Ring of Death: An Xbox 360 story -- Part 1
by Alexander Sliwinski 
{ Feb 1st 2007 at 10:15AM }
A tragedy befell a colleague yesterday. For the second time during his tenure of owning an Xbox 360, he experienced the red Ring of Death. This isn't some new system he picked up at the store inexplicably dying on him, this was a system he received directly from Microsoft after his original console kicked the bucket a month after launch.
Now, this blogger has his own personal problems with the Xbox 360's loading tray. The Microsoft Xbox 360 defense force said I must have messed with my loading tray to make it not work properly, because obviously when you own a $400 piece of equipment you try to break it and experience all the joy of warranty red tape. Well, as much as this blogger might try to keep his system out of harm's way, it in no way compares to my colleague -- he is über-tech-master-extreme. With a projection HDTV in his incredible loft, everything is neat and proper in a perfect place. Unless he has some form of technological Munchausen by Proxy Syndrome, he certainly didn't mess with his system.
So, last night he called up India (what, you didn't know Xbox support is in India?), and now he waits to receive the box from support which should arrive in 4 to 5 days, to send his Xbox 360, once again, to Texas for repair. We'll be tracking the progress of his system. Last time it took a few weeks to get the console back, let's see how long it takes this time. It'd be more comforting to know these tales of Xbox 360 malfunctions were the stuff of message boards and YouTube videos, instead of people with one or two degrees of separation from each other having problems.
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 3)
benjamin @ Feb 1st 2007 10:23AM
Some 360 support is in Austin, TX.
I have to hear radio ads for it all the frigging time.
It's funny, since the announcer states "Just imagine, working for Xbox! [note, not Microsoft) What a fun job!"
Uh, no. I imagine the kinds of calls I'd receive and imagine the daily battle I have with Bubba as he tries to plug his component cables into his dog's rectum.
KTHXNO.
adam @ Feb 1st 2007 10:24AM
So now everytime some nobody's 360 (allegedly) dies, you have to make a post about it?
mocoworm @ Feb 1st 2007 10:27AM
you're lying. you dont get a box anymore. you have to provide your own.
http://www.joystiq.com/2007/01/19/whats-inside-the-big-box-project/
Cutriss @ Feb 1st 2007 10:27AM
"So, last night he called up India (what, you didn't know Xbox support is in India?)"
No, I didn't. When I called Xbox support twice to get my 360 exchanged (I couldn't reproduce the problem the first time I called), both the service reps were Canadian. I talked for a short while with the first one, a nice girl named Miranda. I don't expect that they're teaching Indians to pretend to be Canadian by saying "zed" instead of zero.
ariens @ Feb 1st 2007 10:30AM
Ontario, Canada.
A colleague of mine's 360 died a week or so ago, mine died 2 days ago. 3 red lights. I work in a small office ~8 ppl, so I'm guessing it's quite friggin' common. At least I still haven't finished Twilight Princess yet :P
Moe @ Feb 1st 2007 10:29AM
"So now everytime some nobody's 360 (allegedly) dies, you have to make a post about it? "
if this post was about a PS3 not working would you say the same thing?
Tom @ Feb 1st 2007 10:28AM
"because obviously when you own a $400 piece of equipment you try to break it and experience all the joy of warranty red tape"
Yes, that's exactly the attitude that Xbox customer service takes. I experienced the same thing when they denied ever receiving the crap wireless headset I sent in to a local repair center, effectively robbing me of $70 I paid for it.
Woe to anyone who has to deal with them, 'cause, you know, they're perfect and all us customers are a bunch of con artists and liars.
This colleague should contribute to the Big Box Project...
AirIntake @ Feb 1st 2007 10:34AM
@Cutriss
Indians probably say 'zed' unless specifically taught not to because they would have learned english from the British, not Americans.
ice monkey @ Feb 1st 2007 10:38AM
@Moe, yep. If this was about a PS3 rabbid 360 fanboys would jump all over it, getting a hard on while laughing at PS3 owners and Sony. Give the rest a chance to shred into the Xbox once in a while.
ice monkey @ Feb 1st 2007 10:44AM
Actually I have Indian friends who can speak better English than many Americans or British.
Steve @ Feb 1st 2007 10:40AM
Wow I've still got my launch console and never had a problem with it.
