Another Dead X360

Jimmydeicide · Post by **Jimmydeicide** » Sat May 12, 2007 10:05 am

Mine is fine after the update allthough i did get a scare when it booted up, as it locked up and gave me a disc error. I must of had a disc in the drive. When it restarted again it was fine.

My drive is going out though.

Leebo33 · Post by **Leebo33** » Sat May 12, 2007 10:59 am

You know your console sucks when it makes it to Good Housekeeping Magazine!

http://blog.digitalsportspage.com/

skinsfan · Post by **skinsfan** » Sat May 12, 2007 8:44 pm

It's also pretty bad when MS resorts to this kind of stuff-
http://www.360gamesaves.com/plugins.php ... s&newsid=4

tjung0831 · Post by **tjung0831** » Sat May 12, 2007 9:19 pm

I bought the core unit 6 months ago and have had no issues with it, this was my 2nd time purchasing a 360. I bought the premium in may of last year before returning it because of several games locking up on me and the fact that there were really no games that interested me at the time. I really have yet to have a need for an actual hard drive for it...the 64mb card has worked great for me up to this point so I don't see myself getting a hard drive for my 360 at all.
I'm curious if there are others here who actually purchased a core and if they have had any of these problems being discussed here with it.

Feanor · Post by **Feanor** » Sat May 12, 2007 9:44 pm

Anyone buy their 360 from Best Buy and get a 2-year Product Replacement Plan with it? How much does a PRP cost when you buy a $400 premium 360?

I was looking at the $20 PRP we got with our DS Lite in January, and it actually says you're not supposed to take it back to the store if it stops working (even though that's exactly what we did when the touch screen on our old DS went kaput.)

You're supposed to the call the service center who will send you a prepaid box, and then you mail the unit into them and wait to be sent a gift card. But with a 360 that would mean losing your hard drive.

TheGamer · Post by **TheGamer** » Sat May 12, 2007 9:48 pm

I heard a rumor today that the 360 Elite was being built with refubished 360's. Anyone else heard this?

Nozzleman_216 · Post by **Nozzleman_216** » Sun May 13, 2007 9:54 am

TheGamer wrote:I heard a rumor today that the 360 Elite was being built with refubished 360's. Anyone else heard this?

No, I doubt it and with a little research you will see that the motherboard of the elite is laid out a little different. Plus just the addition of HDMI would be cause enough to have to use a new/different board.

http://www.llamma.com/xbox360/news/insi ... part_2.htm

http://xbox360.qj.net/-UPDATE-2-Geek-po ... /aid/90030

On another note, an update for those wondering about the X clamp replacement posted earlier that I tried. After some tinkering of the amount of washers and the tightness of the screws as well as the amount of artic silver I used and low and behold,, IT WORKS!!!

I would be willing to give details of everything that happened and why I adjusted things if someone wants (might be a long post) but I played guitar hero for around 30-45 min with no problems and I played a whole game of MLB2k7 after that. This is on a 360 that had 3 red lights and would never boot to the dashboard! It was nice to have it given to me as a guinea pig console. I may add another cooling fan to it also. I may not give it back to the owner for a week or at least until mine comes back from warranty repair, so I will get to test it out over the next couple of days! So far, so good

LAking · Post by **LAking** » Sun May 13, 2007 12:45 pm

SEMINOLE wrote:
TheGamer wrote:I heard a rumor today that the 360 Elite was being built with refubished 360's. Anyone else heard this?
No, I doubt it and with a little research you will see that the motherboard of the elite is laid out a little different. Plus just the addition of HDMI would be cause enough to have to use a new/different board.

http://www.llamma.com/xbox360/news/insi ... part_2.htm

http://xbox360.qj.net/-UPDATE-2-Geek-po ... /aid/90030

On another note, an update for those wondering about the X clamp replacement posted earlier that I tried. After some tinkering of the amount of washers and the tightness of the screws as well as the amount of artic silver I used and low and behold,, IT WORKS!!!

I would be willing to give details of everything that happened and why I adjusted things if someone wants (might be a long post) but I played guitar hero for around 30-45 min with no problems and I played a whole game of MLB2k7 after that. This is on a 360 that had 3 red lights and would never boot to the dashboard! It was nice to have it given to me as a guinea pig console. I may add another cooling fan to it also. I may not give it back to the owner for a week or at least until mine comes back from warranty repair, so I will get to test it out over the next couple of days! So far, so good

I'd be interested in hearing about how you fixed it. My 360 hasn't died yet but it would be nice to know that once it does i can just fix it myself. Did you have to do things differently than what the tutorials online said?

Nozzleman_216 · Post by **Nozzleman_216** » Sun May 13, 2007 1:01 pm

nothing to say LAKing?? LOL

One other thing, I would not recommend the x-clamp mod unless your console it out of warranty and you are completely against paying the 140 bucks or whatever it is they are charging. This will for sure void ANYTHING they will do to fix your box.

