Chromehounds and the Ring of Death

This is an idiotic post.

The 3 red lights of death represent a hardware problem. Playing a certain piece of SOFTWARE cannot cause HARDWARE to break. The most it could cause is a harddrive error, but then your system would still work with the hard drive removed.

Most likely something randomly broke while you happened to be playing chromehounds. Often with those errors the system will randomly work for about 5 min at a time before crashing again. You happened to put chromehounds in again and it was still broken.

SOFTWARE cannot cause HARDWARE faliure.

stop putting up inane rediculous posts.

Unfortunately, this gamer does not say if he tested his xbox with a known working game before the second crash.

Ideally, he should have tested his machine thoroughly with as many games as possible to rule out another factor causing the crash.

By that same logic... OBLIVION KILLED MY 360!!!

I realize it's a slow news day, but going back to the same guy who has had the same problem as a LOT of other people??? Just a shade ludicrous.

Hey buddy, try this:
http://xbox360.qj.net/Fixing-Chromehounds-Ring-of-Death-in-Four-Easy-Steps/pg/49/aid/60539

David, that is not entirely true. Software can cause the processor to run past it's peak in a prolonged state, causing the CPU to overheat (and die).

As a tech, I also remember a virus from 1999 - 'Chernobyl'. This virus destroyed the BIOS and resulted in many motherboards being replaced.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chernobyl_virus

While I am not saying that Chromehounds destroys the X360, I wouldn't rule it out 100% either... best to wait and see what the MS tech team finds out.

xbox360fanboy.com, I would like to see if its possible for you to get me in contact with the person who reported this to you.

I am now also having the exact same issues with my 360. Im seeing heavy artifacting (the grid) and a loud squelch sound the moment it locks up. It was only doing it during chromehounds, now it does it sometimes while in the dashboard. Attempting to restart the 360 results in me usually getting the ring of death.

The video artifacting looks a lot like what happens to your screen when you overclock your PC videocard too much. missplaced video textures all over the screen and such. The best way to describe it is like this: It looks a lot like what happens when you unplug your 360 from your network cable during a download. That funky screen with the grids? the missplaced video textures? looks almost exactly like that.

Perhaps the game itself is pushing the hardware too much? I dont know, im now waiting on a box to send my 360 in to be looked at. I find it funny though that everyone is screaming coincedence when people are experiencing the same issue with the same game.

Over 10 360 games and several months of play and now im having the EXACT same issue this person is after playing chromehounds for a few days? Heh, sorry, I cant afford to be as blind as some people and claim its something else when its obviously the game thats causing this.

My 360 died the other day...in the MUSIC PLAYER.
I was about to start a song, then I got some crazy grid, and I think some loud beep or something. It froze quite a few times during the FFXI Beta, but only a couple times during the retail version.
I'm currently waiting for UPS to drop off my box.
I think we called Saturday night, it's now Wednesday.

P.S. I'm starting to think that a lot more 360's are afftected than some people are putting on.
My 360 lasted just about 7 months, then completely pooped out.

My xbox 360 is 7 months old and i own 8 games ,i have never had a problem ..never.
i bought CHROMEHOUNDS on friday ,played for a couple of hours .saturday i power up my 360 and it crashes (cheqeured flag effect on screen)removed game ,tried again ..3 red segments...
tried various checks and games ,no change .so i phone support(still waiting for reply) So tuesday i try my 360 again ...and hey it works ..no problems since..

I think its also funny. My 360 died twice....

I would really love to hear some reasoning from Microsoft as to why they are dying to avoid the problem in the future AND to know exactly what is happening.