DBX00 @ Feb 1st 2007 10:41AM
I can't say that I'm impressed with Microsoft's hardware capabilities, but they should have the red ring of death resolved at this point in the console's lifecycle. This would be more interesting if the console he received was more recent and still had problems. I guess we'll find out soon enough. At least they're still replacing the console for free, but if they're just recycling the bad consoles back to the market that sucks.
D @ Feb 1st 2007 10:45AM
Co-worker of mine just got the dreaded ring of death as well. He's been waiting 2 weeks for so far. Glad I didn't rush out and buy one either (not that i would have since it didn't even have HDMI.. wtf is up with that?)
Mazy @ Feb 1st 2007 10:46AM
My 360 got utterly messed up Tuesday after a freeze in the Crackdown demo. From there on it pretty much freezes every time I load up a game (was fine as long as I didn't do anything in the dashboard it seemed).
Waiting for my box now as well, and I've been checking the net for the freeze problem and its hardly an uncommon thing for launch 360s. At this point its almost impressive to see somebody with a launch 360 thats still working.
Love the 360 but damn its shitty quality.
Azorean @ Feb 1st 2007 1:54PM
Do we really need to know every time a 360 has the three rings of Death? Because I could really care less mines just fine and I've had it since launch, sucks for you.
Helo @ Feb 1st 2007 10:50AM
Well I've had my console since launch with no problems whatsoever. No crashing. No scratched or unreadable disc errors.
And then, 13 months later, out of the blue I get the red ring of death. Of course it was out of warranty but since it was a launch console they're fixing it for free. However, they didn't (won't) send me a box. I have to send it out myself with my own box and then they'd mail the same box back and pay for shipping. I just sent it out this past Monday. They said 2 days to fix and 4 days to return.
Beaudry @ Feb 1st 2007 10:51AM
The 360 has been trying to emulate the success of the PS2. Apparently they are also emulating the failure rate of the PS2.
Hoffer @ Feb 1st 2007 10:52AM
I just got my 360 back from a 3 red light repair last night. I first got the 3 red lights on the 13th. Called MS the 14th and got a box from them on the 22nd. Martin Luther King Jr Day may have delayed it by a day??? I would say the box they sentd must be super slow ground, because it took forever. I dropped it off at a UPS Store 5 minutes after it opened the 23rd. Yesterday, the 31st, UPS made first delivery attempt. I wasn't home, but went to the UPS distribution center last night to get it.
I would say things are slower now then they were. Last summer I sent mine in and everything was overnight. So, from when I called MS to when I got it back was like 9-10 days. This time it was more like 17 days.
My old one had a manufacture date of December 2005. The one I got last night was July 2006. Also, it is substantially quieter when playing DVD games. I'm wondering if they started putting new DVD drives in? The article says something about having problems with the DVD drive opening. I also had this problem. I'd hit the button and it would get stuck. After hitting the button 2-3 times, it would eventually open.
I love my 360 and am glad to have it back. :-)
Moosegolfr @ Feb 1st 2007 10:58AM
That's nothing - I'm on my fourth box and second wireless unit. I love the games, but the damn system is unrelaible. Last night my wireless stopped working since HD DVD attachment got too hot. Hopefully I won't have to return anything for awhile. Thank goodness for the extended warranty - best $65 I ever spent (I think it was that much).
BTW - They send you a box if your under the extended warranty plan. However I had to provide my own box for the wireless adapter.
jsn @ Feb 1st 2007 10:51AM
wonderful sheep mentality here. 6+ million units sold to customers and all it takes are a few comments on a web page of other "alleged failures" for the sheep to start saying the quality stinks... Welcome to the world of retail people. products fail all the time, even new ones.
John @ Feb 1st 2007 10:53AM
Sent mine in back in December. STILL waiting for the live points to be added back to my account.
Virtua Fanboy @ Feb 1st 2007 10:54AM
I as well as two of my friends went and all bought Xbox 360's last January ('06). We have yet to experience any problems.
As far as people trading in systems at Wal-Mart still having problems, I worked for WM for many years and I can tell you that reselling returned "defective" products is very common.
logikil @ Feb 1st 2007 10:55AM
Still rocking my original Dreamcast, PS2, Gamecube, Xbox, 360, and Wii. I dunno maybe Colorado is just a better place to be when you are dealing with consoles. Also, have two other friends still rolling with launch Xbox 360's. As mentioned so many times before, people who have shit that works arent going to jump online and be as vocal as those with broken shit.
