XBOX 360 Red Ring of Death FAQ: Soon to be known as the Red Dot of Death! :P

[quote name='pogipinoy27']My Falcon 360 just died yesterday. I kept getting checkerboard freezes when I played madden but alas, it wasn't meant to be.

This really sucks. I really bought into the whole "falcon will be teh pwn RROD!!" propaganda......Jasper here I come?[/quote]


checkerboard = GPU failing... falcon boards are nice i have 2 of them my buddy just got his jasper bottom line heat with the DVD drive sitting on top of the GPU where does all that heat go? not only that if you've ever taken apart a 360 or know someone who has they will tell you no matter how many motherboard changes they make there's still no room for cooling or fresh air ventaltion as long as they over look this problem more and more people will drop the 360 for another system not knocking MS just stateing what everyone has been telling them from day one.
 
Just checked UPS and it states that it was delivered to the repair center this morning. Checked the Xbox website and it states that they are still waiting for it. Does anyone know how often Xbox updates the website? Thanks.
 
i don't know how often they update there site but i will say to give it 24hours to post online.. your Xbox is there with the other 50 - 100 they got today
 
Real Ring Of Death

After numerous reports about the exceptionally high Xbox 360 failure rate, Microsoft was forced to allocate 1 billion dollars to fix it.

Almost one year later, we have finally come to know the true story behind the historic RROD epidemic.

During the Design Automation Conference, Bryan Lewis, research vice president and chief analyst at Gartner, disclosed that it all begun with a single Microsoft's decision aiming to cut design costs for their Xbox 360 graphics chip.

According to Bryan Lewis, the epidemic happened because "Microsoft wanted to avoid an ASIC (application-specific integrated circuit) vendor", so they designed their own graphics chip and sent it directly to Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing for production.

Normally, semiconductor chips are designed on two stages. The first of them is the Schematic design where engineers draw a symbolic representation of the circuit. This should have been done by Microsoft. The second stage is PCB Layout design. In this stage, the abstract representation of the circuit is converted to real life Printed Circuit Board through a delicate and complex design process. Apparently, Microsoft decided to design its own PBC, but failed and ended up with an RROD epidemic.

"Had Microsoft left the graphics processor design to an ASIC vendor in the first place, would they have been able to avoid this problem?", Lewis asked before answering himself. "Probably. The ASIC vendor could have been able to design a graphics processor that dissipates much less power."

To fix the problem, Microsoft went back to an unnamed ASIC vendor based in the United States and redesigned the chip, Lewis added. (rumors have it that the ASIC vendor is most likely the former ATI, now part of AMD.)

Moral of the story: by going cheap and trying to save tens of millions of dollars in ASIC design costs, Microsoft ended up paying more than $1 billion for its Xbox 360 recall.
 
Nothings going to change. There will always be RROD, just less chances with each revision. Falcon is not RROD proof and Jasper won't be either.

Just be glad MS hands out a three year warranty, and that new consoles will be $200. Now the real question is: Will out of warranty repairs drop in price? I thought they were $150 at one time, so if they hit $75 or so after this drop then better for me in the future, and my friend.
 
Need some UPS advice. My replacement 360 arrived in my town at 3:46 PM today (Thursday) and is listed as "in transit", but the fargin scheduled delivery is Monday. I called UPS to see if their is anyway I can pick it up, the 1st customer service person said you can't do anything until they attempt one delivery. Called later and got a little bit different answer. That person said if my status online changes to "destination" (or something like that) I might be able to call and pick it up. Any advice on how to free my 360 from UPS's clutches? How the hell can it be in my town on Thursday and have to wait till Monday to get it. Sheeeet. Thanks for any useful advice.
 
[quote name='Viva Las Vegas']Need some UPS advice. My replacement 360 arrived in my town at 3:46 PM today (Thursday) and is listed as "in transit", but the fargin scheduled delivery is Monday. I called UPS to see if their is anyway I can pick it up, the 1st customer service person said you can't do anything until they attempt one delivery. Called later and got a little bit different answer. That person said if my status online changes to "destination" (or something like that) I might be able to call and pick it up. Any advice on how to free my 360 from UPS's clutches? How the hell can it be in my town on Thursday and have to wait till Monday to get it. Sheeeet. Thanks for any useful advice.[/quote]

Well usually if you can get to their regional center where the trucks go at night, you can usually pick it up before they go out the next day, depending upon when the truck that has your package gets back to the shed. (there's one near lots of towns... my town of 25K has one in it)

Granted, this is a little late for that, but perhaps tomorrow night (or later today by my clock) you might give the distribution center a call and ask when the truck with your xbox on it will arrive at the depot/shed area. Then you can pick it up in person (provided it's not out of your way or you have other commitments.)

HTH. (It's how I used to get all my computer parts a day early back when I was ordering to build my "dream PC"... since the depot was 12 miles away, I could just time (or ask) the arrival and go to their center and they'd get it off the truck for me...)

Oh and depending upon the season (since it's only September), you can usually expect the trucks back in around 6ish or so. Later when there's a rush for packages like around the holidays (that's assuming the UPS goon doesn't give you the time... they're usually good about that, if you call the local distro center of course.... the 1-800 number usually isn't very helpful.)
 
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[quote name='bubbafett4hire']Real Ring Of Death

After numerous reports about the exceptionally high Xbox 360 failure rate, Microsoft was forced to allocate 1 billion dollars to fix it.

Almost one year later, we have finally come to know the true story behind the historic RROD epidemic.

