Ring of Death: An Xbox 360 story -- Part 2

ha i live in mcallen tx guys. ive sent my xbox to them twice. and what pissed me off is that the disk drive wasnt opening when it would stand up and when i sent it back they gave me the same console back. nothing was done. complete bullshit. the second time i got a new one

No FREAkinG WAy, the MS 360 repair center is in Mcallen, Tx. wow, i live there. I'm telling everyone. I'ma go find out were it is and get a job there, that way i can laugh at all you brainless ppl, who didn't protect your investment all day.

I'm just kidding i dont need a job, i own a Xbox 360 lan house, i own 38 xboxs and only one has failed on me. but luckly being a Rio Grand valley residence(a combination of 4 counties were the city of mcallen is located) i find my self to be smart in of to purchase the product replacement program at my bestbuy. took it in, the nice employees told me to go ahead grab another, its that easy,(i even got to keep my hdd) out in less than 20 min. wow right? luckly i will never have to send my system to repair.(and just to trow it in your faces its accross town. lol)

I dont mean to be so rude, but last time i posted something positive, giving ppl advise on how to protect your investment, my comment kept on being taken down. i guess nothing good about Microsoft can be said in this page. Here's a story, my PS3 didnt work right out of the box.(true story) start a blog on that. No? of course not.

I got this red ring erro last week on my console which I have had since launch.

It occured when I tunred the 360 off while it was logging into live. On turning it on again I got 3 red flashing lights which indicates a hardware error! I only turned it off.

Rang the support line and they want £80 or 150 euros to fix it that half the cost of a new console.

Managed to find some guys in Dundee in Scotland who will do it for £50 www.gtelectronics.co.uk so m sending it to them this week.

I bet that half of these 360 malfunctions are from user error. Probably keeping the console in a tight area, stuffed in and around other heat inducing electrical equipment, laying it down on the carpet etc etc.

@ The Natural

Well in my case mate that not the case. I've had it since Dec 2005 and its been fine all this time it stands vertical with loads of space all around. I even elevate the powersupply so it has air all round it.

The error occurred when I shutdown using the power button on the console while it was logging in. This shouldn't cause a hardware failure. Its a bad glitch if this is the case.

okay, this may be a wrong question - but does the old switcharo at the retailer work?

1)get a broken system
2) buy a new system
3) take the broken system back for a refund as the new system. . .

just curious. . .

my first 360 died exactly 5 days before its years warranty was up, perfect timing. so i phoned up, was told theyd send me one of those boxes and lables. sure enough, like 4-5 days later the box turns up. i get it sent off on the friday and it arrives back like 2 weeks later (was during christmas and new year)

hook up the new badboy and nothing happens, no fans - nothing. just 3 red lights. i go apeshit. spend the next 10mins hunting out MS number again the nwhen i finally get it, i try the xbox again and its working perfectly! how the hell i have no idea. its worked flawlessly since

Im on my 4th. I have owned a 360 since launch day. MS just sent me a 360 that is brand new (not a refurb) that was manuf. on October 20, 2006.

Hopefully it lasts longer. I waited a month from the day i sent it in to the day i got it back.

im glad its new this time and not a beat up repaired unit. i bought a 2nd 360 while waiting for the repair to return to me. so now i have 2 360s in case one dies. the only way to play unfortunately.

I've had an original 360 since launch day. I have seen the ring of death 5 times now. Every time, I wanna send it off, but dread the wait. So I just give it about a day or sometimes 2 and fiddle with a few things. Then it powers up fine. It works fine for about 3-4 months then breaks breaks again.

Waiting 2 days is better than a month

"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...."

Besides the, uh, four systems you've had to purchase. (Assuming they're replacements for each, unless you, for some reason, just like having multiple 360s laying around.)

The big question here is - just how common is this? And it seems like this is common enough that it goes beyond having some defective units to Microsoft producing an openly defective product. Has anyone called the BBB?

Last, the switch-out-the-console-at-a-retailer move is the ultimate asshole move. All you're doing is passing Microsoft's error down the line, and likely hurting the store's reputation.