And I forgot to mention I used Lawdawgs tutorial, the one without any drilling etc.... My son came home today to find it working and immediately got the guitar out and began to rock out. The wife called me and said he played for a few hours with no problems!

LAking · Post by **LAking** » Sun May 13, 2007 1:11 pm

Yeah, sorry. I accidentally put my reply within the quote. Now it's fixed.

Nozzleman_216 · Post by **Nozzleman_216** » Sun May 13, 2007 1:42 pm

LAking wrote:Yeah, sorry. I accidentally put my reply within the quote. Now it's fixed.

Well, the thing is I followed the tutorial as close as I could. I didn't want to drive to Lowes or Home Depot so I went to ACE and found everything I needed. I think the heads on the M5 screws may have been too big so I had to adjust the washers. I ended up using only nylon washers on each side of the mother board. I also messed with how tight the screws were. I had to really fiddle with it and it was some trial and error. To be honest, I felt like I really rigged it LOL, but it seems to have worked at least for now anyhow. It will be REALLY interesting to see how this fairs over time. If it was mine, I would also be adding another fan per another tutorial I saw by RBtech. I might even consider cutting some of the case away too. Also for cleaning the old compound off the cpu/gpu I would say to use something stronger than rubbing alcohol. It sucked, but thats all I had to use.

By my trial and error comment above, what I mean is that I tried it exactly as th tutorial said. Things didn't seem to fit back together too well. Once I powered it on the first time no red lights and I thought for sure it was good to go. I had extra cables (video and power brick) so I was able to work on it at the table and test it but the video wasn't hooked up. So the first try I decided to put it back together and went to play. It worked for like 2 minutes or so then froze, and when rebooted I got lights again.

Took apart again and basically started over. I put more Artic Silver thermal compound on (maybe not enough the first time) and i changed the washers too. I also loosened the screws holding the heat sinks and i though maybe I had them too tight. Instead of putting it back together I basically set the mother board in the bottom chassis and turned it on this way, saves lots of time if you have to make changes. This time the I let the box run for awhile, and shut it off and then back on and things seemed ok. So I headed for the living room (no case on yet) to hook to tv and test it out with a game and some demos. I was able to play games for a few minutes then it would freeze, BUT after a reboot NO RED LIGHTS! It booted up as normal and I could play for 10 or so min before another freeze, still no red lights.

The last thing I did was turn the box over and tighten the 8 screws up some, almost completely snug and tight. Touched nothing else and proceeded to play guitar hero for almost 45 min. After this I decided to put it all back together and slap my hard drive on it. Turned it on, did a dashboard update and downloaded Forza demo. Now I did get ONE freeze and it was after some more guitar hero I took it out an put MLB in and it froze when loading the intro screen. Not sure if it was the game or the xbox but I rebooted and immediately played a whole game and no problems at all. As a matter of fact it has yet to freeze again.

So who knows, ,maybe its a fluke or maybe this really fixed the thing. I will be willing to answer any questions you or anyone else has if I can. I am pretty confident in messing with this thing now that I have messed with it. I have never built a pc or messed with them too much other then adding ram or a video card so i was a bit nervous about this whole process. I messed around so much that I pretty much only used the tutorial the first time through. I could do it now with out it

Maybe I will try to buy some cheap broken ones on ebay and try this fix and make some cash?? LOL

LAking · Post by **LAking** » Sun May 13, 2007 7:47 pm

Thanks for the detailed description. I just got a letter in the mail from MS saying my extended warrany had been, um, extended. So now i have two more years left on a now 1 year old console. Since i'm still in warrenty i don't think i'll be messing around with it.

Very Happy Maybe I will try to buy some cheap broken ones on ebay and try this fix and make some cash?? LOL

I've been thinking of doing that. A broken 360 goes for somewhere around $100 on ebay, but they often don't come with any cables, psu or hard drive as the seller can usually make more money listing them individually. I would love to buy one just to try this method out. There are people who are offering "repair service" on ebay for around $30 to $40.

Sport73 · Post by **Sport73** » Sun May 13, 2007 9:29 pm

...and all of this is the reason why I'll be buying a PS3. The reliability of the 360 is well beyond 'poor'; it's damn near a lemon. Were this not a product sold in many cases to those under 18, nor a videogame system (which is never taken seriously), there would be a class action suit and federal law would apply - MS would have to take back/replace every console sold.

It's sad. I like the 360 a lot, but I have a difficult time rewarding this kind of corporate behavior. I understand the impossible economics, but Microsoft should have redesigned the system (quietly) by this point.

Nozzleman_216 · Post by **Nozzleman_216** » Sun May 13, 2007 9:40 pm

LAking wrote:Thanks for the detailed description. I just got a letter in the mail from MS saying my extended warrany had been, um, extended. So now i have two more years left on a now 1 year old console. Since i'm still in warrenty i don't think i'll be messing around with it.