My 360 died twice, and I have no idea why! My second 360 was treated like a human, I put a cooling fan under it as well as following every advisory very carefully.

well this is why E3 has changed to not lot sites that post stuff like this in.. for the better i think

I had a first run Xbox 360 which had the same problem. I first noticed that the surround sound would sometimes have a lot of bleeps, noise and then cut out. A few months after the first audio problem my 360 started to lock up and freeze in the middle of a game. I thought it was all a coincidence at first. Last month I was deleting all the E3 stuff I download from the marketplace when the 360 locked up in the middle of deleting a file. The screen gave me the same checker board grid pattern. After I restarted the system I went on deleting items and the screen froze on the same pattern again. Next I tried loading up PDZ and as soon as I started a deathmatch my Xbox froze yet again. Well that pissed me off so I restarted the xbox for the third time and then I got the red ring-o-death. It never worked again.

I called Microsoft to see what was up and they said some of the first run 360 have had problems. They gave the same story to send in my system and hard drive in for repair and I would get it back in 2 weeks at no charge. Well I didn't want to be with out my 360 for 2 weeks so I called EB Games to find out what the $40 warranty I bought with my system would do for me. They replaced my system with a new 360 that day and I also bought another warranty. I called Microsoft back and canceled my repair and found out that the first guy I talked to was wrong. It would have cost me $120 to fix and I would have lost my hard drive if I would have sent it in. So the moral of the story is to buy the warranty from the store.

WHAT?! That's WAY TOO WEIRD. The EXACT same thing happened to me playing Chromehounds. I sent mine out to be replaced yesterday.

I have a question since Im considering getting a Xbox 360... That being of 100 Xbox users, how many will run into this sort of quality problem if they use there 360 system at a avrage pace, (being something like 2 to 4 hours a day, 3 times a week?)

Izzy

This also only happened to me while I was playing Chromehounds. My 360, which I've had since January, very rarely locked up before then. I had never even heard that crazy beep sound before I played Chromehounds. Now Im really pissed because I had to send my 360 in for repairs ($130). If this definately turns out to be an issue caused by Chromehounds, I'm going to explode.

Izzy, 3 of the 100 will encounter problems with their 360s. I don't recall the specific interview or article, but a 3% failure rate was specificly stated by Microsoft during the flareup aurrounding "overheating power supplies" shortly after launch. While it would suck to be one of the three, Microsoft's return policy is pretty good, and the failure rate is a bit lower than the industry average. I say buy your 360, and "burn it in" by leaving it powered on and running games for a couple of days to see if you'll encounter any problems.

hey yes i to am running into weird red rings issues.

i think its totally the games breaking the system. which in that case MS need to get a handle on this.if my second 360 dies i dont care of gear of war jerks you off while you play, the 360 and MS hardware is dead in my book, and my 24-35 year old dispposeable income wont get one red cent from me agian, not matter how much i hate sony.

My first console died of a hardware error shortly after obvilion came out, it died while playing a COD2 game which had just been patched. I decided to be nice and go out and buy a new console rather then dick around and wait for a replacement one and then all that other BS. $400 is not that much money.

But now...

i finished a game of chromehounds and i powered off my 360(via power button), but oddly the fans and system seemed to stay on,nothing was being displayed on the tv, but both the fans were still going, i didnt think anything off it and went to sleep, in the mourning i went outside and to my suprise the 360 was still warm, not very hot but at least 70F, and the fans were still spinnning.
So i was like wtf?

I had to unpluged the power from the system and that of course killed the fans, i did it a few times and it continued to act like it was on when it wasnt supposed to be. but then later that night when i tired to fire up ghost recon, the system would hang when i booted it up, it would make a werid sound as if the DVD tray was blocked by something and then it would just not boot pass the 360 logo. So this being my SECOND 360 (i got a prieium at lanch which died shortly after obvoilion came out) i started to freak out.I tried keep loading it verticaly, take out HD but slow was worsening until i got a red ring, and a message w/ the grid in chinese/korean/english telling me to call xbox customer service.
At this point i was like 2 am, i was sooo anoyed.

I repostioned the 360 horitzonal and instead of trying to boot it with the power on button i used the open tray, which promtly open the disc tray and booted the 360,MUCH FASTER like 200% improvment in boot speed. and then nothing no delay into signing into live, nothing. it boot and signed.

but this makes me so annoyed becasue now its made me so parnoia about how long i can leave the game on, how long i can play for, and what game is going to break my console. what do i only have X amount of hours on this console before chromehounds or the next game kills my system? bullshit...

