Ring of Death: An Xbox 360 story -- Part 2
by Alexander Sliwinski 
{ Feb 11th 2007 at 8:00PM }
Previously on Ring of Death: For the second time in a colleague's ownership of his Xbox 360, the red Ring of Death paid him a visit. Unable to watch HD-DVDs or play games (Xbox is all he owns), he waited patiently for his box to arrive from Microsoft. Exactly "five business days" later, that's seven normal days (including weekend) for the rest of us, his return box arrived.
So, now the Xbox 360 gets packed up for its trip to McAllen, Texas; where the Green Jay is the official city bird and Mayor Richard F. Cortez presides. Microsoft is also kind enough to place very detailed instructions (found after the break) on how to return an Xbox back to them for repairs. We do wonder how many people forget to take out their hard drive, even though it is quite explicit that one should remove everything from the cold, dead, husk of the unit. Off she goes tomorrow, back to McAllen, from where she came only less than a year ago. Tomorrow we begin the count to see when she returns ... bon voyage!
On a side note, TeamXbox still wins the best of the worst story award, following an incident last year when they received a damaged unit directly from the repair center. Hopefully Microsoft has worked out the kinks in their refurbished units since last year.
See also: Ring of Death: An Xbox 360 story -- Part 1
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 2)
quang @ Feb 12th 2007 3:30AM
Sent my system in last September and 5 months later still no XBOX360. MS has been *@%&^* my system and I am left xbox360less. Finally gettin a lawyer to help me out to see if he can push some buttons. All I want is my system back so I can play Gears of Wars and R6 Vegas and watch some HD-DVD movies. Playing with my Wii until then.
Premaximum @ Feb 11th 2007 8:05PM
Heh, I actually used to live in McAllen for a few months. Interesting place, had no idea that's where returned 360's get sent.
biddywell @ Feb 11th 2007 8:15PM
piece of shit
NeverSage @ Feb 11th 2007 8:19PM
Clearly this article is anti-sony.
brutaLChris @ Feb 18th 2007 4:30PM
That sucks, My friends brick burned out from that nyko intercooler attachment, which burnt out the brick he had to pay for a new one.
Tetranitrocubane @ Feb 11th 2007 8:26PM
Well, this story will wrap up in about a month, when the refurbed unit shows up...
... And then will open up again two months later when the refurb dies in exactly the same way.
Seriously. I love my 360 to death. It's got games I adore and I really like the interface and controller. Online is second to none. But the console lifetime is jack-all terrible.
Travis @ Feb 11th 2007 9:09PM
SOOOoo, how about I called Xbox CS/tech support for my shipping box back in mid December, and then a second time almost 2 weeks ago for a reorder and its still a no show. Maybe I just may camp out at Walmart on Tuesdays at midnight for their Wed shippment restock so that I can get an elusive Wii - that works...
Jimmuy Bay @ Feb 11th 2007 8:35PM
WTF all my systems have lasted since I got them. I exchanged my 1st Xbox 1 day I got and its worked since. Never heard of consoles breaking down like this all the time.. wtf 360!?
-Jimmuy Bay
Bennyishere @ Feb 11th 2007 8:32PM
I can't help but being happy I've played my 360 a whole year now without any hijinks aside from the standard "loose cables = red lights" issues.
Optimus Prime @ Feb 11th 2007 8:36PM
It looks like they did up that instruction form in MS Word... amateurs.
Mike @ Feb 11th 2007 8:39PM
I've read this series of articles before - I already know how it ends.
http://whatthegeek.com/category/getting-an-xbox-repaired/
Rod Munch @ Feb 11th 2007 8:53PM
I'm having a load of trouble getting my 360 repaired. Living in the UK and it being under warranty I get it repaired for free (shipping included). However after getting back after a bout of Ring of Death in December, it broke almost immediately. Two months on and I'm still waiting for them to send me the stuff to send it off! They've said they've sent me the details 5 times now (3 times by email twice by post) and I've recieved nothing. I've no idea what's going on, we've checked on 9 different occasions that they have my details right. The annoying thing is that my warranty runs out on Thursday. I am fucked.
maylon @ Feb 11th 2007 9:01PM
!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
maylon @ Feb 12th 2007 1:21PM
Yes, definitely biased towards M$. Joystiq hates Sony.