Flute Suit @ Feb 1st 2007 10:55AM
Does anyone else feel like Joystiq is in a news loop? It seems like there's a repeating cycle of three stories:
1) Someone throws their Wii controller and breaks something/injures someone.
2) PS3 is DOOMED.
3) Xbox 360 Red Ring of Death.
Why not just create a website for each type of story and dump them all there?
OmahaGTP @ Feb 1st 2007 11:04AM
Where's all the people saying joystiq only posts anti-Sony posts?
Oh. . . right.
Jim @ Feb 1st 2007 10:58AM
Sometimes I wonder who is the company with the best marketing around here.
Apple with its hardware design or Microsoft, a company that actually makes failures of their products sound cool with something like "Blue Screen of Death" und "Red Ring of Death"?
Arno @ Feb 1st 2007 11:01AM
I have a story of my own.
Over two weeks ago I noticed the tray was broken on my 360. It would only open if a disc was inside but would stall otherwise and I'd have to put some pressure on it to get it to open. It was working perfectly otherwise, I've never had any red rings. But this was a replacement to a launch unit that bricked after an update. So anyway, I call them and luckily I'm still under warranty for a few more weeks, so I figure, I might as well get the tray fixed while I can. So they send me a box and I send the box back with my precious 360 in it. Another week+ goes by and I finally received my Xbox back on Tuesday. As I take it out the box, I hear something rattling inside. Weird. I plug it in anyway just because I'm desperate at this point to get online and play the Crackdown demo. It turns on, I hear the familiar chime of the startup and I'm psyched. I load up my profile from my harddrive but I can't seem to connect to Xbox Live. Great. I try creating another profile but no go and the Network Test gives me weird results. Mind you, everything else seems to work just fine, the dashboard, games, everything. So I call Xbox Support and spend an hour on the phone (cellphone minutes too), with 3 different people. First a lady who sounded like she probably doesn't even know what a "Xbox 360" is, then someone from the Live team who talked down on me to do things like unplugging my router and modem. I had to bitch and moan until he finally transfered me to someone from Hardware who was apparantly some kind of expert on rattling object. He takes down my information (for the third f'in time, each rep asked me to confirm it, don't these people have information sharing?) and I bitch a little more until he agrees to '2nd day' all three packages that it will take... once again. To Microsofts defense, it looks like UPS had beat up the box pretty bad so damage could have occured during shipping. Regardless, I feel like my time has been wasted these last two weeks (and at least another week till I get a working box) so I'll be calling them back and complaining some more and I'll see if I can't get a year of warranty tacked on.
Anyway, why am I telling you all this? Well I still haven't got a chance to play the Crackdown demo and I've been bored to hell. Please feel pity.
silkylove @ Feb 1st 2007 11:03AM
"I don't expect that they're teaching Indians to pretend to be Canadian by saying "zed" instead of zero."
Umm...actually that's exactly what they are doing. There are schools they go to to learn North American customs and North American accents because that way they have less problems dealing wih racist North American customers.
Phranctoast @ Feb 1st 2007 11:18AM
16.
LOL..nice
yeah, MS is shooting for 100million consoles, but more then half of them will be replacements. It is pretty sad. Of the three people I know who have a 360, all three of them had to send them back to be replaced/fixed becuae of the ring of death.
Ill wait till the system has been out for another year and it has a price drop before I consider jumping in.
robert @ Feb 1st 2007 11:04AM
quick defend the xbox! it's the cool thing to do.
Barbie Fu @ Feb 1st 2007 11:05AM
i also have a launch 360 that still works fine, i know somebody whom experienced the RROD, and got a new 360 from microsoft, the only difference is his is much quieter. mine is a beast when gaming, but quiet when watching a movie.
Travis @ Feb 1st 2007 11:16AM
Ive had my xbox 360 since last June, and im starting to get a couple problems. My disc drive jams whenever the console is standing up, so i have to tilt it whenever i want to put a game in. I'd keep the console laying down but then the bottom gets hot and the xbox freezes.
CowboyGA @ Feb 1st 2007 11:16AM
Uh... To the people complaining about this article, I DO like seeing these posts and hearing about the problems with the systems. This is a gaming website, and these posts are regarding game systems. Notice the correlation?
