Xbox 360 Fanboy

I'm going to be on my 4th console... I just recently got the 3 red rings. :( But I did notice if the system is HOT. It works better.

Ok guys listen let's take some time to listen to our fellows 360 owners and xbox live members. I don't why someone would waste thier time spreading lies about a video game console it make no sense. I do beleive that the 360 has a failure rate but it is within an acceptable rate and the problems people are experiecing is due to neglience. Now hold on beofore you jump to conclusions I can say this becuase it was partially my fault that my 360 was overheating and would on work for like 20 or 30 min before shutting off. So I call MS customer support they just closed down and since I didn't have the red rings I didn't send it in but I did check out some suggestions on the internet and changed my setup by placing my power brick over and open box and then putting my 360 sideways on 4 medium sized blocks and I haven't had a problem since. Unfortanetly the 360 had vents on both the sides and the bottom and mine overheated in both the vertical and horizontal postions. Unfortanetly I don't live in a big house or have hardwood flooring, with the exception of a few rooms my house is primarily carpet. Now I'll admit I have placed all my consoles flat, never standing up my xbox,gc,wii,ps,ps 2 and jeez even super nes. But you cannot place the 360 on it's side or on it's bottom if it's on carpet as mine was then it will probably overheat. I don't have a thick carpet or 10 cm high carpet it's less then a few mm high, sorry to go metric it's about maybe 2/16 of an inch and it still overheated. My 360 was in perfect working order but was malfunctioning due to MY neglience. To think I was gonna have my 360 torn apart and given some half ass refurb. The 360 just cannot be placed on carpet. I know 360's break down cause my friend has his box for about 2 months then it broke down, he picked up a second one and that lasted 3 months and now he waiting for the coffin. I had mine for almost a year(1 year next month yeah!) and both his brand new 360's crapped out and he has hardwood flooring. So if your 360 is overheating check your setup and try the method I mentioned( I can't be held resposible for anything that happens) and it could fix your problems but only for overheating. So show some love to your fellow 360 owners and x box live members and show some support and not treat them like the plague by refusing to accpet the fact the yours, mine and everybody on this site, favourite console does in fact breakdown to hardware failure and consumer neglience.

@19

First of let me clear the air. I'm a person that does not own a Xbox360...yet. I've been gaming now for over 25 years. I own the Atari 2600, Sega Master System, NES x 2, Sega Genesis/CD/32x, Sega Saturn, Dreamcast (all time favorite)Turbo Graphix 16/CD, 3DO, Super NES, Nintendo 64, PS1, PS2 (least favorite) and PS3. And Guess what? ...all of them still work! If you would have told me to buy an extended warranty for any of those systems I would have laughed at you.

Now I'm at a serious crossroad here. I'm dieing to purchase an Xbox 360 because of the games available for the system. PS3 has the potential for becoming my next all time favorite gaming system BUT no damn games for it.

Back to the topic at hand... How can any company justify selling me a $500 system (elite or nothing I need HDMI for my XBR3 TV) and turn around and recommend I purchase a $25 per year coverage. I have 4 consoles about to reach 20 years old. So I'm going to need to pay $500 to just make it to 20 years whenever I want some retro gaming? Man...Fuck that!

I hope in the near future Microsoft gets their act together with this system because the games are freakin awesome.

...Forgot I own the Wii as well. Goes to show how much I like that system. Yawn...

Granted 11 systems is a high number, but doesn't it point more to Justin doing something wrong instead of M$? I mean, couldn't this be unnaturally inflated due to him putting it in an enclosed space or something? And I don't mean by accident. Maybe he wanted them all to fail just so he could say "I've had 11 360's replaced".

@Commander Shepard

You can go to the official Xbox forums any time of day or night and see the same kind of complaint rate with verified Xbox owners posting (with Live gamer profiles) about their newly failed consoles. I am one of them, so just be glad you're not yet, and leave it at that.

You can't seriously believe PS fanboys alone posting about bogus failures could entirely account for this level of reported failures. Yes, there could be *some* (you have no proof, anyway), but not at rates high enough to gain this kind of national attention. No way.

Only enthusiasts like us read forums like those anyway, so I see a Sony-instigated public smear campaign being ineffective if that was truly their tactic. And there is more and more anecdotal evidence just like this in the gaming press itself to support the case that there IS a problem with this system. Even more mainstream outlets like Motley Fool have now started reporting on it.

Besides, if you really spent THAT much time verifying all those posters' forum profiles, then what that says about you is not good (I don't see why you even care, actually). I suggest you get a life ... or a girl ... whichever comes first.

You can keep doubting that there really is a problem all you want, but it doesn't make you any less WRONG. We all probably started out on your side of the opinion column. But there are too many of us who now know better ... unfortunately through experience.

I've replaced 4 systems since October of last year... This makes me very happy!

I called Xbox support 3 weeks ago tomorrow and I finally got my cardboard coffin 3 days ago. Shipped it off yesterday and got the confirmation call from Xbox support today that it should arrive at the repair center on Friday.

I was bumped up to some higher level support after the first week and a half because they had lost my case in their system. They say at the end of all this, I'll be given a free item (wireless controller, game, vid cam, etc.) to make up for their delays.

Has anyone else been offered any freebies as a result of a prolonged repair turnaround time?

Here in the Oklahoma City area yesterday I had a friend loose his 360 to the red ring, just informing in case anyone is keeping score.

I have had my launch system (11/05) hooked up to a surge protector, standing vertically, in a smoky somewhat cramped attic room for over a year now, and it has never overheated and runs just fine.