Mark @ Feb 11th 2007 9:01PM
My story, if anyone cares (which you don't, so you might as well stop reading now):
Got 360 for free from PepsiCo (EveryTenMinutes.com contest winner right here) a couple weeks before launch, used conservatively for a year, 360 bricked by Fall update, sent in a couple weeks later (had to pay shipping one way, nothing else), got back about a week later, works just fine right now.
In short, getting my 360 repaired was relatively painless.
Huricos @ Feb 11th 2007 9:10PM
I'm on my 4th xbox 360. First one died 6 months after purchase, got an older model back for that one. This older model died 1 month after that, recieved a new 360 2 weeks later which was D.O.A. (Dead On Arrival), had to wait 3 weeks because of the holidays (apparently Microsoft enjoys holidays) to get my new one which, two months later, is still going strong.
Woe is me.
Dash @ Feb 11th 2007 9:38PM
How do you say "Making a mountain out of a mole-hill" in fanboy? I'd really like to know so I could make an intelligent response to this story in a way that everyone understands.
Fierce360 @ Feb 11th 2007 9:18PM
i know this sounds crazy, but if you get the 3 red rings, wrap your 360 in a towel and run it for 10 minutes. it will overheat and resolder the broken part and it will work. i did this 3 days ago and my 360 is working perfectly fine. keep in mind this is usually only a temp fix, but i did it so i could play until i shipped it out. works flawlessly for now, and if it keeps up and i do not receive a box, no biggie.
if you do not believe me, check it out for yourself.
[url]http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=360+towel+trick&btnG=Google+Search[/url]
sheppy @ Feb 11th 2007 9:18PM
I too had the woes of being on my fourth 360. Fortunately, I bought the extended warranty, from Meijers. Advantage? Well, their extended warranty doesn't start until the manufacturers ends.
DaStuph @ Feb 11th 2007 9:25PM
I too am on my 4th 360 after I bought my first one at launch. Love the system to death but the hardware and service are pure crap. When my first coddled system died I received my first refurb...that was jacked up right out of the box (DOA). Its been one cluster**** after another with service and support. Took me roughly six weeks to get codes for reassociating my arcade purchases to my latest refurb.
I also had to send in my wireless headset which they received January 23rd...and I've still not heard anything. I called them just yesterday and they wheren't even sure they'd received it yet. What a freaking joke.
chris @ Feb 11th 2007 9:25PM
Hmm, I don't know if anyone can top my ongoing story. I've still got some editing to do to tidy it up, but if you'd like to know just how bad things can get, here it is:
http://www.everythingibuysucks.com/
littleonetwo @ Feb 11th 2007 10:36PM
well im on my 8th 360 and so far its lasted me close to a year with not a single problem, and note to the poster of this article the shipping instructions have changed, within the first few months of the regular shipping they had about 3 different versions none of which suggest taking out the harddrive. but apparently they done away with that and have finally after tons of practice figured out the proper procedure.
Diskoboy @ Feb 11th 2007 9:41PM
Okay - WTF is wrong with you people? I have a launch 360 (Manufactured November 2005), and the only problem I've ever had with it is the occasional dirty disc message. And I haven't even gotten one of those in a few months.
anonsupportguy @ Feb 11th 2007 9:43PM
Oh man... screw TeamXbox and everyone that looks like TeamXbox. That is the worst repair story award? They had to send it back a second time, for free, and got a free game out of it. Their biggest tribulation was that they didnt get overnight shipping on the second unit.
I am with MS support, so when I called for my dead box I hoped I could get some special treatment - don't judge me :) I gotta take crap from Vista users all day, so I know pain.
So anyway - me with a dead xbox 360, calls support, they send out the free box/coffin with prepaid shipping. Box takes a week, replacement xbox comes back 2 weeks after that - by this point I am resorting to reading books for entertainment.
Second xbox - DOA, although a different error this time so at least there is entertainment value in that - diversify my suffering a bit. Call up support after using my super-secret support tools to dig up the troubleshooting script they will eventually use so I can spend as little time on the phone as possible. But wait! Between my last box dying and them shipping me this anchor (cause it isnt an xbox - those play games, this is just heavy) they have changed their policy: no free shipping in Canada. So I must now pay to ship them back the anchor they shipped me for free. Joy! And if the next one is dead, I can pay for that one, too! Thanks for calling Microsoft, the box is on its way.