This is the main reason I refuse to buy a 360 - I'm just too busy and too broke to deal with $400+ of my money sitting in transit for weeks at a time, potentially multiple times.

The defect rate is obviously higher than the 5% or so MS states.

This is hands down the system king of malfunctioning.



Face it american engineering is asstastic in the electronics department. Their cars arent so hot either.

I guarantee my story is worse than anyone's. Let's go by the numbers:
1) Bought my 360 at launch.
2) May '06 - launch system dies. Is quickly replaced by Microsoft.
3) October 16th - 1st refurb dies. Microsoft's computers are down for 3 days, so they can't process a repair order. October 19th, they tell me they can't send me a box, so I send it in myself. It's replacement arrives on Halloween - the day of the fall update. During transit, UPS had a fire that burned the box and packaging of the 2nd refurb. It arrives in a UPS box, covered in soot and with a burned plastic bag around it. Oddly enough, it still works.
4) Fall update bricks the 2nd refurb as soon as I connect to Live. I call Microsoft and explain what happened, and they tell me they're getting a lot of calls about this. Two days later, they discover faulty installation code was bricking systems, and they fix the update. Again, I send my 360 in on my own dime. Tired of staring at unplayed copies of Gears Of War, CoD3 and R6: Vegas, I buy a new Core system.
5) Refurb #3 arrives on November 14th. As soon as I hook it up, I notice the graphics in the dashboard are messed up. I put CoD3 in to be greeted by flashing textures and screwed up geometry. Again, I send it to Microsoft and am told by a supervisor that I will be receiving a NEW 360 this time because of all the trouble. Microsoft screws up the reference numbers and loses Refurb #3. After many calls, I finally give Microsoft the tracking number and they figure out where they put my broken one and tell me they're working on replacing it with a new one. On December 21st, the new Core system I bought gives me 3 red lights.
6) Circuit City replaces the Core system the following day. I call Microsoft to find out why I still haven't received a new 360 from them, and am told by a supervisor that Microsoft finally approved a new one for me and to call back the next day for a tracking number. The next day, I'm told by a supervisor that the previous supervisor lied and that no new console was approved, nor had they ever requested one. At this point, I send the whole story to Larry Hyrb (aka Major Nelson), who forwards it to someone he knows. Microsoft then sends me an e-mail asking me to send my console in for repair, so I call to tell them they've had my broken one since November 19th. During this time, they offer me a free year of Live, then charge my credit card for the renewal anyway. When I call to ask where my free year went, they tell me they'll credit it back to my card. I turn my Core system on to find that they've cancelled my Live account completely. I call back and am told they misunderstood and that I would have to buy a new year of Live AGAIN, then wait for them to refund both the year they charged me before and the free year they had offered me. A week or so later, I get a call from Microsoft's head office and explain the whole situation to them, and demand that they send me the new system they promised 6 weeks prior to that. I'm told they will be sending a NEW 360 to me that week.
7) On January 15th (3 months after I sent in refurb #1), I receive refurb #4, not the new system they had offered me. I use my credit card to buy some MS points to get a XBLA game. When I check my statement, MS has charged me twice for the points. They deny doing it, so I have to fax them a copy of my credit card statement showing the double charge. Two weeks later, they refund my money.

So I'm on systems 6 and 7 now, since I'm keeping the Core system as a backup in case my Premium breaks again. And as much as I love the 360, stuff like this just shouldn't happen. The only consolation they offered during this whole debacle was a free copy of Kameo, which I bought at launch.

http://threeredlights-club.1up.com/

My 360 works great. Flawless. The great thing is that it plays games too. Yep. Lots and lots of games. Does the other one do that yet? Maybe next year?

My experience was worse than team xbox's. When I had to send my second bricked box back, it took over 3 weeks alone to get me a cardboard box (they were having trouble making boxes.... seriously. Everytime I called (about every other day) a different timeframe was given to me and completely wrong. I didn't get a free game. I was treated very poorly by the worst customer service people in the world. It took a month and a week to get a new system. And I live in NYC.

That is actually a pretty cool bird!

59. The great thing is that it plays games too. Yep. Lots and lots of games. Does the other one do that yet? Maybe next year?


wtf is your point, this is about hardware not software

I would really love to know the % of hosed units vs working OK.