MS you need to get your shit together, i bought a warrantly for the second one, but if it breaks im sending both broken systems to MS, and tell them they can keep them.

I mean i never heard of a game breaking a console.
I mean you think developer would play test the game for hours (im talking 40+) rather then just boot it up and make sure it compiles.

My advice is that the 360 seems to be very sensitive to power fluctuations in it's current configuration. The appropriate way to protect any sensitive equipment is to power them through an uninterruptable power supply which not only eliminates spikes (like a surge protector) but also powers through drops (brownouts).

With the prevalence of computers, tivos, consoles with hard drives, and other technical equipment in households, the grid is getting really unreliable in a lot of places, not to mention that it just degenerates with age.

A $40 battery backup box from best buy, circuit city, compusa, or radio shack will protect your system from problems caused by these type of power fluctuations.

In my personal experience, when I've dragged my 360 out to the main television, and just plugged it into the wall, I can expect system freezes. If I also haul out my UPS, then there are no problems. So that is what I attribute most of these problems too.

Also, you need to install the system with three inches around the sides and top, and six inches in the back. That's just common sense for something that produces heat.

This guy is an idiot. Tell him to reboot the fucking console.

It is just a coincidence. Everytime there's a new game people start going off about the game destroying their 360.

Me and 4 of my friends have been playing chromehounds for over 80 hours with no problems other than crappy servers. Every disk is the same piece of software, so if it was Chromehounds we'd have dead 360's too.

If anything your 360 was hovering at death's door and chromehounds pushed it over because there was already an underlying HARDWARE problem.

Anyone that has a problem with there xbox 360 must be doing something to them. I have had mine sence 2005 and I have never even had to reboot it. Runs like a charm. I even play alot of older xbox games on it too. But here is what I did. I set it up with a power strip. Set it where it was going to be. AND HAVEN'T TOUCHED IT!!!!!!!!!!!! I swear these people are moving the thing around or have or are little kids that don't know how to treat a work of art!

I bet these same people have returned there TV's and DVD players because something is wrong with them. I have never returned any of my electronics becuase I treat them with respect! There, This isn't your childhood Nintendo that you could just blow into the cartridge and get it to work again.

dear mr djphatjive. you are an idiot

wow your xbox 360 works, congrats to you.
just because yours works doesnt mean everyone else's does

DJ is fucking stupid, even microsoft admitted a 3% manufacturing problem where they fail out of the box. That doesn't include people who had machines fail weeks and months later for no apparent reason.

My 360 was bought on launch day, has free space around it measured in feet and was plugged into a $150 Monster power center. Wasn't moved or touched, except to change games, and died after 1 month. The first replacement they sent me failed after 2 hours. The second replacement has been chugging along since.

Oh, and don't bother getting a UPS at RadioShack, they're online only now. Go and get one at CC or BB.

If Chromehounds was destroying consoles, everybody would be affected. This is idiotic. There is a chance that Chromehounds pushes the system in some way that highlights a problem that is already there (as PDZ did for some people), but it is not flashing your BIOS and bricking 360's. Take your copy of CH to another 360, if it toasts it then I'm wrong.

Question for djphatjive:
Did you play Chromehounds. My console was manufactured in 2005 and seemed to work perfectly UNTIL I played Chromehounds. I never got that checkerboard pattern or beeping sound before. To say that anybody with a problematic 360 isn't treating it with respect is stupid.

then explain why the system hangs and the fans stay on and spin and the console act's like its still on only after open the system tray and take out the chromehounds game. it doesnt do it with any other game.

it seems like two issues

Issue one is the software causing the hardware to hang(what problem killed my other xbox with COD2) this could be so, but their are many different software combinations of memory write/reads threads to casue this so localizating its is impossible. the only way would be a software patch fixing it across the board.

or

a step in the hardware boot sequence is blocked by something either software or hardware left over after a bad shutdown or bad start up.

but i dont thinks its the game data ie chromhounds, COD2, PDZ. but rather the handshake/authorization software that is running while the dvd reads and writes data. the underlying Xbox 360 gateway of sorts.