Three weeks later, next replacement arrives. Only this time it's Schroedinger's Xbox360 - you never know if what's inside is alive or dead til you open it and look. Reads games half the time, and half the time helpfully tells me that I must insert this disc into an Xbox360 to play it - like some sort of strange one-hand-clapping zen riddle.
Now warranty is up. And the BEST PART is getting to read all the notes the employees are entering about the "belligerent customer unreasonably demanding free shipping" in my support case's notes, since as a support tech I have access to the same tools.
THAT is a best of the worst award, baby. Although total sympathy to the other stories I read here - this kind of thing makes all ms support look bad and that pisses me off that people get treated like this.
MrPolarBare @ Feb 11th 2007 10:24PM
Bought a launch 360, and it still works perfectly. I always thought the "Ring of Death" was the little blue ring animation that played while I am trying to connect to the Wii Online Network. You know, the one that eventually times out half the time and says that I don't have a connection to the internet (when I do). I connect all three of my systems using Wifi (360, PS3, and Wii). The Wii is the only one that is buggy. But, the good news is that there are no online multiplayer games for the Wii, and there are no game demos, or original gaming content on the Wii network either, so I guess not being able to connect isn't that big of a deal. Sorry, I'm just a bit bitter because the system that has the biggest potential for online gaming is the one that is the farthest behind.
Ry_Trapp0 @ Feb 11th 2007 11:20PM
my friend got one at launch and now he's on his 5th one. i got mine in january and havnt had ANY problems ever. come on guys use some common sense, if your gonna by ANYTHING at its launch, be prepared for the worst. this applys to all electronics, cars, and many other things. you have absoloutely no right to be pissed at all since you were impatient and decided to be the test rat.
SnapperDragon @ Feb 11th 2007 10:09PM
I love the morons that think everyone else is full of it because their original launch 360 is still working.
This means nothing. Nobody said ALL 360's will fail.
However, quite a few of them do (not sure on the count). Very similar problems. Mine did after 103 days, and my friend's also.
Repair went OK, but I have to admit the 360 is one frail piece of console (wanted to say something else, but...).
I just got a Wii and I have to say kudo's to Nintendo for trying something different. These guys know fun. MS and Sony should quit dissing N. Give them kudo's on a good system, and hope that your own will prove themselves due to their own unique features.
My friends and I played Wii sports for 4 hours straight two days in a row. My 360 was there also, but all it ended up doing was playing a Pantera DVD that came with the best-of cd.
Covenant @ Feb 11th 2007 10:15PM
My 360 story:
My first 360 was defective out of the box. Not the system, mind you; just the hard drive. Called Xbox Customer Service, and believe it or not, got good service from them. Yes, the woman I spoke to had a Hindi accent, but she was nice and seemed to actually care. She told me to take it back to where I purchased it, so I did. The next day , I took it back to Best Buy for replacement (w/in the 30 day return policy; also bought the extended warranty). That's the system I still have. Other than freezing up once and having to restart, I haven't had any issues.
That brings me to what happened at my store this week. We received a shipment of 360s from MS about two weeks ago. Nearly every one of them had a defective HD. One guy exchanged his three times, and each one had a defective HD. Someone in MS's quality control dept. had REALLY dropped the ball. Truthfully, we rarely see defective units, and if we do, it's usually not the HD that's defective, but rather the full "red ring of death." At least MS has extended their warranty to a full year. That's only fair. Before any fanboys fire up their flamethrowers, remember: Sony had major issues with the PS2 at launch, and did a very poor job handling repairs and negative press.
B.M. @ Feb 11th 2007 10:29PM
My launch unit was absolutely perfect until January 30th of this year. Never had a freeze, never had any red lights... NOTHING. It was perfect in every way. And like a jackass, I sat gleefully on message boards patting myself on the back for 'taking good care of my system' and bemoaning others for having 'bad luck' or maybe it was user error. Yeah Karma is alive and well because my launch unit kicked the bucket right out of the blue. I was playing Gears of War for about 30 minutes. Turned the system off for 15 minutes and went to take a phone call. I came back and turned it on again and was met with the 3 red rings of death. It was kept wide open in a ventilated area with nothing near it all this time. Frustrating is too kind of a word to use when this happens to you.
