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 2 of 6)
8-02-2007 @ 11:59AM
Joshua said...
@5
Evan,
If anything I think Richard owes it to the community to document his case including updates on the time the repair process takes. We read this site for information and this is blog based news. Personal input from the writer is expected and is what makes these sites as popular as they are.
I don't like to read the stories about this stuff either, but face it...too many units have failed, yes Microsoft has extended the warranty to address it. However, it's writing from these groups that brought it to the attention of the general public and has to be one of many reasons Microsoft was finally forced to admit to the problem.
Reply
8-02-2007 @ 12:00PM
Matthew Moore said...
If my 360 dies between now and the release of Halo 3 I am just going to buy a H3 console and sell my 360 to a friend or something and let him deal with Microsoft.
Good luck Richard I hope your 360 is fixed promptly.
Reply
8-02-2007 @ 12:00PM
J8675309 said...
Call it in, obviously, but after that...
USE THE TOWEL TRICK, IT WORKS, I HAVE DONE IT ON TWO CONSOLES. A friend of mines, and my own, it will make your console work for a few days.
Reply
8-02-2007 @ 12:03PM
bdanisek said...
I'm not sure what to do...two Sundays ago I started to get the RRoD...but it turned on later that day yet kept freezing after a short period. I called and ordered my coffin which I got yesterday, but in the last week my console has gone from booting up and freezing to giving me the RRoD to yesterday playing for about 35 minutes after an initial freeze. It's clearly got hardware issues, but I don't want to send it into Microsoft for them to boot it up and think its fine and send it back to me without fixing the issues.
Reply
8-02-2007 @ 12:06PM
LETSGO 7777 said...
SORRY RICHARD HAD MY THREE RINGS 4 DAYS B4 THEY EXTENDED WARRANTY I AM GLAD TO SAY THE WHOLE EXPEIENCE TOOK 3 WEEKS START TO FINISH GO MY MACHINE THIS MORN UNFORTUNALLY I BOUGHT ELITE ALREADY
Reply
8-02-2007 @ 12:07PM
Tony said...
@17
I was told I'd get another year warranty, but keep in mind that this was before the extension. That's all it was then.
Reply
8-02-2007 @ 12:07PM
Dan said...
For future reference you can dial '0' a few times when you call Xbox tech support and bypass the automation menu. This will get you directly to an agent within minutes, worked great when I called in my repair last week. This will be my second repair and the first took about 2.5-3wks, but this is before they extended the warranty.
-Dan
Reply
8-02-2007 @ 12:09PM
Sam K said...
Here's an important thing to check:
When you get the RRoD, what color is the light on your power supply?
If the light is GREEN, then it's probably the standard RRoD.
If the light is GREEN when you turn the 360 on, then changes to ORANGE when the RRoD appears, then it may be a bad power supply.
I had a 360 Elite that got the RRoD; I called MS and gave them the symptoms (including the bit about the power supply light)and they said it was the console, and sent in the console only to have the replacement console RRoD on me as soon as I plugged it in. After calling MS and repeating the same symptoms, they said, "Oh, it's the power supply. We're surprised no one caught that the first time you called".
Got a new power supply, and everything's fine.
Granted, given the likelihood that you'll get a true RRoD, it's probably NOT the power supply. But it doesn't hurt to check.
Reply
8-02-2007 @ 12:15PM
DjDATZ said...
Apparently...I just heard this from my customer support rep...CANADIAN consoles DO NOT get repaired, they GET REPLACED.
Sweet...since this is my third "repair" I get to talk to a supervisor. Booya.
Reply
8-02-2007 @ 12:18PM
Richard Mitchell said...
Sam K,
Thanks for the tip. I checked the power supply and it stays green, so it looks like it's a genuine Ring of Death.
Reply
8-02-2007 @ 12:18PM
TORO 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"
You read the first paragraph, now move on to the next blog, don't waste your time posting a meaningless comment. So GTFO.
Reply
8-02-2007 @ 12:18PM
Robb said...
Mine died on July 4. Called on July 6 because it was intermittin. Got the box on July 12 and mailed it on July 13. As of August 2 I still dont have it but I got an email yesterday saying it was sent out. I called XBOX and they said they replaced it with a new one. Checked with UPS and it is supposed to be here on August 6. That makes on month from phone call to new console.
