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 6 of 6)
8-04-2007 @ 10:44PM
KFelon said...
Mine just fucked up as well. I had to send mine to a repair center in Texas though so I'm unsure what the deal is with that.
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8-04-2007 @ 11:24PM
tobin92 said...
Richard,
Mine is going in for repair to....After it broke th day after getting it back from repair..... Good news is.... I called today and they said it is now a 3-4 weeks wait....I was also afraid I would miss Halo 3....Not anymore.
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8-05-2007 @ 12:47AM
Siguy955 said...
If you understand that most RRoD occur due to the excessive heat build up. The heat becomes so intense that the soldering on the components become soft and near melted that causes the chips or components to shift and when cooled it then hardens in that shifted area thus causing the RRoD. The trick is to never place your Xbox 360 in the upright position as the mainboard is standing on its side and the components when heated will shift due to gravity and the softening of the soldering. I have my 360 in a well ventilatd area but the room is not airconditioned and have played hours on end while my 360 is laying flat. I have never received the RR0D and have had my 360 for a year now. To top it off my 360 sits on top of entertainment center and right underneath it my HD cable box tuner is placed underneath (not directly) but in the slot just above my television. My cable box stays hot like hell... I mean it damn near burns my hand and the heat penetrates right through the wood of the entertainment center directly under my 360... so that's heat upon heat and my 360 still kicks with no problems. So I strongly advise anyone if you have a 360 and you can make the space, lay it down.
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8-06-2007 @ 12:27AM
neil said...
my xbox 360 fisrst broke at end of may, so i sent it in for repair. after i recieved my 360 from repair(after a long 2 month wait) and after an hour of play it broke again. i called to get my 360 repaired again and as compensation i got pgr3 for free. but 2 weeks later i called to c where my prepaid shipping box was to only find out that the lady only made the order for me 2 recieve my copy of pgr3. i rose hell with xbox customer support and got my way through the supervisors and so on. and after about 3hrs on the phone i got to some1 helpful. he told me that he sent out my prepaid shipment box, and as compensation i am recieving the following:
-wireless xbox 360 controller
-xbox 360 universal media remote
-3 more months of gold(added to the 1month already recieved)
-1600 xbox360 live points
-another game
so if u were as mad as i was, i would call the xbox support center instead of a lousy email or however the site works and u could get alot of stuff. i also got to choose all that stuff on the list so im not quite as mad as before
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8-06-2007 @ 9:35PM
Peff said...
mine died in mayish. i sent it in, and then got it back like 8 days later. with a one month live card in it, they apologized in a typed letter, and said hey we're sorry, heres a month free of live! i guess that was good enough payment for the saddest 8 days of my life...
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8-08-2007 @ 11:15AM
erivera3 said...
Hey, do you think it would be a good idea to have them ship me a coffin despite my xbox 360 being completely fine right now? The reason I say this is that in case my 360 decides to crap out on me closer to Halo 3 I would want to get it shipped out there ASAP to get it fixed, so if I can save a few days of them shipping the coffin then maybe I would save a few days and get it back before Halo 3 comes out.
Is that something they would let me do, or do I HAVE to send in a 360 if they give me a coffin right away? Just trying to plan ahead here.
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8-10-2007 @ 8:53AM
John said...
4 to 6 weeks?
I sent my 360 out last week. I thought it would only take me about 2 weeks.
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8-10-2007 @ 6:46PM
stuckonstoopid said...
Just got my box back and...date is 7/31/07..no HDMI..And no FUCKING POWER SUPPLY! had to send mine in cuz was melted to back of console. What a pisser..make me wait 3 weeks and still can't play the damn thing! Dumb ass call center in India sucks balls..they are clueless. SOOOO pissed.
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8-16-2007 @ 9:56AM
Matthew Hillman said...
Welcome to the Club.
Ill be on my 5th xbox 360 when my Brand New one comes back. The last Xbox I had back only on tuesday the 14th, took it home after it being sat at my desk all day plugged it in to find the red ring of death waiting to great me. I phoned xbox support, went through the automated service to talk to a human, was on hold for two min and got through. They offered me an accessory and a game as compensation for sending me a dead one. Ok its only a memory card and perfect dark zero but hey its free. So anyway, yesterday UPS came and took my xbox away less then 24 hours after phoning xbox support. Hopefully it will only be away about 2-3 weeks as Im missing playing crackdown and Rainbow Six Vegas.
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8-16-2007 @ 9:23PM
STEVE said...
ITS BEEN 2 WEEKS SINCE THEY RECEIVED MY 360 HOW MUCH LONGER WILL THEY KEEP IT? AND WILL I GET BACK MY ORIGINAL I PAID FOR?
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8-17-2007 @ 12:04PM
STEVE said...
so basically we are all being crapped on,over&over.popular mechnics states the 360s life is roughly 24 to 26 months and then its beyond repair.i guess its time to buy an elite to send to my son,stationed in Falluja.he says playing graw 2 is the only reality he can recall.too bad it takes so long to get it back to him, by then ARMY OF TWO will be ready for release!!!thanks for the feedback. LostGiraffe
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9-30-2007 @ 10:39PM
Patrick said...
I have an xbox360 DVD drive that my kids stuck two discs in at once. I got the discs out, but the drive was dead. I sent it to www.videogame911.com. I heard about them when my son stuck a psp disc into my PS3. I figure if they could repair the PS3, why not the 360? They have now fixed both. Since they told me that they fix the 3 light error xbox 360 RRD or whatever you want to call it I figured I would mention.
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