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Joystiq

Dude: My Rock Band hub caught fire, EA: Plug it in again

by Justin McElroy on Oct 21st 2008 10:00AM

Ahh, customer service, it ain't what it used to be. Just 10 minutes after plugging his Rock Band instruments into the supplied USB hub, Jim Squires noticed that the cord to the unit was smoldering and had created a totally non-rocking electrical fire.

Upon informing EA of the problem, Squires was told by the company to plug the USB adapter back in to test it. No, seriously, he was. Now Squires is still trying to talk to an actual human at the company to let them know about the whole "the Rock Band adapter could have burned my house down" thing. You can follow his progress here.

Source

Tags: ea, Electronic-Arts, Harmonix, MTV-Games, PS3, rock-band, Xbox-360

Reader Comments (36)

He probably used the wrong adapter.

Thats what i thought.

Too much current.

The thing is, where this allegedly burned is between the hub and the 360. I find it very hard to believe that, given the fact USB is only rated for 5VDC, the wire itself caught fire, but the hub didn't fail and the instruments and 360 apparently also continued to function while the cable smoldered. I find it hard to believe the power needed to melt down a cable somehow magically didn't ruin anything else connected to it.

EA meant to plug it back into his ass.

I wasn't aware customer service was ever good.

A hub is a hub bro. The device is defective and EA needs to replace it....frankly speaking as an I.T. professional I would never use hub given to me with a game that just doesn't feel right to me.

Psh, it was not electrical failure.
It was 110% rockitude!

Deploy extinguisher to save!

Well, did he plug it back in?

*facepalm* @ EA

Burnt hubs just sound better then their unburnt brethren

Have you tried rebuilding your house?

Maybe this'll stop them from boxing in the cheapest fucking hubs ever manufactured.

...naaaaah, probably not.

Its not defecive, its a USB Hub/Smoke machine.

Been a while since I've seen a good "It's not a bug, it's a FEATURE!" joke. Thanks for that.

Message to EA:

A USB adapter is not software! Software might work successfully in apparent identical conditions, hardware will burn more!

Lars Ulrich: FIRE BAD! FIRE BAAAD!

when i had to call rock band support, i was able to speak to a human almost immediately, try the number on the box or in the manual...

Now that EA was winning a bit of respect with Crysis, Rock Band and upcoming Dead Space and Mirror's Edge... this reminds us of the day we couldn't stand the days is only rehashed the same game every year!

Watching the drama as it develops I felt inspired to write a movie script based on it.

Million Dollar$ from Hollywood, here I come!

"this reminds us of the day we couldn't stand the days is only rehashed the same game every year!"

wut

Sorry mate, I was a bit drunk!

" this reminds us of the day we couldn't stand EA because of them rehashing the same game every year! "

That's the patch 2.04 release of my statement.

In other news... the movie script is shaping up awesome ($__$)

hmm I have this hub...never had problems before, but I'll definitely be keeping an eye on it from now on

I'm guessing since it said in the article that he hasn't talked to a human yet, what he heard were some prerecorded trouble shooting options. I'm sure he failed to mention that and went for the most scandalous of statements to get anyones attention.

The two responses he got were through email. He never even tried calling their support line. All you ever get through email is automated responses. He should know that.

They seem to be cutting corners a little too much with Rock Band. I doubted the quality of the USB-hub the moment I took it out of the packing. But it still worked, I still had to return the entire set because of the connector in the drums where the bass-pedal is supposed to go, didn't work.

So one Rock Band instrument set returned beacuse of one failed smoldering. Way to go EA.

My fiance wrote the training manuals for EA's customer service, and according to her they are supposed to replace the USB hub without further question in response to any evidence of defect. So the finger shouldn't be pointed at EA Customer Service as a whole, but more at the foolishness of the specific EA Customer Service Rep involved.

This reminds me, what ever happened to firewire?

Firewire is still very commonly used, but mostly when dealing with video devices or Mac hardware. It never grabbed the broad-scope appeal that USB managed to snag.

Ohhh.

Haha, thanks for the informative reply.

lmao @ ea.. always a laugh :D

If he's under warranty ask for a replacement, if it's not, buy another one. If they won't sell you a new one, sue their asses for 1 million.

I'm not a lawyer by the way, so don't listen to me.

They offered him a new one and he doesn't want to sue. The real mystery is, what does he want? I suspect that he just wants to rant and rave about something that never happened for web traffic.

That's not the hub that came with my X360 RB. Is that from another bundle or an aftermarket hub?

I heart India. *Disregard my fist post. failtag*

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Breaking News

Dude: My Rock Band hub caught fire, EA: Plug it in again

Reader Comments (36)

Posted: Oct 21st 2008 10:04AM phizzyphizzy said

Posted: Oct 21st 2008 10:28AM Negatron said

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