Luckily I had an extended warranty through Microsoft so I'm only out about a month's worth of use for my 360 - and I'm estimating it to be a month. My unit died on January 30th and I called them immediately. They said 7 business days to get my coffin and they used every bit of that to get it to me. I didn't get my coffin until January 8th. They said to expect another 14 business days to get it back once they receive it. I'm not expecting to see it until March. And I hope to god I don't get stuck in refurb hell like many others have, with multiple refurbs going bad and having to play this silly coffin game multiple times.
Part of me wants Microsoft sued so badly. Not for any financial gains, but because I think somebody needs to get their attention in quality control and they need to come up with better manufacturing processes. But the system itself is really awesome, when it works.
Chubbs @ Feb 11th 2007 10:29PM
OMG, somebody from the valley! RGV Pride!
Fierce360 @ Feb 11th 2007 10:33PM
wrap it in a towel man, it works. wrap it in a towel and turn it on for 10 minutes. over heats it and fixes it, not lying, google 360 towel fix.
j0mb13 @ Feb 11th 2007 10:41PM
Coinkydink! My second one just died yesterday as well.. when I picked it up to get the serial# I noticed there is a free roamng particle inside. Wonder if it is a relic of first repair and posible source of latest failure? Anyway return box is in the mail.
Diman @ Feb 11th 2007 10:43PM
can't deny the painful truth of hardware malfunction.
Marc @ Feb 11th 2007 10:51PM
Just called in today to send in my 360 for the second time now. Another hour of my life wasted having to talk to someone who has no technical knowledge whatsoever. The second unit lasted all of about eight hours of play before it died. The analyst that I talked to had never seen the error before and could find nothing regarding the error. For those of you who say that they've never had problems, I have an original launch Japanese PS2 and an original launch US PS2 and have had ZERO issues with them. The Japanese PS2 fell from a four foot drop around the 100 hour mark and didn’t break a thing even with a disc inside. The Japanese model has well over 1000 hours of play and the US model has over 600 hours of play. The 360 makes me feel like I bought a KIA instead of a Cadillac or Lincoln as it was advertised.
brandon @ Feb 11th 2007 11:00PM
They didn't send me a return box and told me I had to get my own. That pissed me off then, but seeing that it took them a week to send it makes me all too glad I paid for mine. I got a brand new 360 within 5 days of sending mine.
deaftly @ Feb 11th 2007 11:17PM
i sent my broken ps3 to sony and they sent me a xbox 360
Desiri @ Feb 11th 2007 11:57PM
That's why I purchased my 360 at Costco, due to their exchange policy with no expiration date.
Noshino @ Feb 12th 2007 12:01AM
"I just got a Wii and I have to say kudo's to Nintendo for trying something different. These guys know fun. MS and Sony should quit dissing N"
Meh, my ps2 is still working perfectly and so do my controllers, can't say the same about my ngc tho :(
"At least MS has extended their warranty to a full year. That's only fair. Before any fanboys fire up their flamethrowers, remember: Sony had major issues with the PS2 at launch, and did a very poor job handling repairs and negative press. "
Compare systems from the same generation, the ps3 hasn't had as many troubles as there are with the 360, and the jaggies are the main ps3 problem. firmwares fixed it a bit, and now ps1/ps2 games are playable, so I guess Sony has done a far better job, hell, even the dude that works for M$ complained :)
Noshino @ Feb 12th 2007 12:02AM
"I just got a Wii and I have to say kudo's to Nintendo for trying something different. These guys know fun. MS and Sony should quit dissing N"
Meh, my ps2 is still working perfectly and so do my controllers, can't say the same about my ngc tho :(
"At least MS has extended their warranty to a full year. That's only fair. Before any fanboys fire up their flamethrowers, remember: Sony had major issues with the PS2 at launch, and did a very poor job handling repairs and negative press. "
Compare systems from the same generation, the ps3 hasn't had as many troubles as there are with the 360, and the jaggies are the main ps3 problem. firmwares fixed it a bit, and now ps1/ps2 games are playable, so I guess Sony has done a far better job, hell, even the dude that works for M$ complained :)
Noshino @ Feb 12th 2007 12:02AM
"I just got a Wii and I have to say kudo's to Nintendo for trying something different. These guys know fun. MS and Sony should quit dissing N"
Meh, my ps2 is still working perfectly and so do my controllers, can't say the same about my ngc tho :(
"At least MS has extended their warranty to a full year. That's only fair. Before any fanboys fire up their flamethrowers, remember: Sony had major issues with the PS2 at launch, and did a very poor job handling repairs and negative press. "
Compare systems from the same generation, the ps3 hasn't had as many troubles as there are with the 360, and the jaggies are the main ps3 problem. firmwares fixed it a bit, and now ps1/ps2 games are playable, so I guess Sony has done a far better job, hell, even the dude that works for M$ complained :)
Noshino @ Feb 12th 2007 12:03AM
and...I hate my pc, sigh
GoonieGooGoo @ Feb 12th 2007 12:22AM
4 360s....2 from launch shipment....2 from 2nd shipment....with extended warranties (Which you should laways buy anyway on any 1st wave of consoles....DUH)
ZERO Problems....