Reply
8-02-2007 @ 12:22PM
Grant said...
When i sent mine out it took just about 3 weeks, so unless something wierd happens, your looking at 21 days of TV watching.
as for what everyone else said about crackdown... i think i've had my 360 freeze every 3rd time i played crack-down with another person, theres just something wonky with that game.
Reply
8-02-2007 @ 12:22PM
Marasai said...
My sympathy, mr mitchell. I just got mine back.
So allow me to impart my wisdom in this area.
Max can be skipped by saying 'agent' and he will then send you to an actual person. He will still spend 5 minutes telling you about it though.
NEVER use the coffin. Use your own box (or in my case, the box they sent your last replacement in, complete with foam bracers). send a letter in with it, that is clearly visible, outlining your problem. Say you were promised a new one in 5 days. I know that means lying but trust me, no one will ever check. Make sure to complain about lost live time to the agents to get reimbursed for a month (you should have the machine back in about a week)
Reply
8-02-2007 @ 12:25PM
kevin said...
my 360 is going on its 10th month and nothing... I noticed theres cool air coming from the opposite side of where the hard drive is which would otherwise be blocked if the system is placed vertically... mines is always horizontal and kinda stuffed in a shelf... maybe the vertical position is blocking air?
Reply
8-02-2007 @ 12:26PM
Scott Williams said...
5 weeks thats insane. I know it's not the same but I have had 5 ipods in my time 2 of which have broken. With both I rang apple on day one, the box showed up on day two, by day 3 it was in for repair. The ipod returned on day 4, now thats what I call service.
Reply
8-02-2007 @ 12:27PM
MYPS3KilledMy360 said...
mine died i aint getting into the story because im pissed that they dont except anything under the warrenty but red rings. ill buy another instead of paying for repairs. ill buy another when they say all the 360s that are on store shelves no longer have the problem look at this it was bound to happen http://www.qj.net/Breaking-open-the-Xbox-360-brick-issue/pg/49/aid/99007
the question is will it come out before halo3 think about the long hours you'll be playing then your hit with an error or red ring if crackdown seems to be the problem for most bricks then gtaIV is sure to do you in also."my 360 works fine" dude so what yours lasted longer, as far as anyone knows its in all the systems so its a matter of time, maybe your good till the end of 07 then in 08 it gets you. so right now ill kick it with my ps3 i think others should invest in buying one too and stop complaining, some of you have sent in your 360 2 or 3 times and shelled out $280 or$420 on repairs before the 3 year warrenty defeating the purpose of the money you saved. ps3 aint bad its has some upcoming games by the end of summer and fall with all multiplat games by next year it will be fully up to speed then what. im not saying drop 360, but until this problem is solved its not worth the downtime. question while they have your 360 for a month do they give you the month back on live? i think the 3 yr W. is to hold you until the new xbox is announced. that would make almost 5yrs right and fanboys would still be happy to give there money for a new system.
Reply
8-02-2007 @ 12:29PM
Chris said...
That's pretty ironic since I'm supposed to be getting mine back today. But good luck man.
Reply
8-02-2007 @ 12:33PM
Drunkenshaolin said...
my 2nd 360 died on sunday..welcome to the club, the good thing only is that no games coming for about a month so wont really lose out on playing new games.
Reply
8-02-2007 @ 12:34PM
DjDATZ said...
Well...After sitting on the phone with customer support for 32 minutes and 53 seconds, I talked to a front line agent, and then their supervisor. I got the supervisor because this was my third time sending in the 360 for repairs. I was also assured I'd get a call from a supervisor when I wanted (I told them Tuesday between 9am and 4pm cuz I'm not here from tomorrow till Monday).
Also because it was a supervisor, I requested they send me a 360 manufactured in May 2007 OR LATER, as Microsoft said that after that date consoles were "fixed" and didn't have the problem anymore. He said he would note that, and to tell that to the next supervisor and ask him if it can be done. (Plus this way, I'm basically guaranteed a "brand new" console.)
So thats my part.
Reply