I mean if its checking every memory read/write for signed content that has to do something to it even if that handles as a one thread of 6 maybe capcom wrote a sequence of instruction sets that use that "handshake" threat which would break the system, but it might be be like that on the SDk.

who knows there so much that goes into software engineering.

that is why is so werid.

hey if you knew anything about hardware you'ld know if it boots once it should boot everytime. its a closed system nothing new is being added to it. so it has to be the games. OR a pre-exsiting hardware problem.

I have a launch system. It still runs fine. I finally attached it to a battery-backed UPS about a month ago just because I had an extra one.

That was probably a good thing as we've had several power surges lately.

Anyway, I've no intention on playing Chromehounds though.

djphatjive - I have to disagree. I did the same as you, set it up and left alone with plenty of room around the console and power supply for ventilation. My 360 had disc read errors, luckily within the terribly short 3 month waranty period and I got a new one from MS. It's been fine since January.
I have about 60 guys on my friends list, all adult gamers and at least 15 that I know of have had their 360's breakdown and replaced! Ridiculous. And only a 3 month warranty on a $400 electronic device is wrong. Stand by your product for a year. If my second 360 does not last a year I will try to get it fixed/replaced free under implied warranty.
Don't get me wrong - I love gaming on the xbox 360, but the failure rate is higher than you think.

I am the guy from the story.

First off, I would like to thank drew for informing me of my state as a "fucking idiot." I wasn't aware before and you saved me some trouble! If it hadn't been for you, I would never ever have thought of rebooting my console! You are a genius sir.

(just because he sounds a little slow)

As for DJ, I never move my console, and only touch it to put in or take out games. I have ample room on all sides. Sorry, taking care of your console doesnt always guarantee it for life.

I have never had any problems at all with my 360 before this and i did try other games before chromehounds after it rose from the dead and they worked. Chromehounds however, froze my box and caused the hardware error again.

I am not saying that chromehounds will destroy all consoles but I got mine opening day so it may be affecting the older ones, or consoles from a specific manufacturer/time period.

All I know is that before chromehounds, my 360 worked. Afterwards, not so much. It is what it is homies.



P.S. I complained to the customer service people told them i was furious (which i was) that i am a loyal M$ customer (which i am) and that i did not want to pay 130 for a repair (which i dont) and they gave me 50% off.

If software can't kill your Xbox then explain how the MS update earlier this year killed mine.
MS even admitted to it causing problems on the phone when I called them.

Want to see your 360 freeze? Just load Halo 2 and get 4 people and start playing. Make sure there is loads of crazy action.

As this is post 28 I guess this is a hot topic. My 360 was fine and I wondered what all the fuss was about but then it happened to me. Those that scoff lets hope it never happens to you. I have been waiting 16 days just to get the box collected.

Strangly I have 197 computers at work and havn't had a failure for 2 years. Perhaps MS should get whoever builds Dell's machines to do their 360's.

umm... dell builds dells machines...

Microsoft Needs to have a Testing Cycle for anyone making a game.
Sony makes all games get an testing cycle certification before people can releas a game.

Microsoft Has Xbox Live, which translates to Patches R Us.

Welcome to PC Gaming.
If you don't like it buy a console.
Consoles = PS2, PS3, GameCube, Wii.
PC Gaming = Anything that has Microsoft Involved.

I have to say the software has been buggy all across the board.. Either that or every other day MS is changing where they get their hardware.. Cuz I had a core system, no it never died (was stolen) and BurnOut would every so often give me a disc read error. Nothings wrong with the disk, only a reboot fixes.. Now I have a Premium and I get the same thing (actually seems less then b4) but it still happens..