CW @ Feb 1st 2007 11:18AM
Does anybody actually know what the Red Ring is indicating? I mean what kind of failure is the cause for it? (failed memory, failed hard disk, failed fan, .....)
Just curious.
JJC @ Feb 1st 2007 11:18AM
I have had 2 broken 360's. The first was a launch 360 that last almost a year. it died when the fall patch came out after i switched the res to 1080p. Called support, first guy i talked to was real nice and helpful, but my cell phone dropped the call (does anyone else want to beat the verizon guy?). The next time i called in the guy was equally helpful but i sensed he was a little slow. I couldn't tell what nationality he was but his english was good. So i sent my 360 in (btw they dont send a box, they told me to use anything but the original box the 360 came in, dont know why) and went out and bought another one (ya pretty lame but gears came out that week and i was NOT going to wait). Take that one out of the box and use it for 2 (maybe 3) days and it craps out. Called 360 service. this time i get an indian female, and let me tell i have never been treated so rude in my life. She could barely speak english and had A LOT of trouble understanding me (even when i spoke slower) and when i kindly asked to be transfered to someone that i could understand clearer (saying that i couldnt understand what she was saying instead of flat out telling her that she was retarded) she got offended and told me no and if i wanted someone else i should just call back. so i did, got another indian and said i wished to speak to a more native speaking english person so that i could understand them and they finally did. this next person helped out but ultimately told me to save the trouble and just return the system to the store i bought it from. Returned it and this 360 has been working fine ever since. BTW the first 360 that i sent out came back in about 3.5 weeks after i sent it. Because i had no use for two 360's i gave my brothers the other for xmas in the box that mine came in... lol, they were happy though, and no one knows still.
skuzmak @ Feb 1st 2007 11:29AM
"zed" instead of zero."??? wtf? "Zed" is a pronouncement of the letter "Z", which has nothing to do with zero (the number), which btw, is pronounced the same way by canadians and americans. Hate to be the grammar police, but if you're going to call someone canadian based on the way they speak perhaps you should know HOW canadians speak.
NomBomB @ Feb 1st 2007 11:18AM
i called, and spoke to an American... who sent me a box that i got three days later... that i packed my 360 in and sent off to Texas.
It came back to me brand new and in working order five days later. if something of mine is gonna break, i want Microsoft to fix it.
DirtDevil @ Feb 1st 2007 12:15PM
I bricked mine during the GoW update/patch, I am still waiting for it to get back.
Would it be wise to purchase Microsoft's warranty for the Xbox360? Any thoughts on this?
gullum @ Feb 1st 2007 11:21AM
M$ is probably trying to inflate their install base. 10 million shipped, 2 million still working!
Cutriss @ Feb 1st 2007 11:28AM
"Umm...actually that's exactly what they are doing. There are schools they go to to learn North American customs and North American accents because that way they have less problems dealing wih racist North American customers."
How racist are Canadians? I thought it was only us Americans.
Anyway, I work with a couple Indian guys, and having been in IT for a while, you can pretty plainly hear the difference between a native-English speaker and a trained-English speaker. Also, it generally comes across whenever they're doing casual conversation. Neither of the people I talked to were Indian. And, as the article text makes it clear, the guy he talked to was obviously a foreigner. So, my point is that there are likely multiple call centers (benjamin indicated Austin, TX, which is where I shipped my 360 to), or perhaps he just happened to get an Indian guy working in the call center...But the call center I talked to is in Canada proper (probably Vancouver or Victoria), which makes sense, since Microsoft has long acknowledged Canada's existence. They used to always quote pricing for software products in both USD and CAD on pretty much all their product literature.
Jeff @ Feb 1st 2007 11:29AM
Well guys....I love my 360. The catch
I am on my 7th unit sine january of last year
The last 6 have been refurbs and all broke down shortly after arrival.
Granted.....MS has given me schwag and an extra warranty to make up for it...so...I am not as mad as can be
The problem is that all the refurbs are being sent out broken too!
JJC @ Feb 1st 2007 2:35PM
oh ya and just to be fair i was watching a blu-ray movie last night and my ps3 froze for about 60-90 seconds (twice) before it continued playback. scary, because ive heard the sony is worse than microsoft on repairs etc. HOPEFULLY it was a one time thing. i wouldnt buy another PS3 if this one broke, nothing that exciting going on for a while.
