GHII X-plorer problem explored, culprit found?

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GHII X-plorer problem explored, culprit found?

Posted Apr 6th 2007 11:30AM by Richard Mitchell
Filed under: News, Guitar Hero II

Possessing a Geraldo-like level of journalistic investigation skills, our cruel masters at Joystiq have uncovered more info on the faulty X-plorer guitars that shipped with the Xbox 360 version of Guitar Hero II. It seems that the majority of whammy bar problems are being reported by owners of the guitar with the pedal jack near the power chord, model 95055. The other model, with the pedal jack near the headset jack and shoulder strap, model 95065, doesn't seem to be generating as many complaints (though our own David Dreger is reporting issues with his). Red Octane hasn't made any official announcements regarding its investigation of the matter.

For clarity's sake, your best bet is to look for a box with Part No. 95065. The part number is located above the ESRB rating on the back of the box. Find a detailed image of the part number location after the break.

Click to Enlarge.

Tags: ghii, guitar hero, guitar hero ii, GuitarHero, GuitarHeroIi, harmonix, red octane, RedOctane

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Reader Comments

(Page 1)

1. Attn Fanboy Towers= As a Side note to your Blog. I ordered directly from Red Octane, and they sent me the 065 Model and it works. So I am thinking the 055 were 1st run models that were shipped to stores. So if anyone is looking to buy this thing (which is a sweet game BTW) order from them. Shipping is free and you get this crappy little "gig bag"

Posted at 11:53AM on Apr 6th 2007 by Matt

2. I fixed mine, here's a little tutorial based on another tutorial.

http://www.stynk-monkey.com/?p=181

Posted at 11:53AM on Apr 6th 2007 by stynkmonkey

3. Funny, I have model 95055 and after playing through the entire game, my whammy bar works wonders. I'm still of the opinion that it just needs to warm up.

Posted at 12:08PM on Apr 6th 2007 by Warlord Luthias

4. I also have the version with the pedal jack at the bottom, next to the cable and mine works fine.

Posted at 12:08PM on Apr 6th 2007 by Matt

5. I have 95065 and it seems to have the whammy bar issues. Don't assume you're safe just because you have 95065.

Posted at 12:38PM on Apr 6th 2007 by Mike

6. This may be completely irrelevant - but has anyone with a HDTV tried calibrating their HDTV? It's under the video options, may explain lag between whammy bar movement and action on screen.

Posted at 1:06PM on Apr 6th 2007 by Samisa

7. You guys don't need to take apart your X-plorer to fix the whammy bar. A cheap rubber band going from the whammy bar to the side strap post fixes the problem easily and cheaply.

Posted at 1:17PM on Apr 6th 2007 by Major Suckage

8. My 95055.491.SC (bought it yesterday here in Sweden) is also having some issues. At times the whammy bar is not working, most often it does though.

Posted at 1:24PM on Apr 6th 2007 by Sami Sinervä

9. 95067 is having SOME issues with me...

Posted at 1:48PM on Apr 6th 2007 by Mitch

10. I just got one with model # 95067 yesterday and the whammy bar is totally unresponsive. Also the bar itself for mine was limp/loose, didn't stay where you positioned it unlike my PS2 version.

Posted at 2:08PM on Apr 6th 2007 by Silent

11. "You guys don't need to take apart your X-plorer to fix the whammy bar. A cheap rubber band going from the whammy bar to the side strap post fixes the problem easily and cheaply."

Yeah but you can't impress the ladies with a rubber band fix.

Posted at 2:16PM on Apr 6th 2007 by stynkmonkey

12. I have the 055 model and so does my brother, and we were both sad to find that our whammy bars were equally unresponsive right out of the box. However, I've done the simple fix to the potentiometer, and now it works great! Sadly, I'm not sure if Fanboys are aware that the misconstruction of the potentiometer isn't the only flaw with the guitar: the microphone voice output appears to be garbled to heck as well. Outside of these two flaws (one that is easily fixed), the guitar seems solid.

Posted at 2:27PM on Apr 6th 2007 by Digital Limit

13. Anyone having problems with the Star Power activation?

The guitar I got directly from Red Octane was the 95065 model, and the whammy bar was fine. However, after a day of play I finally noticed (since I started on easy and skipped tutorials) that the blue button wasn't right. You had to press really hard to get it to work and then it was just flickering a response.

So I went and bought another guitar from EBGames and it is the 95065 model. Everything works fine but it seems more difficult to activate Star Power. The first guitar I got from Red Octane seemed pretty sensitive. With this one I need to get the guitar completely vertical. Is there a "correct" sensitivity to these things?

Posted at 2:28PM on Apr 6th 2007 by MC Hampster

14. I've got Part No. 95055. My guitar is working fine as well.

Posted at 2:31PM on Apr 6th 2007 by Ryan

15. I had trouble with the whammy bar initially, with it only working if I depressed it lightly. But after a couple of days of play it seems to be working just fine now. Maybe it needed to be "broken in."

Also I find star power activation easier with this guitar than with the PS2 version. A much more shallow raise activates it, but not shallow enough to do it by accident.

Posted at 4:03PM on Apr 6th 2007 by Jarrett Kaufman

16. I looked on my box and my model number is a 95055. However, my guitar has the pedal jack on the bottom of the guitar right next to the headphone jack, contrary to what the story says. BTW, my guitar seems to work well, sorry to those who are having trouble.

Posted at 4:22PM on Apr 6th 2007 by joedirt131

17. FYI my box says 055 and the part number on the back of my controller is an 056 so the box doesn't necessarily tell the whole story.

Posted at 6:48PM on Apr 6th 2007 by ajm56

18. You want to hear something more confusing, according to Kotaku, both model numbers are defective and are part of a recall

Posted at 9:26PM on Apr 6th 2007 by nick

19. ^^^There's definately not a recall, at least not yet. That's the only thing so far that Red Octane has been willing to confirm, so I guess Kotaku is wrong on that one.

For the record, I also got a '56 guitar, but the part number on the box is '55, and my whammy bar is still really fussy, so the method in the blog is definately not a catch-all.

Posted at 9:51PM on Apr 6th 2007 by m bowen

20. I have model 95067 and it works great....no problems

Posted at 10:16PM on Apr 6th 2007 by jill

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