The fault def is falling on MS, or the game makers (for pushing the system too hard too fast)

I keep my system in its own shelf on an old server rack, with plenty of airflow around it.. At one point with my Core I had a fan blowing the hot air away from the system..

Thats just my take..

None of this discussion changes the simple fact that CHROMEHOUNDS rocks! The online experience is deep and entertaining. Everything comes alive and makes sense online. Destructible scenery, footprints, and spectacular lighting/shadow effects -- great stuff. It's no surprise that it's ranked as the #3 XBOX 360 game on Live. Buy/Play this game.

Okay granted I've only put about 20 hrs into chromehounds so far. But my 360, which is on 24/7 and used probably a good 6-10 hrs any given day and has been since launch, has not had a single ring of death. I've also played most of the other games that had similar complaints leveled against them, and no ring of death ever.

It's sitting on the carpet, and our place isn't air conditioned. Also my roommate and I tend to smoke a lot of... um... hand-rolled "cigarettes" while playing video games, so it's generally in a smoky environment, which I assume is not an ideal situation. Also, it gets moved, A LOT. I take it to my office, sometimes I'll take it into my room when I want to play a game all night and not tie up the tv; and when i take road trips to visit friends and family it accompanies me on those too; in nothing more protective than a laptop bag.

My point? Everyone, EVERYONE here, including our friend Tim, is spouting anecdotal evidence like it's canonical truth. Hell, if you look at my anecdotal evidence, the 360's one of the most rough and tumble pieces of electronics ever built. Clearly this isn't the case. But, if software is magically causing hardware issues, perhaps being in a smokey environment is what's protected my 360. It sounds absurd, mostly because it is, but so is the idea of a game causing a hardware failure. Exacerbating an existing hardware issue? Sure, I'll buy that. But let's get one thing clear; I'll even spell it out in little words for you:

Chomehounds did not cause anyone's xbox to die, it may have pushed already-faulty hardware beyond it's limit, but it did not create any problem that was not already there. If it were, then EVERYONE who played Chromehounds would be having the exact same issue, and it seems that the vast majority of players haven't been having it.

I feel your pain Tim, it sucks to have a console die, and I'm glad MS cut the repair costs for you; but let's place blame where it belongs. Not in Sega/FROM Software's lap, but MS's; your 360 had a faulty part it seems, and Chromehounds revealed it. It didn't create it though. It's irresponsible of xbox360fanboy to post a story like this, but then I guess since it's a blog this kind of behavior is expected.

@ Chappy, thank you for the advice, and yes I probably will put my system (if and when I so choose to get one on battery/surge protection as it seems to be a great idea.)

Along with that, I will look into purchasing a extended maintenance plan for the 360 as it appears you may inavertantly be understating the failure rate of the 360 system. Im sure you have good facts to your credit, but all the angst I have seen so far, leads me to wonder if the failure rate has been misstated by officals in charge of collecting any information reguarding the 360's performance to date.

@ everyone. - Normaly I would not bother with extended maintenance plans, (As extended warrenties have in the past be blatent rip offs...) But now I have two good reasons to get one with the purchase of a 360... First off, it does break down, I want quick replacement. Im going to be paying 400 dollars for this thing, to entertain me as I please, and I don't want to wait 3 weeks for replacement. I want to be able to go to a physical location thats no less then 20 miles from me, sort out the problem, go back home, and continue to entertain myself.

400 dollars is a lot of money, and its still alot more money if what you buy does not work a year later. So get it covered till it does not matter that it does not work.. Like when the next generation of gaming systems come out.

Secound, if the Xbox 360's failure rate is as bad as it seems to be, It be much more effective if I had anouther organization to complain to Microsoft for me. Sure, I could clog up Microsoft help lines over a broken product, and just be anouther voice spouting off fear, loathing, and half witted verbal abuse over a broken toy. Or I could let the high powered marketing professionals i purchase my 360 from, meet with the equaly high powered microsoft professionals in charge of the X-box platform, and let the gods of marketing renegotiate terms of sales and service.