I for one have had a launch unit w/ no problems at all except for an occaisional freezing up - The Nyco Intercooler fixed that (without frying my power leads as others have had)

So I really wonder why things are happening this way... I really take care of my unit - It's in a well ventellated, glass doored housing.

Now, I don't have any pets... Do any of you 'broken units' people have pets? I suspect that pet dander/hair may have some destructive affect upon it...

I hate it for the guy who's had this problem. I acquired my 360 on launch day at 12:00am and have NEVER had a problem. I have only 1 friend (out of 20 or so who have one) who had to get a new 360 and this friend just bought his a few weeks ago. His 360 gave up the ghost 2 days after he got it. Walmart swapped it no questions asked. His 2nd 360 has had no problems.

Moral of the story...everyone produces a lemon. It is a fact of mass production. Microsoft, Sony, and Nintendo are not exempt from the woes of mass production. Weigh everything you read with a grain of salt and remember that those who've had bad experiences bark the loudest......just ask Cindy Sheehan.

"62. 59. The great thing is that it plays games too. Yep. Lots and lots of games. Does the other one do that yet? Maybe next year?


wtf is your point, this is about hardware not software"

He is trying to change topics, and show that the 360 is better than the wii or ps3 I guess...heh, nice try, your system's malfuntioning rate is high, accept it :)

It makes absolutely no sense for a console to have this many problems.

It is even more strange that some of you Xbox 360 console owners have complained about being on system number 4 or 5 but yet you continue to be loyal to the Xbox 360.

Screw that!

After system 2 or 3 broke I would have demanded my money back from Microsoft and put it towards a PS3.

Purchased my 360 in March 06. December 25, rings of death. After reading the M$ FAQ's, I found that the problem could be my Xbox OR my power supply since the light was orange. The support rep would not accept this as a posiblity despite me referencing the M$ document online. He would only send me a return box for the xbox. He screwed up my address. It was 4 weeks and 3 calls before I recieved the new box. Nothing. A 2 hour phone call later, a Teir 2 rep sent me a box for my power supply. 2 weeks later and another 1 hour call, the support rep admitted they had sent the wrong type of box which confused the warehouse people who instead of doing anything about it, let it sit for 2 weeks. I confirmed my address 2 times in this call. Last night, i get a VM from support saying they need to know the address to send my power supply too. Dec 26 - Feb 12, still no 360.

What sucks most about this is that I had made the 360 the brain of my main home theater for all media streaming, dvd playing and games.

My Hidef home theater is a dust collector for 7+ weeks. Thanks M$!

>>Last, the switch-out-the-console-at-a-retailer move
>>is the ultimate asshole move. All you're doing is
>>passing Microsoft's error down the line, and likely
>>hurting the store's reputation.

Another thing, why aren't people getting caught doing this? Doesn't the retailer compare the serial number on the box to the one on the 360? I returned a harddrive to Best Buy recently and they compared serial numbers.

I guess with the 360's 95% failure rate they just assume the customer is telling the truth.


Not that the Wii is much better. I just sent mine in for repair for the second time. At least these Wii hardware failures I keep running into are non-fatal (random dots). I'm also highly impressed that the PS3 is as reliable as it is considering that it's both a Sony product and filled with new technology.

wow i live about 45 minutes from McAllen and had no idea that they did 360 repairs there...

Man, I hope this doesn't happen to my 360. I've read nothing but horror stories about refurned 360s being sent back to owners.

The bottom line: If you want a machine that works, get a PS3 or Wii. It's same thing with cars; the American designs still suck and the Japanese models are reliable as hell. I'm just saying it like it is.

Deal with it.

p.s. - what kind of 'quality' do you expect from the same company that brought us Vista? I'll bet anything that it'll have as many security flaws as XP does within 6 months. Guraranteed.

@46 - INNOCENT

That's exactly what I did... worked like a charm

@ 46

46. 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)

A buddy of mine did this, It worked like a charm for him....

