Damn. I got my replacement 360 on Tuesday, and right from the first night it was giving me problems. It took me 24 hours to figure out what the deal is, but it seems to be heat related. If I turn the system on after being off for awhile, everything works perfectly. However, if I run something for long enough to heat it up (i.e. Dead Rising demo), nothing will load until it cools down. Well, actually, small apps (such as Galaga and Pac Man demos) will load, but more intensive demos (i.e. Dead Rising - even after I've just quit it, NNN, LOTR II demos) will give me a "game cannot load" error. Also, disc games won't load at that point - I get disc read errors. It's not the HD, as the same error (disc read error) occurs if I remove the HD. But if I let the system sit overnight, everything works perfectly (for awhile) in the morning, until the same stuff starts happening.
It blows that this far after launch, MS is still shipping "refurbished" consoles that aren't actually repaired (and my replacement had a Mfg. date of late April 2006). And could they spare a little padding for the box they send? It blows that I waited two weeks for a new system only to find that it didn't work. Is there a magic code word to be compensated with a LIVE extension, free game/controller, or NEW replacement system rather than refurbished junk?