Well kiddies, it finally happened. No, I'm not going slightly mad; my Xbox 360 has officially decided to call it quits. the Red Ring of Death has arrived and refuses to leave. In the coming weeks -- perhaps months -- I will be chronicling its repair here on X3F.
The Red Ring of Death made its first visit about a week ago, after some extended sessions of Crackdown. It popped up on a few other occasions throughout the week, but would go away after a brief period of downtime. Finally, after a quick local session of Bomberman Live with my friends, the next power cycle produced a red ring that won't go away. For the record, my 360 was situated as you see it above. It was vertical, in completely open air, and placed at a diagonal angle behind my TV in a very feng shui kind of way. Considering that fateful game of Bomberman had been the first time my close friends and I had played the game since the Saturn Bomberman days of yore, I find the timing to be somewhat poetic. Or perhaps overtly cruel. Depends on how you look at it I guess.
The next day (yesterday) I placed a call to Xbox customer support. The first step in one of these calls is to argue with an unhelpful automaton for a few minutes. After exhausting every combination of unplugging, replugging, and hard drive removal, I was finally directed to an agent. Or, rather, I was directed to some very upbeat hold music. After several minutes of tapping my toes to the beat, I was connected with a human being. The agent was perfectly polite, no hassles or anything like that. He took down my shipping info and told me that my coffin would ship out in 5 to 7 days. He then hit me with gut-wrenching information that the repair itself would take 4 to 6 weeks. Ouch. And yes, if you've extended those dates out to their extremes, that gets my Xbox back to me just days before the release of Halo 3, and that's without adding any shipping time. Now I know what it's like to live every moment of my life in fear.
Next time on the Red Ring Chronicles: the coffin.
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 6)
8-02-2007 @ 11:33AM
ANt said...
Welcome to the club.
MS had mine for 37 days before I got it back. It got lost in there warehouse.
Comforting, I know.
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8-02-2007 @ 11:35AM
ANt said...
One other thing, I live in a large community, and my UPS guys said he sees one busted 360 a week coming in or going out!!
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8-02-2007 @ 11:35AM
Tony said...
I tried chronicling my repair story as well, but basically it wound up being "Shipped it off, they got it, then the site said 'no pending repair' and now I'm waiting for a new tracking number.
I'd say it's been almost three weeks total if I count from when I actually sent the box off. It took about 5 days to get the box, though.
I think that recording is named "Max". I did what he said, but had to hang up to even do half of it. The next time I just said "next" over and over lol.
The dates sound longer than they have been in the past. I think was I was told 3 weeks on the phone, but this was literally four days before the extended warranty announcement. I had to pay $140, which I should get back eventually at least.
I did notice that they seem to have taken that "we will return the system to you in five business days" thing off of their site. I wonder if that was EVER accurate.
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8-02-2007 @ 11:37AM
SAGExSDX said...
i personally feel like its more worth it to void my warranty and fix it myself. only takes like half an hour, most of the time due to the effort required to take apart the 360.
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8-02-2007 @ 11:40AM
Evan said...
I'm pretty genuinely tired of bloggers making posts about their dead 360s. We get it -- you're hoping Microsoft sees it, and somehow speeds along your system's delivery. In the meanwhile, it's fucking uninteresting, useless content for the rest of us.
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8-02-2007 @ 11:40AM
Loban said...
That's it, I'm officially waiting until the Falcon (65nm Xbox 360) hits to get one.
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8-02-2007 @ 11:41AM
DjDATZ said...
Well, guess what? I had the RRoD visit me last night... yet again. (Btw, I JUST recieved a replacement console AT THE BEGINNING OF JULY!!!)
Rich, don't worry about the bullshit dates they give you. I've had my console in for repairs twice, and looks like this'll be a third time and they've always gotten the console back to me in a week or so. But then again, this is Canada...so I'm guessing it happens less.
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8-02-2007 @ 11:43AM
Tyler said...
I am surprised at you Mitchell. I would think you would have been smart enough to get a in store warranty. They are so much better then sending it to MS. Just give the store your broken 360 and they give you a brand new one on the spot.
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8-02-2007 @ 11:43AM
DjDATZ said...
Well, guess what? I had the RRoD visit me last night... yet again. (Btw, I JUST recieved a replacement console AT THE BEGINNING OF JULY!!!)
Rich, don't worry about the bullshit dates they give you. I've had my console in for repairs twice, and looks like this'll be a third time and they've always gotten the console back to me in a week or so. But then again, this is Canada...so I'm guessing it happens less.
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8-02-2007 @ 11:44AM
Token said...
I feel for you man. Crackdown killed my 360 too.
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8-02-2007 @ 11:44AM
Richard Mitchell said...
"I'm pretty genuinely tired of bloggers making posts about their dead 360s. We get it -- you're hoping Microsoft sees it, and somehow speeds along your system's delivery. In the meanwhile, it's fucking uninteresting, useless content for the rest of us."
No, if I wanted an expedited repair I'd call up someone from Microsoft and ask for one. I could have done that, but I decided to go the normal route to see how long it really takes for the average repair to go through.
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8-02-2007 @ 11:44AM
Vipralion said...
4 to 6 weeks???
My 360 broke down on me the last week of June but it only took about 10 days after I received my box to ship to them, repair my 360, and then ship it back. Yay! The custserv rep even said it'd take 1-2 weeks explaining 3-5 days to ship to and back, and about a week to repair.
Then again, I didn't get 3 red lights, I had a dead disc drive.
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8-02-2007 @ 11:47AM
Vader582 said...
lol...Bravo on the Queen reference, Mitchell!
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8-02-2007 @ 11:48AM
Tony said...
With in-store warranties, will they let you just switch the hard drives before you trade for a new unit? I don't want to give up my saves and such too.
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8-02-2007 @ 11:49AM
Jeff said...
I just received my 360 back from Microsoft on Tuesday. It took about three weeks from start to finish (from the phone call to support to receiving it back in my hands). They kept my old unit and replaced it with a newly manufactured unit that was made July 14 - it's less than two and a half weeks old.
Here's hoping that you get your console turned around to you in about the same amount of time!
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8-02-2007 @ 11:50AM
Drem said...
Mine died right at the time of the warranty change announcement. I called on July 5 and they quoted me 4-6 weeks in the shop for the repair. My replacement was in my posession by July 26. I think they're quoting a worst-case scenario, but actual times may vary.
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8-02-2007 @ 11:54AM
Fjr said...
Does the warranty extend once they give you a new machine? Do you get another 3-years?
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8-02-2007 @ 11:54AM
Bmurph said...
I called two weeks ago. They told me the same thing - 4 - 6 weeks. "Damn", I thought. On Tuesday I had an E-mail from Xbox Support with a UPS tracking number, saying it was on it's way back.
I think Microsoft has this process down very well. People I have spoken to at Microsoft were very polite and understanding. I guess practice makes perfect.
So, keep that in mind. 4 - 6 weeks, could end up being 2 weeks!
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8-02-2007 @ 11:55AM
DjDATZ said...
I personally dont deal with Max...I just press 0 until i get someone that'll help me.
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8-02-2007 @ 11:58AM
DjDATZ said...
Right now I'm on the phone with customer support...well actually...on hold...go figure...lol
FJR - they don't extend it. you get the rest of your warranty or a month whichever is longer.
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