70. steve johnson wrote:

The bottom line: If you want a machine that works, get a PS3 or Wii. It's same thing with cars; the American designs still suck and the Japanese models are reliable as hell. I'm just saying it like it is.
==============================================

2 days ago I mailed my Wii back to Japan-based Nintendo a second time for the same non-fatal bug. I also mailed my TP game back to Japan-based Nintendo due to the sky cannon bug. My $3500 Japan-based Sony brand TV had a fatal design flaw similar to the design flaw of the 360. After 35 days and some ridiculous customer service situations, I finally got it resolved. During that time many shared with me their experiences with Sony hardware "quality" and the misery that is their customer service department.

The quality behind computer-based technology is just crap anymore. Aside from harddrives, my 10 year old truck is the only device I own that has an excuse not to work. It lives outdoors in the extremes of weather. From the frigid tundra of PA to the sweltering heat of FL, it's seen it all. It also has moved itself from point A to point B for a total distance of roughly 140,000 miles. In its rough life it's given me 1/10th the grief that all of my air-conditioned nearly-motionless electronic equipment has given me in that same amount of time. Oh, and did I mention my vehicle is American made? It was even made in a union shop by union employees and yet its quality is still better than all of this electronic crap I own! (Did I mention having to return my DS due to dead pixels?)


The problem with the 360 is that it's a MICROSOFT product. Microsoft is the head of this beast that finds it A-OK to unload defective computer technology onto consumers. And why shouldn't they? Even this very thread has "sheeple" who are blaming the users instead of Microsoft! That's the way it is anymore.

* Company sells defective POS
* Consumers complain that their product doesn't work
* Sheep laugh at those with the broken product and blame them for the problem.
* Company has no incentive to make working products so their next product is even less reliable.

Cycle repeats.

This is the business model Microsoft has gone by for the past 20 years.

I have to be highly suspectful of people who are on like their 3 or 4th units. That just seems to be very indicative of user error. Everyone knows the 360 is fairly fragile, so I can understand that a fair number of people of had a busted unit... but 3 or 4? WTF?

I have quite a few friends with 360's and not a single one has had theirs bust. I had one friend that did contact me about the red ring of death just after he purchased it. I asked how many of the quadrants were lit up, he said 4, so I told him to check the video cable. Sure enough, it works perfectly. Also, of all my friends, only one has ever mentioned getting the disk read error people sometimes complain about.

I've personally never had any error. Maybe I'm just lucky... but still... people on their 4th system!? That just screams user error.

74. Vidikron wrote:
That [being on your 3rd or 4th unit] just seems to be very indicative of user error. Everyone knows the 360 is fairly fragile, so I can understand that a fair number of people of had a busted unit... but 3 or 4? WTF?
==============================================

Your post contradicts itself. First you blame the user and then in the next sentence you mention that the 360 is "fairly fragile". So which is it? Are people somehow managing to consistently break the 360 in their portfolio of consumer electronic devices, or is the hardware within the 360 far too fragile?

With all the people screaming "user error" instead of looking at the single common demoninator in all these situations (Microsoft), Microsoft's 3rd generation xbox will probably be even worse.

I purchased 2 xbox 360's on launch day. One of them has been crashing since day one. Usually in the first 2 minutes of game play. Then it runs fine for hours. I am afraid to send it for repairs in fear of getting one back that is worse.

The second XB 360 (Sold to friend for his kids Christmas present) worked perfectly until now, and just died all of the sudden. Red lights of death. The refurb works but the DVD tray was screwed up. We had to realign it ourselves to get it to open on its own.

An XBL friend in Vancouver CAN, on his third console.

There are hundreds of these horror stories on the XBL forums. Some people getting 3-4 dead consoles in a row. Is MS still claiming a 2% failure rate. This has to be total bs. Don't get me wrong, I've been a member since 2003 as an XBL beta tester. I'm addicted to XBL and would buy another 360. But when does the madness end and the lawsuits begin?

I also have 2 limp stick controllers, 2 dead, wired headsets (cheapest wire ever), and a $150 steering wheel with force feedback support for one game. The other FF patches have been coming soon since December.