I know this Renegotiation of sales and service agreement stuff does not sound exciting to alot of you, but I think it is much more effective then crying to a underpayed customer service associate.

If the marketing professionals have to give out new 360s each time one break, they are forced into the sales version of overtime, and may points behind. It is like they sold two units for the price of 1.2 units. Infact they lost lots of money at this point. Now the way they normaly deal with this is they return the defective product to a repair center, and have it referbished. They take these units, slap on a retailers warrentiee, (which is what stuck them with the refurbished unit in the first place,) and try to sell them as closely as they can to a new unit so to make up some of the loss, but they still will likely loss something on the sale. (expecally if the machine breaks again...)

On top of that, if alot people starting forcing them repeat this proseadure over and over and over again, the product in general becomes less and less profitable. This is not only because they are are loosing good money on selling referbished units... But because they have to make room for refurbished units, it leaves less room for new units, which should be there money makers. And its just not profitable for a company to hold onto anything, much less a used unit over a new unit.

Now try and tell me that will not take a toll on market retailer such as EB games, Best buy, and so forth. Hell, Im sure there is refurbished Playstation one still waiting to be sold!

So... If they, (being the physical location that sells Xbox 360s) start hemmraging lots of money over (this like I just discribed,) they are defiently going to want burn the bastards that sold them this bum ride ticket. And that means the fallowing will likely happen. For one, Microsoft will not be able to lower the retail price of new units, till the refurbished unit stock clears out to profitable levels again. After all, how are you going to ever clear out used units, if new units cost less? There also will be need to renegotiate contracts to continue selling 360s because its now a proven defective product, and such products have slim product margens as discribed above. And worst of all for microsoft, some retailers might even ask Microsoft to count them out if they loose money on the product. And that is horrible, & insain situation for any quality manufacture to deal with in the public eye.

Emagin for exsample if your local Toyota Dealership publicaly announce because of the ever increasing rate of quality defects in Toyota cars, they will start selling GM or Ford cars instead. The national press would have a field day, other dealerships might fallow suit, and Toyota would loose face, market share, and its quality reputation across the world if it did not make some effort to control the dammage. And this could not just happen, thats exsactly what has happened to GM and Ford over the past couple of years.

The point of this post is to remind everyone in the gears of capitalism, everyone needs to make a little bit of money off everything they do. Denie a single gear that right to profit, and things will get ugly all over that section of the machine.

Of course, if you can remember the first part of this post, and in case your wondering what happens if nothing goes wrong with my 360 after I buy it. Well, I just lost 80 bucks on a educated guess, but I bought peace of mind for the next 3 to 5 years, and that in itself is worth the cost of knowing I covered my butt in safe and proper manner.

I have noticed when I leave in my Plug N play charge kit my xbox doesn't seam to turn off fully anyone else encounter this?

dude theirs nothing next gen about chromehounds.
if you knew anything about FROM Software, this game is armored core with different controls.

and a online play.

the only good thing about chromehounds is the mech bay, its very deep. but the game has tons of things that make it unplayable.

how about a option to turn off the 10-15+ message i get about DouchebagXYZ donating money to the tarkari republic....

i love mech games, but this is a armored core game trying to squeeze into a mechassualt world.

it just doesnt work. and the reason why its #3 becasue there is nothing to play.

if this game came out with any kind of AAA game would we even be talking about it.

run chromehounds agianst mass effect or gears

they be laughting at this game.

I haven't tried Chromehounds out yet, the Demo was a huge turnoff.. I do have freezing issues with Oblivion though.. It sucks, but it's the only game that does it pretty much. My system is setup proper, well ventilated, on a good power strip, etc. Shiat just happens.

The same thing happened to my 360 with Chromehounds, sort of. I had the game for two days and it worked fine. The third day, with Chromehounds in the drive, I turned on my 360 to see three red rings light up. I thought my 360 had died. I turned it off and on again but the same red rings appeared.

