Is it a matter of when rather than if?

Nibi

Nibi

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I really thought all that talk of failing 360's was an exagerration, until my launch unit died, and then my brother-in-law's died, followed by two of my best friends. I have since had mine repaired and bought a new one for my little brother, but I can't help but feel that Microsoft isn't being upfront about their hardware issues. I am really enjoying my 360 now, but I always have that nagging feeling in my head that it's only a matter of when it will break down.

Are there any real world estimates on failure rate?
 
nope.. I do think that well over half the launch units must have been defective by now.

The good thing is that MS fessed up a little and offered free repairs and an extended year warranty. I do hope my second system now lasts a long long time..
 
[quote name='jer7583']The good thing is that MS fessed up a little and offered free repairs and an extended year warranty. I do hope my second system now lasts a long long time..[/quote]Too little, too late. My launch unit failed a month ago. After a whole long ordeal that I documented in the Coffin Support Group thread, I'm without a working 360 and have no way to get it repaired.

I have about 15 retail games, 10-15 XBLA games, and accessories. I'm not sure if I should cut my losses and sell them or buy another system. I really don't want to give M$ my money two times over but it seems as if I have no choice.
 
[quote name='brainmunch']Too little, too late. My launch unit failed a month ago. After a whole long ordeal that I documented in the Coffin Support Group thread, I'm without a working 360 and have no way to get it repaired.

I have about 15 retail games, 10-15 XBLA games, and accessories. I'm not sure if I should cut my losses and sell them or buy another system. I really don't want to give M$ my money two times over but it seems as if I have no choice.[/quote]

Sell the broken one on Ebay and buy a core.
 
my launch system died and the 2 people I was waiting in line with launch system died and another friend that we were on the phone with waiting somewhere else launch system died.

so yea, they are POS's. and just like brain said. I have tons of games, just got guitar hero, missing halo 3 beta because of dead 360. I want another one but damn sure are not going to give them $140 to fix it and dont even want to buy a new one since I feel Fuxored by MS this time around.
 
Thankfully I only had my launch unit die, and I hadn't bought any XBLA games yet. The replacement was built December 06 and has been fine ever since. At this point, I'd probably be more inclined to pay $140 to repair it if it died than buy a new core system and lose my XBLA games and downloaded game content. It's still half the price of the core, and less hassle in the long run.

MjC
 
[quote name='Brian9824']This is why I paid retail and got mine at costco for their lifetime warranty[/QUOTE]
You might want to double check that. They tightened up their return policy last year, changing electronics to 90 days.
 
ya it is a matter of when not if. Out of my friends and who all bought ours on boxing day four out of six have broken. Thats four broken in less than six months.
 
Based on the title, I thought this was going to be about one of discoveries world disaster documentaries.

/contributes to thread
 
I got my system Jan. of '06 and more recently the system's DVD drive sounds like it wants to come unhinged inside. For a long time I thought I would never have a problem, but that is becoming obviously wrong very quickly.
 
[quote name='ironmouse']I got my system Jan. of '06 and more recently the system's DVD drive sounds like it wants to come unhinged inside. For a long time I thought I would never have a problem, but that is becoming obviously wrong very quickly.[/quote]

mine worked absolutely perfect until I downloaded the may update. next time i turned it on, 3 red lights. no warning really.
 
[quote name='Damian']You might want to double check that. They tightened up their return policy last year, changing electronics to 90 days.[/QUOTE]

Items bought before the change were grandfathered in though.
 
I want to say that I've had soooooo much fun with my 360 in just a few short months. When it works right, it's a thing of beauty. The controller is *awesome, the interface is so well designed, and a lot of games are absolutely beautiful and enjoyable. I've really enjoyed XBLA more than I thought I would going into it, and the marketplace in general has brought a lot of entertainment.

Can you feel a "but" coming on? Well, here it is:

BUT! The experience has been colored by a growing list of hardware hassles. Getting the 3 rings after literally only about 6 hours of gameplay was almost enough to break my gaming spirit.

Software hassles have also been way more prevalent. It's like developers are using on-line capability as a crutch and are letting glitches ride through and leaving gaps in games that they can fill with patches and DLC. Not cool.

