the repair which would be free. All you have to do is say it RROD, they don't even check them.

I was able to just walk in to Best Buy & swap about a month ago (with a 18month old 360). No hassle.

Leebo33 · Post by **Leebo33** » Wed Jan 21, 2009 1:04 pm

I sent in another 360 for RROD a month ago and they sent it back to me set for the Japan region so I can't play any games! What a bunch of f-sticks.

Well, at least I'm up to 7 free months of XBL.

J_Cauthen · Post by **J_Cauthen** » Tue Jan 27, 2009 3:13 am

My 16 month old Elite displayed the RRoD about 10 days ago. Rather than hassling with the process of sending it back for replacement/repair, I tried the X-Clamp mod that is very clearly laid out in video and PDF manual (if needed... I didn't look need it, the videos are excellent) at xbox360redlightfix.com. They charge you $29.95 to access the guides, but will refund your money if it doesn't work.

I figured that I had nothing to lose, so I gave it a go. They won't have to refund my money... it worked beautifully. The hardest part of the process for me was finding 5mm nylon and zinc washers (found the hex head 5mm machine screws with no problem). Seriously, I had to go to three different stores to find the hardware needed. I bought the last 16 8mm nylon washers that Lowes, of all places, had in stock. I also picked up a #8 Torx bit (needed for disassemby) as part of a 5 piece cheapo screwdrive pack at Lowes (I already had the #10 Torx).

The mod requires the use of Arctic 5 thermal paste, which I already had. The hardest work was getting the original thermal past off the heat sinks, CPU and GPU chips. I used alcohol and a cloth napkin; the mod strongly recommends the Arctic Silver paste remover liquid, which I didn't have. I spent 30 minutes wetting and rubbing each surface to get all the old material off... it was severely caked on in such a hard baked fashion that I can't imagine how it came close to serving as a heat transfer medium!

Anyway, I followed the instructions to the letter, put everything back together and quite honestly, had doubts about whether it would work. Much to my surprise, it powered up and has been on for 8 hours plus. Everything is working without a hitch

When I think about how much more firmly they heat sinks are secured to the chip faces now, and knowing that Arctic 5 Silver is doing the job, I have a lot of confidenct that I'm through sending XBoxes back to Microsoft.

TheGamer · Post by **TheGamer** » Thu Feb 05, 2009 1:14 pm

Has anyone had a single flashing red light in the lower right quadrant with error E74? I have an Arcade 360 that is just 40 days out of warranty, and Microsoft wants me to pay $99 to have them repair it. Since I'm opposed to throwing good money after bad, I was hoping someone may have heard of a "fix" for this particular issue.

Murph · Post by **Murph** » Wed Feb 11, 2009 8:19 pm

Ugghh. Congrats to me on my second RROD!

This sucks.

XXXIV · Post by **XXXIV** » Wed Feb 11, 2009 8:51 pm

Murph wrote:Ugghh. Congrats to me on my second RROD! This sucks.

It is a disgrace...Welcome to the 2 dead club.

Murph · Post by **Murph** » Wed Feb 11, 2009 8:58 pm

XXXIV wrote:
Murph wrote:Ugghh. Congrats to me on my second RROD! This sucks.
It is a disgrace...Welcome to the 2 dead club.

I'm considering just abandoning it.

It seems like more and more of my friends are getting Wiis. I don't get it, but I easily cave to peer presure. We shall see.

Macca00 · Post by **Macca00** » Wed Feb 11, 2009 11:34 pm

Murph wrote:Ugghh. Congrats to me on my second RROD! This sucks.

Hey Murph! To second what 34 said - welcome to the 2xRROD club! I'm still searching for a Jasper chipset - unfortunately Newegg doesn't deliver to Canada.

Rodster · Post by **Rodster** » Wed Feb 11, 2009 11:53 pm

Most of the retailers are now carrying the Jasper Arcade 360's. The dead giveaway without opening the box is to look at the contents. If it doesn't include a memory card it's a Jasper. The memory card was replaced with on board memory.

J_Cauthen · Post by **J_Cauthen** » Thu Feb 12, 2009 12:57 am

Murph wrote:Ugghh. Congrats to me on my second RROD! This sucks.

I've been there myself. I had two XBox 360's RRoD on me within a month of each other. One is an early Elite and the other a Premium. I had success repairing the Elite (since it wasn't covered by warranty any longer), using RedLightFix.com's X-Clamp mod with Arctic Silver 5. I decided against sending the Premium back, which was already a replacement for my original Premium that RRoD'd on me in less than a year. I used the X-Clamp/Arctic Silver 5 mod on it and it's now working great! From all that I read, once this mod is installed successfully, the reliably factor is very high.

It took me about 2 1/2 hours to do my original repair onn the Elite, but I was feeling my way out with it as I went. About an hour of that time I was mostly piddling around waiting for the 360 to cool to room temp after the final tightening of the new cooling block screws for the final restart. I had improved enough with the second repair to where I only had 1 1/2 hour invested in total.

All you really need for this mod is Arctic Silver 5, a Torx T-8 and T-10 screwdriver or bit for your ratchet, 8 - 5mm x 10mm Hex Head machine screws, 16 - 5mm nylon washers, and 16 - 5mm flat head zinc washers. I used rubbing alcohol and a razor paint scraper to clean the old thermal paste off the graphics and CPU chips, and cooling blocks.

I realize that something as drastic as what I've done won't sit well with most folks, but I'm inclined to twiddle with technological gadgets. It really isn't all that challenging a task if you're the slightest bit technically inclined. I shouldn't have to remanufacture an appliance to make it do what it's supposed to do for what most would consider to be an expected service life of 5 to 8 years, but this is in effect what I've done.

JackB1 · Post by **JackB1** » Thu Feb 12, 2009 12:48 pm

I guess I have been lucky. I am only on my 2nd 360 and I have been keeping the console AND the power strip very well ventilated and so far so good.

Seems like the number of "Ring Of Death" cases has decreased quite a bit. Wonder what this can be attributed to?