Very Happy Maybe I will try to buy some cheap broken ones on ebay and try this fix and make some cash?? LOL
I've been thinking of doing that. A broken 360 goes for somewhere around $100 on ebay, but they often don't come with any cables, psu or hard drive as the seller can usually make more money listing them individually. I would love to buy one just to try this method out. There are people who are offering "repair service" on ebay for around $30 to $40.

I wonder if that is with any sort of guarantee? I mean How can I be certain he/she problem is only heat and not drive related LOL

LAking · Post by **LAking** » Mon May 14, 2007 1:11 am

SEMINOLE wrote:
LAking wrote:Thanks for the detailed description. I just got a letter in the mail from MS saying my extended warrany had been, um, extended. So now i have two more years left on a now 1 year old console. Since i'm still in warrenty i don't think i'll be messing around with it.

Very Happy Maybe I will try to buy some cheap broken ones on ebay and try this fix and make some cash?? LOL
I've been thinking of doing that. A broken 360 goes for somewhere around $100 on ebay, but they often don't come with any cables, psu or hard drive as the seller can usually make more money listing them individually. I would love to buy one just to try this method out. There are people who are offering "repair service" on ebay for around $30 to $40.
I wonder if that is with any sort of guarantee? I mean How can I be certain he/she problem is only heat and not drive related LOL

Well, you would just have to say you can only fix a console with a specific error code. It's got to be the player 1, 3, and 4 lights. That's the correct error, right?

Nozzleman_216 · Post by **Nozzleman_216** » Mon May 14, 2007 7:51 am

pretty much. When you get the 3rlod you can press the sync and eject buttons at the same time and it will give you an error code also. So push it once and if all 4 lights go red, its 0, then push again and you may have 1 red light and again 1 red light and on the last push of the buttons will give you 4 lights again, this gives you 0110 for an error and that is a memory overheating error.

johnvon314 · Post by **johnvon314** » Fri May 18, 2007 12:32 pm

Add me to the list of dead 360 owners. My second unit lasted only four months, and now Microsoft wants me to pay $100 to have it fixed. By the way, my error code is 0102.

John

sportdan30 · Post by **sportdan30** » Fri May 18, 2007 12:37 pm

Sorry to hear the bad news Jon.

How do the extended warranty contracts work? Are they just year to year? I know I signed up for an extension a few months back (I've since traded my 360 in for a PS3), but I can't recall how much they are. But, it does seem worth investing in.

johnvon314 · Post by **johnvon314** » Fri May 18, 2007 4:05 pm

Did a bit of searching on extended warranties via Microsoft. Apparently, you get an automatic 90 day extension from the time you receive your repaired or new console or until the end of the old warranty, whichever is longer. My new warranty ended a month ago wouldn't you know it.

I only saw where you could buy extended warranties from MS on the original Xbox and the 360 in Australia which is a bit odd. Neither does me any good.

John

Leebo33 · Post by **Leebo33** » Fri May 18, 2007 4:48 pm

johnvon314 wrote:Add me to the list of dead 360 owners. My second unit lasted only four months, and now Microsoft wants me to pay $100 to have it fixed. By the way, my error code is 0102.

Don't settle for paying more than $69.99 because that is what I paid. I asked to talk to a supervisor and he dropped the price from $100 to $70.

I just got my new 360 back this afternoon. I'm going to go for a 4 mile run and think about what I want to do. I'm seriously considering trading the f*cking thing in tonight for a PS3.

edit: I typed new but I'm sure the thing is just refurbished.

sportdan30 · Post by **sportdan30** » Fri May 18, 2007 9:31 pm

53 pages of 360 coffin support at cheapassgamer.com. That's one huge thread devoted to the 360 ring of death!

http://cheapassgamer.com/forums/showthread.php?t=91772

Leebo33 · Post by **Leebo33** » Fri May 18, 2007 9:55 pm

I get a refurbished 360 back and on the same day my sister and brother-in-law get the ring of death. It's the circle of life

Dave · Post by **Dave** » Fri May 18, 2007 10:19 pm

Leebo33 wrote:I get a refurbished 360 back and on the same day my sister and brother-in-law get the ring of death. It's the circle of life

Anyone else think it is sh*t that they send you a refurb as a replacement?

XXXIV · Post by **XXXIV** » Fri May 18, 2007 10:33 pm

Dave wrote:
Leebo33 wrote:I get a refurbished 360 back and on the same day my sister and brother-in-law get the ring of death. It's the circle of life
Anyone else think it is sh*t that they send you a refurb as a replacement?

The whole thing is s***. MS is s***.

btmmayor · Post by **btmmayor** » Fri May 18, 2007 10:40 pm

Leebo33 wrote:I'm seriously considering trading the f*cking thing in tonight for a PS3.

I have a few guys on my Xbox Live friends list that have done just that. If I could only have one video game console it would without any doubt be the 360, and its not even close for me, but I can certainly see how one could be pushed to the point of telling Microsoft to stick it up their ass.