Now before the fanboys claim that I must be hard on equipment. I say to them. My origianal Atari 2600, N64, Dreamcast, PS2, and 2 Xbox's are all in perfect working order. My PS 1's worked if turned upside down but I tossed them in the trash. I had 2 of those to play C&C Red Alert linked. Those were the days ;)

@70

You're an idiot. It's true, not much can be said about Nintendo. The only issue I can think of recently is when they had a fair number of DS Lites with stuck/dead pixels when the system launched. Other than that, their systems are pretty solid. But then again, they have pretty much always used less advanced technology, so this is not unexpected.

But what about Sony? Do you remember the PSX launch? Remember all the reports of overheating and people having to turn their systems upsidedown so FMV would play correctly? What about the PS2? It had a notoriously fragile DVD drive... and how many hardware revisions did it go through? 12? 13? 14? I lost track.

^^^
company releases revised unit with additional functionality as well as addressing malfunctioning issues and forces customer to upgrade.

People are freaking sheep for MS. I work in IT and all these idiots up here keep asking when will the company go to Vista. I tell them in about 5 years when it is reliable. I don't even have to go into details about the first years of 95 then 98 then XP and we won't even mention ME.
Well I am not surprised about the Xbox360 being unreliable or the Xbots (same arrogant pc gamers who came over to consoles when MS got in and brought those same attitudes to the forums and blogs) talking crap to people who complain when it beaks down. Microsoft has allowed more patches to fix games than any other console. MS doesn't care about quality or debugging on the software side, what do you expect from them when it comes to Hardware.
When microsoft killed the first Xbox way too soon you didn't complain you just ran out and bought a 360. They didn't even offer backwards compatibility and you still made excuses for them. You people deserve what you get from them so stop complaing and continue to take it up the @$$. YOU DIS-GUST ME!

MS never fixed mine, because i voided the warranty after they told me i had no warranty (before the 1 year extension). I never got to play Gears and i bought mine in May 06.

I know 5 people with 360's... and the best working one only gives DiscReadErrors(too bad its for the only game he bought it for). I am yet to see a 360 running without problems.

Obviously, it seems like none of you are giving your 360 proper ventilation. THAT'S whay I'm asking what's wrong with you people.

Plus I lay my 360 flat. Just incase anything does come loose, it wont the part will remain in place.

I dont think any of you are taking proper care of your consoles. Or you're all lying through your teeth.

This is basically fanboy fuel! Who gives a flying crap about your broken 360! All this does is give the brain-dead Sony monkeys and walking vagina Wii users something to say OH OH OH look the 360 is junk. I've got 2 360's no problems and between my friends there are 10 360's all working great. All electronic devices have problems so welcome to reality. Send it back and get it fixed it's painless and not worth whining like little bitches about.

Diskoboy, you're free to believe that. My console had superub ventilation, was laying flat, and hardly ever moved. I even had it raised up slightly to give it a better airflow from the underside. It died spontaneously, 3 min. after being turned on one day. It wasn't a heat issue.

The problem is faulty solder. The joints dry out and crack because the solder is crap. That's why the towel trick works, and why it doesn't matter how well you baby the console.

You'll eat crow in a while. Just give it time. It takes no effort on your part to die.

My 360 broke the day after Gears of War came out (of course I bought it), around mid-November. They sent me back a broken 360 (DVD tray was jammed and wouldn't open). Then it took 9 weeks for them to ship out a prepaid shipping box. I'd call back every few days and to find out their system had mysteriously canceled my order. They coincidentally shipped the box out 2 days after I opened a complaint with the BBB. I finally got back another working 360 last week. Since I received my 360 I've been called by MS representatives about 3 times to see if I'm satisfied and if I will resolve my BBB case. Xbox support is trash. Pray yours doesn't break.

@80

It's not a contradiction at all. I'm not going to say the 360 is a solid piece of equipment, because it's not. But treat it right and there should be few problems. All I'm saying is I don't understand how people have managed to break 3 or 4 units. I think user error/abuse is involved in many of those cases. I'd love to see where some of these people place their systems and how often they transport them.

My launch system has functioned flawlessly as have all my friend's units. My system sits on a shelf that is open on all sides, by itself, and it also have about 6-7 inches of clearance overhead. Again, I don't find people reporting broken units unusual for the 360, just those that say they got 4 for broken ones. There's just something wrong there that goes beyond the 360 being somewhat fragile. Afterall, mirrors are fragile too, but wouldn't you find it odd if someone said they broke their bathroom mirror 4 times in one year? I would.

