My XBox 360, only 6 weeks old, got his first (and hopefully last) RRoD this weekend. From what I hear it’s a right of passage that all 360s must go through.
Don’t tell my Xbox. It still is not ringed with Red Death.
Mine did that. The experience was not too bad. Total overall time from calling up Microsoft until the Xbox was sent back to me was about four weeks.
The funny part was what happened when I went to ship back the 360. Microsoft sends you a plain white box. No markings what-so-ever. When I took it to the UPS store to send back the girl behind the counter took one quick look at and said, “Three sixty huh?” I replied in the affirmative and asked her how she knew. Turned out she had been getting one to two a week to send in for awhile.
Microsoft no longer sends boxes to ship their XBoxes. Instead they email you a shipping label and make you produce the cardboard. Buncha cellulose nazis, if you ask me.
Mine bricked about three weeks ago, and my service experience has been a mixed bag. Twice now the atrocious english skills of the India based call center employees have failed to produce any messages in my inbox. I suspect they don’t fully understand me when I spell out my address. On the other hand, I recieved a followup call asking whether I’d recieved my label less than a week after the second conversation.
Ultimately I ended up just buying another used 360 and plan on selling mine when it’s returned. Hopefully they’ve improved their previous infamous turnaround times.
Supposedly the problem is caused by lead-free solder used in the motherboard connections. The heat cycles the console undergoes, combined with inadequate cooling lead to embrittlement and eventual failure of the solders, yielding the infamous RRoD. There’s actually a few “field repairs” that involve compressing the console to restore contact but it’s stopgap at best and didn’t work for me.
Best of luck!
I’ve been waiting to buy a 360 for months and I was waiting for the new improved jasper chipset that was supposed to fix the RROD to come out. Originally it was thought that all 60gb models would be one of those… but then the 60gb models came out with some minor tweaks but the same old chipset. I wanted to have one with me for my trip here so I just went ahead and got one anyway, but I was annoyed that I’d waited and still not gotten what I wanted.
It’s the first time I actually bought one of those best buy warranty plans. In case of RROD, I don’t have to go through the microsoft shipping BS, I just take it into best buy and get a new retail unit. I know those warranties are usually a ripoff but in this particular case I appreciated the peace of mind.
So far no problems with it except that if you bump the xbox while it’s in use, it catastrophically kills the DVD inside of it. Brilliant.
I’m on my second 360; the original bricked during an OS upgrade. I have had some RROD problems with this one, and have tracked it down to two root causes, both preventable.
Case 1: Heat
It runs really damn hot, and when playing Mass Effect, I would get spontaneous shutdowns and occasional RROD. I picked up an aftermarket cooler that clips onto the back of the 360 and passes the video cable through, which has solved the overheating problem. It did make the damn thing louder, though, so that part sucks.
Case 2: USB troubles
If you pick up Rock Band, you MUST use the real Rock Band powered USB hub. Without a USB hub, connecting or disconnecting instruments will cause instant RROD. I tried two other powered USB hubs and neither would connect the instruments.
Good luck!
Mine too. Go buy one in michigan, it seems we got all the good ones.
That’s where I did buy mine.
My experience must have been totally different than virtually everybody else. My 360 RROD after about 2 years. I called MS on Friday, I had my box on Tuesday and sent it back that same day and was amazed to find that I had my replacement 360 on Friday. 1 total week.
I guess I was lucky.
Mine has gone twice now, both times back in about a week. Well, both times it got back to Alexandria in about a week, but I had to then wait until I could get to the UPS place before 6 to pick it up, as it requires a signature.
Not sure about Interconnected Series of Tubes’ experience, but both times (one of which was this summer) they sent me the box to return it in.
[hijack]
Even with the RockBand USB port, half the time one or two of the ports don’t seem to sync my instruments. This makes me cranky on an extreme level. Suggestions?
[/hijack]
Is it safe to buy a 360 now?
I noticed the price just went down, and I figure it’s about time I got a damn next-gen console.
I know, I was saying the OP should buy one in michigan
Not sure what you’re meaning by “sync”, but I’ve had Rock Band and absolutely no problems prolifically ripping all four of the instruments and/or USB hub out of the console to no ill effect. One possible problem is that the 360 only recognizes four devices total, so if you have controlled on while you’re trying to use all four instruments something gets left out. Or do you mean audio-visually? There’s an extensive calibration system in place for that.
Ah. My bad.
A buddy of mine (in New York) has gone through 12 or 13.
I’m hopeing my box arrives today, I called support late Saturday night. I’ll let you know how everythign turns out.
The first RockBand USB port we had didn’t work at all. I even tried using it in other devices. Harmonix replaced it.
The second USB port works, but in a weird way. The instruments don’t work right away; you have to plug the port into the system, then plug the instruments into the port. If you plug in the port with the instruments attached, it doesn’t work. Not sure what is going on there.
Knock on wood, no RRoD here yet (we’ve had the XBox since April).