Key things I do to help extend the life of ANY console/computer/etc: have at least some ventilation for smoke, like a cracked window; and NEVER place anything directly on a carpet. Put it on a book or magazine if you have to. Carpets are dusty and the fans will suck that s--t right into your machine. Also, smoke really F's up a computer too; it creates a brown tar-filled dust. A friend who smokes heavily has already lost one 360 and his 2nd is dying too, so I know that's a factor (he also went thru 3 regular Xboxes). We'll see how his PS3 handles the smog.

Keep these in mind and maybe your 360 experience will be as happy as mine (knock on wood).

what has this guy been doing to break 11 consoles? i have an early console. and a friend of mine still has his RELEASE console.

I had a friend who was told not to use a surge protector when he got the RROD (he's on his second, I'm on my third). What's funny is the manual says it's fine. The manual also says the power supplies have three-prong plugs (which the recent 360s don't). What I don't understand is why is it fine to put any other product in the world on a surge protector and not a 360? And why how would you reset the power brick if there were a surge? Why would they tell you this now and not in the manual if it's built in?

And stop saying people are abusing their consoles. If it was a ventilation problem, don't you think the malfuction would have been identical every time for the 11 consoles? And why do no other consoles have this problem?

The failure rates that MicroSoft quotes are correct...if you add a zero to the end of them. Come on, how many people could be having multiple consoles fail at a 3-5% failure rate?

I'm a electronics tech in a top biometric device firm. My job is figuring out why stuff doesn't work in prototype and full production devices. Here's the deal. The x-clamps are to blame for the majority of the 3rlod issues. I'm 100% convinced of this.
My 360 got the 3RLOD and rather than send it in, (heard from a reliable source that all MS does is clean heatsinks and reapply the paste-which to me alleviates the problem,much like the extra 3rd heatsink that are showing up now, but it doesn't FIX the problem), I choose to fix it myself. Just by replacing the x-clamps with nuts & bolts from a hardware store. And guess what? Problem fixed.
IT'S AN INHERENT DESIGN FLAW. All the evidence points to this. The glued down sides on the chips for the elite, the extra heat sink on "Fixed" 360s. The fact that practically all desktop mother boards have center bosses to keep the MB from warping too much and causing this issue in PCs. PCs have x-clamp designs that work fine, But the 360 is missing is that center boss and only is supported from the ends of the device.

Commander Shepard,

Haha. All you have to do is have your own RROD before you realize the truth. I'm on my third, so I have no doubt of the truth of all these failures. Is the recording of the 11 console failures not enough for you. How about the other multiple failures that MicroSoft has fessed up on (there was some guy that had 6 die that they personally contacted). There are plenty of anti-Sony people out there, but there aren't failure reports of the PS3. What's up with that?

And what about you? How do we know you aren't a paid MicroSoft employee?

I call bullshit. I'm sick and tired of hearing this shit. This guy had to have done something, that was not the fault of Microsoft.

I mean seriously, I know the Xbox 360 has it's problems, but I know that this isn't possible. This guy is either breaking his console repeatedly, or is buying broken ones from other people who didn't take care of it.

I have a launch console that I have had very minimal problems with, and it is still going strong. The only problem I have had is with the 3 red lights... Reboot, and its fine, and haven't had that problem since (11 months ago). I then had a problem with the video not coming through, but with no red lights, and also had sound. Flipped the TV-HDTV switch a few times, and it worked again. Imagine that.

You people who are having problems, instead of seeing the lights and immediately calling 1-800-4MY-XBOX, try trouble shooting, or just THINKING.

Yeah, not to mention the excellent online service, the downloadable content, the extensive downloadable library, and the connectivity between that and basically everything else in the house.

Take care of it, and it will work fine.

Yeah, this guy is totally doing something, Zeus. Because everyone loves being without their console for a month and getting charged for their live service the whole time. He must totally be doing it on purpose. I mean talking to support is so fun, I just do it for shits and giggles sometimes. I can see why he'd do it 11 times.

Maybe you should start thinking about the fact that you've just been lucky and should be happy about that. Sorry man, but unless it's happened to you, and you know that you've done nothing to cause it, you aren't going to understand it. Don't worry, it will happen to you soon enough. Especially if you've already red ringed.

Do you honestly think that someone would not take a minute to try simple troubleshooting before sending off their console for a month? I'm on my third (all brand new consoles thanks to a replacement plan). The second died after 4 months. I have no problems with other consoles. All well taken care of and ventilated. In both cases, first I got frequent freezing, then the red ring. I could get it to come back up a few times, but eventually it would not.

And Zeus, don't take these failure reports so personally. No one is saying the 360 sucks, just the failure rate. Have you not noticed that despite the 11 failures, the guy still likes the 360? I do too. It's just got an issue. Don't get pissed at people for complaining about something that's clearly broken.

Sorry I keep posting on here, but I'm getting sick of naysayers. There are people who are all, "my friend has a launch unit and it's fine". What is that supposed to prove. The perceived failure rate is 30%. Which means you have more than a two out of three chance of getting a good one. So lots of people will have ones that work fine, as a matter of fact the majority. But some people get that one out of three that doesn't work. When they exchange it, they again have a one in three chance of getting another bad one. It's not that hard to believe that several people are getting multiple failures, and many are having no troubles at all. You face the same odds every time you get a new one.

Here we are at X3F - 360 fanboy central - and we can still read a balanced viewpoint on the 360 hardware failure situation that takes both sides of the coin into play - free from heaping bias. A nice parity and counterpoint to Joystiq's Alexander Sliwinski cloned strictly doom 'n gloom piece. Well done Richard.