It reminds me a litle of my early dabblings into the world of PC gaming back in the day and all the hassles that drove me to being exclusively a console gamer. I just wanna pop in a game and have it work, and while the 360 largely does that, I've experienced enough headaches to where I have to say I'm over on the "will never buy another MS console" side of the fence.

It's sad for me to have to acknowledge, but there it is.
 
I thought my launch console was impervious. Then, about 3 weeks ago... it died. It works for about 3 days every time I use the towel trick, and I really don't want to buy a new one, so I'm stuck with this right now...

I'm sure glad I have a PS3 now.
 
On my 3rd now as well in one year. The friends I know who own them are on multiple units as well.

I still have my launch PS2, hell my Atari 2600 still works. I really like the games and what Microsoft has done with the user interface, I just wish the thing wasn't so fragile.
 
Still rolling on my launch unit....Have about 50 friends and only two ha ve had a 360 die...Actually both have had two die. Maybe MS is targeting ppl
 
Got mine in Sept '06 after trying to purchase a used one from EB which didn't work to begin with. They let me return it and I gave them $20 more for a brand new system. They actually absorbed a little bit of the price, for once. So yeah mine is still working okay, I'm a little worried about leaving it in low power mode all night to download stuff though.
 
Had mine die, and mine wasn't even a launch unit. Mine was bought almost a year after launch because I was trying to avoid launch unit problems.

I've seen people say "Oh, mine is a newer manufactering date, this one will be better!" but, to my knowledge, they haven't yet changed any sort of parts on the inside, so who cares what the date is? This is why Elite's were DoA out of the box and shortly after, it's still the same shitty parts.

I think MS rushed these in production and used the cheapest, most available parts they could, and now it's coming back to bite them in the ass.

You think they would have learned after what happened with the original Xbox's, but I guess not.
 
Well, after 3 weeks, my first one's DVD drive crapped out. MS took 5 days to send a box so i returned mine to Walmart. Mine was made near the end of 2005...so im def. worried. Half tempted to buy the Elite, transfer my saved data and such, then return the Premium.
 
Getting an Xbox 360 along with a bunch of games is like being around a bunch of hot women but having erectile dysfunction.

And for the record, the elite is the same thing as the regular 360 so those are just as prone to break down!

[MEDIA]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kd6OAW8Smno[/MEDIA]
 
[quote name='Roufuss']

I think MS rushed these in production and used the cheapest, most available parts they could, and now it's coming back to bite them in the ass.

[/quote]

too bad its not biting them in the ass. we are the ones taking it in the ass if you ask me. it would be one thing if they came out and said there was a problem and they will fix it but no; "sucks to be you, your 360 is out of warranty and dead in under 2 years. dont worry we will fix it for only $140, but remeber, shipping is free."
 
Peter Moore's most recent (paraphrased) "fuck our customers" response to the issue reminds me of one of Max Weinberg's "The More You Know" segments:

"Sometimes condoms break. Deal with it, missy."

more_you_know1.jpg
 
I can never tell on these "RIP 360, we hardly knew ye" threads if it's the same people saying their 360's died or if more and more people are having problems.

I'm not going to start another post if your 360 has died thread but maybe we should have a list of people who have had the 3 red lights of death in one of the stickied threads or something.

Might give a good indication as to the extent of the problem.
 
My 6 month old unit died today. I don't even play this thing everyday. I average maybe 12 hours a week on it. 3 weeks til I can play again. This is the first time I have ever had a console die on me. I am heading to BJ's and might pick up the PS2 bundle on the cheap.
 
I've avoided this sort of topic for the longest time for superstitious reasons, but it's pretty clear to me now that mine is getting ready for 'assisted living', if not 'hospice'. It starts up just fine, I can play all my HDD-based XBLA games magnificently, but I'm getting the "To play this disc, please put it in an Xbox 360" message more often than not now.

This is a Launch Day console, mind you, and I have gotten that error on a very infrequent basis since the beginning, at least for certain games. Now, it seems like I have to insert a game into the drive at least twice to get it to read properly. Once it does that, everything seems to be okay. Still, the feeling of impending doom grows each day.

