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 5 of 6)
8-02-2007 @ 5:53PM
konchu said...
Well the statement Jeff made about getting a new unit made in July and someone else said that they are not sending out referbs is a little reassuring. Maybe this can get be put behind MS before too much longer.
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8-02-2007 @ 6:01PM
thehack said...
I had a recent Red Ring of Ddeath experience. It took the better part of a month and a total of 8 hours on the phone to get my machine back and now Gears of War doesn;t work in system link.
I wrote and article detailing my journey as well: http://geekwonk.com/2007/07/26/the-xbox-360-tech-support-odyssey/
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8-02-2007 @ 6:29PM
houkah said...
What a coincidence, my 360 is on the fritz too. No red ring of death, but it can't play a game for more than 5 minutes w/out cutting to a black or white screen and staying there. Anyway the tech support person said i'd get my mailing box in 3 - 5 days, but it looks like i'm getting it today (2 days). Hopefully the same can be said about the repairs.
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8-02-2007 @ 6:36PM
GANNONSMASH said...
@Vipralion:
"Then again, I didn't get 3 red lights, I had a dead disc drive."
You're in the same situation as me. Same time, same problem, only I haven't gotten mine back yet. Your story gives me hope. Thank you. :)
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8-02-2007 @ 6:56PM
Mauricio said...
I called microsoft, about my xbox live account, and they will send a cool 1 month gold card with it 2 replace the " month " u and I lost!!
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8-02-2007 @ 6:56PM
Wolfrider said...
Owch. I not looking forward to this, but I figure its going to happen to me eventually.
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8-02-2007 @ 7:20PM
Mauricio said...
houkah, I had the same deal,but i would be playing a game and the dirty disc message would come!! ON ALL MY GAMES!!
GANNONSMASH, WHEN DID U SEND YOURS IN?
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8-02-2007 @ 8:13PM
Tombstone said...
http://img105.imageshack.us/img105/7530/msletterofapologyar6.jpg
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8-02-2007 @ 9:15PM
Mauricio said...
now, Tombstone!! That is what they really gave u!! And what we may get!!
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8-03-2007 @ 1:56AM
Netherman said...
Error Please insert this disc into a xbox 360???WTF???
I had the worst time with customer support it began as all customer support calls do with the automated bullshit next I spoke to a Indian man named Bill?????? are you kidding me BILL not Apu or Asad BILL. now bill barely understand English so when i Talk about a intermittent problem i am forced to talk to Frank so do you think frank was american or indian of course he was indian with all his great english skills so i tell him that it happens quite often but not all the time. now i have been on the phone for 3 hours and 12 minutes when he tells me i need a box and that it will arrive in "five day" seve days later no box i call again ang get John who is almost an acceptable rep. he told me that the order was never sent and that my box will arrive in five days. now i have sent the box back and am just waiting for the next thing to go wrong. my box will probably burst into flames when I finally get it back. if I ever do.
wow that was a really long rant. I got pretty carried away but I am ver upset. It better be perfect when I get it back.
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8-03-2007 @ 1:58AM
EdgeOne said...
Funny Story: Second one just died, got the white box, went to UPS to send it back for repair. UPS guy come out to meet me and says "Awe, gonna be withought your baby for two weeks, eh?" ... uh yeah, how did you know? (stupid me) and he laughs "oh, we've seen a few of these!"
Keep in mind I walked up holding a white box with nothing written on it other than the return UPS sticker! Wow... 30% Failure rate? If they're lucky...
Still... best gaming experience yet!
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8-03-2007 @ 3:15AM
tobin92 said...
Thats nothing....My Xbox 360 has broken 3 times. It is now broken in fact....just 1 day after receiving it back from repairs. I am outraged that I must wait 4-5 weeks so....I am looking at getting in touch with a MS employee that could do it shorter....Like 2 weeks sounds far.....Figure 3 days for you to get the box,3 days for them to receive your console, 3days to replace it, 3 day to ship it back!!!!!
Not 5 days to ship 3 ways and 20 days at the repair center.
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8-03-2007 @ 9:01AM
Paul said...
WTF is with Bomberman? I tried that demo one day a few months back and my 360 crapped out at that point too.
WTF?!?!?
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8-03-2007 @ 11:08AM
Brandon said...
#14 Tony
I replaced my RRoD at the Costco I got my 360 from and after some explaining they let me open the box and switch the hard-drive.
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8-03-2007 @ 12:36PM
slyecho said...
Or you could fix it yourself like I did, google for the x-clamp replacement tutorial. Basically it involves tearing off the x-clams and bolting the heatsinks down tight. Have not had any problems yet.
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8-03-2007 @ 1:35PM
Kiteless said...
I have an XBOX360 and a PS3. I love both consoles as they both have their pros and cons. But I am afraid to buy games for my 360. Mine lays on it's side because when it is standing up like yours the drive tray wont open. I only use it on cool days or when the A/C is running. If a game is available on both consoles I get the PS3 version every time.
Also a friend of mine got an Elite, and the drive dies in it in less than a week of average use.
And to the guy that says Richard is just posting this so MS will see it and exchange it faster. Dude, just because you have an oppinion about something does not give you the right to speak for all of us. I find this news important and very informative. Microsoft should not be forgiven for making such an unreliable console. As far as I know, no console has every had a failure rate this high. My advice to you is to sit back and respect other peoples oppinions.
- Kiteless
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8-04-2007 @ 12:15AM
Evan said...
Kiteless,
I'm not disrespecting Richard's "opinion," wherever that may lie in this situation. I'm speaking as a fellow game journalist that's annoyed by worthless, self-serving content. Extra, extra -- game blogger's 360 dies. I recognize that "fanboy" sites don't purport to maintain the professionalism and reader focus that other outlets do, but after the dozens of stories and interviews we've already read about the 360's failure rate, I wonder if it's really of worth for Richard to "see how long it actually takes" for his 360 to be repaired by "chronicling" it publicly. What the hell is there to chronicle, anyway?
"Dear Diaryblog,
It's day 16 since my box of X was taken from my hands. *sigh* I just don't know what to do with myself. I called customer service, but they just said it'll be done when it's done. Was my love for Microsoft misplaced?"
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8-04-2007 @ 3:39PM
Chuck said...
Rofl lol thats some funny shit man I paticularly liked the story about the indian guy named BILL lol. Well Still on my 2nd console since Jan. 06 no problems with the devils eye yet. The boxx freezed up a couple times with crackdown so I just stopped playing it. Power is on the carpet jus wanna point out its been on there since we moved which was last year. The box is on a tv stand under my 61" Panasonic LCD. The tv's Air filter crapped out b4 my box did and we just bought it last year. Hillarious I know but it was a floor model, so it was calculated risk. Im worried its gonna go bellyup when halo wars and HALO3 comes out. Is there some1 we could talk to at xboxCS to see if they could overnight the box to the repair center they used to do that when the console launched in 2005
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8-04-2007 @ 6:38PM
Scott said...
#78 Brent Kailbourn
The UPS shipping label that comes with the "coffin" is valid for only a month, so you'd have to go through customer service again to have a new one reissued. If your 360 would fail within that time frame and you had everything already, then yes you would come out ahead I suppose.
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8-04-2007 @ 7:17PM
Michael Paul said...
Well, they are sending me a replacement 360, rather than fixing mine.
The THRILL of trying to get my Xbox Live games to work again awaits.
The EXCITEMENT of waiting for what was someone else's failed equipment to fail for me.
The WONDER of why they just didn't wait for the repair to be done, since they had an estimated 1-3 more weeks to go.
I just hope it works long enough to have the new technology available for the next replacement...
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