Manny @ Feb 1st 2007 1:05PM
I have an original Nintendo, Super Nintendo, Nintendo 64, Game Cube, XBOX, XBOX 360, PS2, PSP and PS3. The only one I've ever had to replace is the 360, two days after purchase. And it wasn't even hot. I had just turned it on for the first time that day and it gave me the three flashing lights of death.
MosquitoControl @ Feb 1st 2007 11:31AM
I have a friend that's had to send his back twice. Only person I know that's had those problems.
Ironically, he's also the only one that never got dirty disc errors with Oblivion, and he claims he's never had random crashes like I seem to get once a week or so (far more with Oblivion.) So whereas the other five or six people I know, including myself, get small issues from time to time, he gets none and then one big one.
Haven't I also read that XBLA purchases no longer work after this, as they're tied to the machine, not the account?
Jdoki @ Feb 1st 2007 11:33AM
Seems the UK service centre is a little better!
I had a the 3 red lights on my 360, so phoned MS.
Received instructions and was emailed a pre-paid courier label.
We don't have to wait for MS to post a box to us...
So after arranging a convenient time, the courier picked it up on the Monday.
Working 360 returned by the Thursday.. same week.
Equipment fails, this isn't really blog-worthy is it Joystiq?
I've had two faulty Nintendo DS Lite's... could you make a entry about that, as Nintendo hardware rarely fails?!
Or how about my PS2 which I bought shortly after the UK launch and has never had a problem!! Surely deserves a blog entry eh?
Or... how about a little something on the crappy quality control at Sony because my PSP has one dead pixel!!
soulseekerUK @ Feb 1st 2007 11:34AM
im from uk and i had the launch 360 well abt 1 month before the warranty was to expire (12 months) i started getting 3 red lights every few days - i lived with it becasue it would restart some times - it worked better when it was hot hated the cold starts -
so 3 days after my warranty expired the 360 life drianed away and the 3 lights of death were the only sense i could get from it. so i tel the 0800 number spoke to someone who took my serial number etc and then came back to me abt 5 mins later informing of me an email was on its way with ups slip for the courier. Also the whole thing would take 10 business days to get my xbox back to me.
All went sweet courier collected it (FOC to me)
i got another email telling me its being sorted out then on the second week a brand new 360 arrived.
I know some of you have had bad experiences but my case was handle very professional also it was out of warranty as well and it didnt cost me a pennie even the call was free to contact them.
Jake @ Feb 1st 2007 11:34AM
My first one didn't function properly. My second, and current, functions fine. About every 6 hours of playtime or so on average, I will have some kind of error. It will either be unreadable disc or a freeze. I then either have to reload the game or reboot the system. Nothing too major; only a couple minutes downtime every 6 hours. The freezes I've had have always been in online play or in Oblivion. I have never seen the red ring of death, thankfully. Systems freezing is not a new thing; my NES froze the most of all. But, it is still annoying when it does happen.
I love my 360, but will admit that it has quality issues. They aren't nearly as bad as my PS2 experiences (don't go there). But, my SNES, N64, xbox1, and NES experiences were much better. Well, the NES was finicky, but if you knew how to treat her you could turn her on.
MSH-Hitman @ Feb 1st 2007 11:38AM
It's a real bummer to hear their service is like that. I know when I got my PS2, Sony's service was fantastic. My PS2 first started to wear a ring into two different disks...a game and dvd...so I emailed them and they said to send it back with both discs.
A week or two later, I get it back with brand new discs. I still get some trouble with the system having this annoying whine so I call them up and they say to send it back again. I get a completely refurbished one that worked great for about 3 years before dying to a junky drive. Never payed a cent for it except for shipping it to them I believe which wasn't much.
XBOT360 @ Feb 1st 2007 11:43AM
I'm through my 3rd 360, but still loving GOW!
I hope MS gets this problem solved!
AG @ Feb 1st 2007 11:45AM
Man, I thought this was isolated among a few people on the internet, yet everywhere I go online I see more news about people getting their XBox 360 repaired/replaced.
And yet 360 fanboys seem to think the PS3 is low quality! Well, I have yet to see an incident of a PS3 needing repair/replacement.
Good job MS, way to produce quality products!