I'd like to get this thing through the next few months in its semi-wonky state, as they're releasing a cooler, better-constructed 360 this fall, no? Or is this a DVD drive issue that can be remedied with a quick-fix or two?

P.S. If mine flat-out breaks sooner than later, I might as well just spring for the Elite, except I'm not sure how to transfer the HDD data in that situation. Has Microsoft wised up and said they'd make the transfer cord available for those of us in that scenario? Last I heard, the cord was only available with the a la carte 120 GB HDD, as they didn't think Elite purchasers at this point were current 360 owners 'upgrading'.
 
Yeah, I'd say when rather than if. I've never had a console fail on me until the 360. No ring of death for me, but it just stopped reading discs for no reason.
 
Yes, they've made it so you can order the HD transfer cable for free. You just need the serial numbers of both systems.

http://assets.xbox.com/en-us/support/MigrationKit-OrderForm.pdf

Just to add my experience here, bought a 360 used, fully working. It was an Oct 2005 unit, if I'm not mistaken. It worked just fine up until a few months ago, then suddenly 3 rings.

Even though it was a 2005 unit, M$ denied ever making the offer to fix 2005 units, and later that yes, they had fixed them, but they had conveniently stopped that program less than a month before mine failed.

After having dealt with an original xbox failure to the tune of 3 months of calls, bitching, and lies from the "CSR"s; and knowing that even if I shelled out the $140 for repair, the warranty was only 90 days, I decided to sell my broken one on CL and buy a core. Irony of ironies, the core I ended up with (bought it at a closing CompUSA, so no returns) was a Feb 06. How they still had units from that date in March of 2007? I haven't a clue. Probably why they closed. I wish I would have noticed before I checked out. In any case, my credit card will cover it for an additional year, so hopefully that'll work.

Less than two weeks later? They extended the repair warranty to a year. I'm genuinely surprised they *haven't* been more raked over the coals about this, but it's likely difficult if not impossible to get real repair numbers, considering it's all internal.
 
Thanks for the definitive link for the transfer cable. Here's hoping that it's information I won't need anytime soon.

Once again, though, anyone else have the same problem I'm currently having? Did it keep getting progressively worse? Did yours eventually just die? Is it something that's not 'curable' but eventually levels off at just 'frustrating' that you can learn to live with if you have patience? Hey, I had a front-loading NES, too. I can play the game called "Getting the Game to Work".
 
MS support says they do not guarantee the repair. Depends on how much you use it. That bugs me, considering I play 12 hours a week and it only lasted 6 months.
 
[quote name='bmsdaddy']Items bought before the change were grandfathered in though.[/quote]

When was the change?
 
[quote name='ahmedmalik']
And for the record, the elite is the same thing as the regular 360 so those are just as prone to break down!
[/QUOTE]

That video is of an Elite not working correctly out of the box. While disturbing to say the least, that is to be expected with any electronics (that some fail in the very beginning). Now, if they start failing in droves after a month or more of play, then that is another issue.

But, while the chipset is the same, there are some subtle differences in the way they've hooked everything up - the motherboards are not exactly the same. For one thing, they seem to have used gobs more of epoxy to hold on the CPU and graphics chip. Apparently it is these things coming loose through warping of the motherboard that causes many of the red ring of death problems. Will pasting on the epoxy help with that? Who knows, but it is a change in any case. We'll only really know a year out if Elite's seem to be holding up better than regular ones. But so far, besides a small initial batch that failed (as in that video) I haven't heard of others failing.

As for the Costco warranty - it is still good on video game systems. The 90 day return change was only on computers and TVs (and maybe a few other things) - the big ticket items that people would return after using for a year or 2 to get a newer better model. In any case, even if it DID include them, what they've done is extend the manufacturers warranty for another year. So EVEN IF they add video game hardware to the limitations it is still worth buying them at Costco because you'll get a second year of coverage for free. If it dies you'll be able to return it and get another (presumably). You just won't be able to return it FOR NO REASON like you could before (though I think you stll can on video game hardware).
 
[quote name='Brian9824']This is why I paid retail and got mine at costco for their lifetime warranty[/QUOTE]

I believe the warranty is only 2 years now. That's what I saw last time I was in the store.
 
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