It's hard to believe a huge rich company like Microsoft wouldn't have a better replacement deal. You can tell how much a company cares about
their customers with situations like this.

Nintendo sends out a replacement system first, while waiting to receive yours (they take a credit card number as deposit). Hardly anybody knows this because Nintendo systems hardly ever break. In fact, many returns are dropped handhelds with scratched screens, not defective units. Their return rate in mid-2005 was around 0.12%. That's around one out of every thousand sold, compared to Microsoft's claimed one out of every 20-33 sold.

http://editorials.teamxbox.com/xbox/1651/The-Red-Ring-of-Death/p2/

All of these horror stories about your personal 360's are somewhere between interesting and a crock. I'm not saying that as flame bait - I'm saying that because I'm the one who has to service and replace the RETAIL units in my territory. You know - those units that are in Wal-Mart, Target, Best Buy, etcetera. These are units that are, in some cases, on 24 hours per day, every day.

Of the 50 some odd retail locations that I installed consoles in back in 2005, I would say that I've had to replace consoles in 30 of those locations, with two of them being spots that eat consoles - every couple of months I'm replacing the console in two specific retailers. In one case it's the overnight crew and in the other it's the electric company with power surges.

Most of the time at retail it's the kiosk control pack - the thing that tells the system what retailer it's in - or the controller(s). Those get destroyed quite frequently.

Wal-Marts are in a bad way - those consoles run really hot in there as they shove the shelves in as close as they can get, and there's no air flow whatsoever.

Targets aren't bad - they have enough room around the shelf for air flow, and they've got big enough air holes in the sides of the cases for air flow.

Best Buy, Gamestop, and anyplace else that has a kiosk has an additional fan blowing air in. Remember, unlike the PS3 display kiosk where the unit you see is actually a dummy unit, the 360 that you see in that bubble is the one that's running that kiosk.

The actual console replacement numbers with the 360 are actually lower than the replacement numbers for the original Xbox. I was replacing those consoles at a MUCH higher rate in the retail environment than I am the 360.

(And for what it's worth, in the 50 or so stores that I regularly go in that also have PS3 kiosks, as of last month there are TWO that are still working. The rest have burnt up or lost controllers (mostly burnt up - those things run hotter than the 360 and if their extra cooling fan goes down, you could cook a steak on the kiosk), and since Sony doesn't care about retailers that aren't actually in a major city, those kiosks are just sitting there taking up space.)

By the same token, those are the retail units. My personal 360 is sitting on a shelf - flat, not standing up - with plenty of room around it for air flow. No issues with it whatsoever in over a year. I've also still got two old Xbox consoles that have been running fine ever since I got them (I still use those for Mercenaries and some other games that aren't yet BC.)

And trust me - you don't EVEN want to know what hoops I have to go through at times to get a console. Our call center definitely is in India, and they have no clue about what we do in the field.

does anyone know if there is a way to have microsoft send you a new console and then you send your broken one back in a box once you get the new one? like what senireo do you have to tell microsoft xb0x 360 support in order for this to be your option?

I waited in the cold for hours on 11/22/05 to score a launch xbox360. Mine lead a charmed existence...it was positively babied. I used it sparingly. It was never dropped, jarred or damaged in even the slightest way. It had ample airflow sitting on a glass shelf in my AV rack. It died via the ring of death on 3/15/07. It seems utterly inexplicable that it can suffer a "general hardware failure" under these circumstances. It is, in essence, a PC in a smaller box. I have never had a PC fail, and I am much more abusive towards them (leaving them on for hours, etc.). Just what kind of crap components is MS using in these things? I have also owned 7 different video game consoles in my life...None of them ever failed either. I am very skeptical of the failure rate of about 3% that MS claims...I know 10 co-workers with XbOX360s, and 4 of them (5 now with me) have had these failures. That sounds significantly greater than 3% to me. Bottom line, for $400, this unit should be a quality unit good for years of service. A $400 item should not be considered disposable.