Prior to this I had never had an incident with the box. I unplugged and re-plugged the box back in; after that it turned on and it has worked fine ever since. I thought it was just a fluke / coincidence, but after seeing this post, I thought i would post my experience as well. I've played Chromehounds a few times since then and the rings haven't appeared to date.

Here's hoping.

@ 15:

Oddly enough, a Microsoft reprasentative who came to my school for a career fair, who told me that he HELPED CREATE THE 360, reported to me that there was definitely "only an 8% defect rate, and the only reason it's overestimated known is because of blogs". Who should I believe here? Average Interweb Joe with 3% or MS rep with 8%?

@ 20: But it would be nice if that DID work...

ive just had the ring of death... and its shit.

not due to chrome hounds, but it buggered in pgr3.

play oblivion a lot, but i doubt it was that, got mine at launch, and its just been going down hill for the last couple of weeks.

purple blocks (grid?)... reboot... red lights.

and repeat.

its a pain in the arse that this would happen, especially considering the length of time ive had the console. and i dont play a massive amount either.

sort it out ms.

I was an absolute Microsoft hater for years. I got an XBOX 4 years after launch, and was slightly converted. I was all about the PS3 until E#, and was converted to 360 land by the sweet lineup this fall. I got my system on May 17th to be exact. I'm now on my FOURTH 360 in less than 4 months. My fourth is actually on it's way from the Microsoft "repair center". So far I've had 1)Red Rings of Death 2)Checkerboard pattern/freezing issue 3)DVD Drive Errors. I can't wait to see which error I get with my fourth system. I don't think I'd be surprised if it just caught fire and burned my house down while sitting on my doorstep in the UPS box.

Well, since the Chromehounds DEMO crashed (luckily not killed) my 360 whenever I played it, no way was I buying it.

Well, at least you guys aren't in the PAL territories, for each game we get we are used to glitches. We get crashes, audio glitches, black and white output and all sorts of crap we have to wade through. Some games are PAL-50 only, some PAL-60 only, some don't support VGA etc..
Hell, Microsoft decided to patch backward compatible games so they cannot be run through the VGA cable.


@Brian
Dell machines don't crash?
We have Dell laptops at work, they regularly have to be replaced. I'd say each one has to be replaced at least 3 times while still under warranty.

This is not likely caused by chrome hounds check this post http://www.xboxhacker.net/forums/index.php?PHPSESSID=61410f6372ab4d2b622dc1aa9dc5a60f&topic=1193.0 I have posted a comment here three times I will post a more detailed post if this one shows up on the site

darkbudda, dells don't crash, they explode:

http://www.theinquirer.net/default.aspx?article=32550

@45 - no offence but, I am not opening up any electronic device I have little to no working or academic understanding of, and attempt to make repairs. Besides, are there things that let Microsoft know you voided your own warrentie by opening it up?

On top of that, that works against the grain of pholosephy of customer/manufacture relations. If you get a defective product, sure you can fix it yourself if you know what your doing... But you should not recieve a defective problem in the first place! You gotta let the manufacture or the seller of the product know you got this problem, and that they have a responcablity to you to correct this for you.

@42 - Jesus cripes. The reliablity of the 360 seems to get worse and worse with each person that I lission to. Im starting to wonder if Microsoft is purposefully selling these thing with problems to make money back on the consoles by making so they require repairs...

darkbhudda
If your Dell Laptops Suck that bad.
Why do you keep buying them...

you guys can say anything you want about how idiotic this sounds, but my x box just died too, and the game in the tray......... CHROMEHOUNDS!

i called 1-800-4MY-XBOX and they told me that "there is a known issue with 360s dieing, and chromehounds" so david, if you dont beleive it, call 1-800-4MY-XBOX, and just ask them about it, they told me to call back before i tried to play chromehounds again, to see if the patch was out


so to all the non believers, its true, i have the phone call reference number, but thats not really proof of what was said in the conversation...