Sucks to be you guys.....sorry.
Then again.....the only people complaining are the ones with problems so of course the problem seems bigger than it really is.
JR @ Feb 12th 2007 12:26AM
I am currently on my 4th box since waiting 10 hours in line on launch. The 3rd one I had lasted only about 2 weeks before crapping out. I also had to pay for my own boxing and shipping on the most recent return. Here's to working 360s all across the land.
Victor @ Feb 12th 2007 12:29AM
My 360 died two days ago, it hadn't been online for a bit and when it finally got online it updated, then I played Gears and that updated too.
A few days later I got the checkerboard artifacts and freezing and two days ago the red rings of doom.
why not the LS2/LS7? @ Feb 12th 2007 12:54AM
Why does Diskoboy ask what's wrong with us?
My first day 360 ran for 11 months. And then it ate it with 3 reg lights. It wasn't my fault. MS took 30 days to get me a replacement, also not my fault. In fact, if I hadn't called to check the status every 3 days they may never have gotten me a box to put it in.
Noshino, I dunno if I'd mix in firmware issues with hardware problems. And even if you do, MS did a pretty good job with firmware in the early days of 360, their record was spotless for 7 months or something. Then, oddly they started doing a crappy job with their release that bricked units trying to detect hacked DVD drives, their release that broke VGA for some people, and the first 1080p release that seemed to have quite a few incompatibilities with TVs.
Anyway, back to the topic, 360 hardware reliability does leave something to be desired. I hope they'll improve this in the future.
SuMtOnE @ Feb 12th 2007 1:07AM
hMm how long has the XBOX 360 been out now? and they still have this kinda problem? Thought it would be fix by now... what gives?
James @ Feb 12th 2007 1:13AM
Man, can you imagine if the PS3 had these problems? People would be crying bloody murder. But, the Xbox 360 is the console golden boy so everybody just keeps taking it in the butt from Microsoft. All I'm saying is that maybe there is a *reason* the 360 is cheaper...
This level of failure is unacceptable.
OGHowie @ Feb 12th 2007 2:02AM
My xbox 360 died after 13 months of use, but I have the extended warranty. Called them up and they sent me a return box by UPS 3 day. Box arrived and I shipped it back by UPS 3 day. Once it arrived, they shipped out a replacement 360 by UPS 3 day. Overall, it took about 2 weeks to get the box sent to me and a refurbished 360 back.
Good news?
The replacement 360 has a manufacture date of 10/06 and the quieter DVD drive (not the BenQ though). Also, got a new faceplate since I didn't send mine in.
Bad part? When I received the replacement 360, it was loose in its shipping box so the bottom of the faceplate has some scruff marks, but god nows what else happened while it was loose ... The new system does work but now I'm just waiting for it to fail again.
INNOCENT. @ Feb 12th 2007 2:49AM
I'm not sure why you guys hassle yourselves with the official route.
1) Go to a store you hate. (Best Buy/Circuit City will do)
2) Buy new system.
3) Swap the new system for your borked one.
(Keep your original hard drive)
4) Return it.
(A line like "X-person bought me one last night as a present" or some such vomit should do the trick)
I'm not saying I've done this or anything but it's certainly possible.
And faster/cheaper than the official MS process.
Sean Martin @ Feb 12th 2007 3:59AM
UK 360 owners might be interestrd to know that the 360 will be featured on consumers rights TV show WATCHDOG this Tuesday 13th. If you have had problems (and are out of warranty) as I have had you should consider contacting Watchdog.
Look out for You Tube Vids soon.