During the Design Automation Conference, Bryan Lewis, research vice president and chief analyst at Gartner, disclosed that it all begun with a single Microsoft's decision aiming to cut design costs for their Xbox 360 graphics chip.

According to Bryan Lewis, the epidemic happened because "Microsoft wanted to avoid an ASIC (application-specific integrated circuit) vendor", so they designed their own graphics chip and sent it directly to Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing for production.

Normally, semiconductor chips are designed on two stages. The first of them is the Schematic design where engineers draw a symbolic representation of the circuit. This should have been done by Microsoft. The second stage is PCB Layout design. In this stage, the abstract representation of the circuit is converted to real life Printed Circuit Board through a delicate and complex design process. Apparently, Microsoft decided to design its own PBC, but failed and ended up with an RROD epidemic.

"Had Microsoft left the graphics processor design to an ASIC vendor in the first place, would they have been able to avoid this problem?", Lewis asked before answering himself. "Probably. The ASIC vendor could have been able to design a graphics processor that dissipates much less power."

To fix the problem, Microsoft went back to an unnamed ASIC vendor based in the United States and redesigned the chip, Lewis added. (rumors have it that the ASIC vendor is most likely the former ATI, now part of AMD.)

Moral of the story: by going cheap and trying to save tens of millions of dollars in ASIC design costs, Microsoft ended up paying more than $1 billion for its Xbox 360 recall. [/quote]


Not to mention pissed millions of pissed off gamers when they can't play any 360 games between 2 to 6 weeks. :(

We will never get an official report of why the 360 has so many hardware problems for years to come. Why? Because of liability. If Microsoft admits "yea we rushed this thing to market before we could fix the design flaw..." then MS would be in deep shit. The only thing we will get is when the next XBOX comes out will be "We resigned the xbox from the ground up, eliminating any problems that the previous generation of xbox's had...". That in itself will say yea they admit there was a problem with a 360 but will never admit exactly how bad it was.
 
[quote name='chubbyninja1319']Sigh. I'm not getting RROD, but something funky is happening. When I play the Tales of Vesperia demo and/or the full game, my system freezes during the cinemas. I don't even get to the gameplay before it freezes and goes to black.

The only other thing that's caused some hiccup is the Force Unleashed demo...the opening Lucasarts cinematic stutters, but it never gets stuck and it plays fine from there.

So, I called support and they don't have a clue what the problem could be. At first they told me it was a disc issue, but I kept telling them about the same thing with the demo and they finally understood. I looked for corrupt files, cleaned my cache and tried to play w/o the hard drive plugged in.....still freezes up.

Bottom line is that they're sending me a label. I'm torn because all of my other games work and have worked just fine. I won't die if i don't get to play Tales of Vesperia. FYI, I bought my console new in November 2007.

What do you think, oh friendly CAGer's? Is it worth sending in my console for this problem, or should I just sell ToV?[/QUOTE]

Just a quick bump to get a response from someone....
 
Update. Just checked on my status and it jumped from "We are waiting for device" to
"Repaired or replaced" overnight. Funky. Hope it's a new console and not some refurb
they had laying around.
 
Thanks for the info! How do I find the local distribution center #? Thanks a lot this will help!
[quote name='Mechafenris']Well usually if you can get to their regional center where the trucks go at night, you can usually pick it up before they go out the next day, depending upon when the truck that has your package gets back to the shed. (there's one near lots of towns... my town of 25K has one in it)

Granted, this is a little late for that, but perhaps tomorrow night (or later today by my clock) you might give the distribution center a call and ask when the truck with your xbox on it will arrive at the depot/shed area. Then you can pick it up in person (provided it's not out of your way or you have other commitments.)

HTH. (It's how I used to get all my computer parts a day early back when I was ordering to build my "dream PC"... since the depot was 12 miles away, I could just time (or ask) the arrival and go to their center and they'd get it off the truck for me...)

Oh and depending upon the season (since it's only September), you can usually expect the trucks back in around 6ish or so. Later when there's a rush for packages like around the holidays (that's assuming the UPS goon doesn't give you the time... they're usually good about that, if you call the local distro center of course.... the 1-800 number usually isn't very helpful.)[/quote]
 
[quote name='Viva Las Vegas']Thanks for the info! How do I find the local distribution center #? Thanks a lot this will help![/quote]

I'd start with the phone book to see if they have one listed... if not yellowpages.com is a good start to search for one nearby (assuming your local PB doesn't have it listed)... and ups.com might have a listing for one near you... particularly if there's not one in the town where you live (there usually is one, unless you're close to a large city which would serve as the hub nearby. Usually there is one in most medium to large towns (sometimes more than one)... even in some small podunk towns like the one I live in, based of course on location...)
 
Well, my Falcon ELITE just RROD tonight....that totally sucks. This is either the 4th or 5th time sending a console back to Microsoft. I had a PRO for a while and sold that to my brother in law when I got the Elite. I thought I would be good...NOPE.

The odd thing was, I was NOT even playing my 360....I just turned it on to play for the first time tonight and it froze...then it RROD.

I guess they will EMAIL me a shipping label...so apparently I have to find a box to ship in now....yeah.
 
[quote name='doubledown']
The odd thing was, I was NOT even playing my 360....I just turned it on to play for the first time tonight and it froze...then it RROD.
[/quote]

The same scenario happened to my (non Falcon) Elite. I hadn't been playing it much at all, concentrating on the PS3 version of Soul Calibur... and when Pub Games for Fable 2 came out, I thought I'd give it a shot.. and boom... lockup with nasty screenage. I shrugged it off, decided it was probably something one-time only (games have locked up before)... then when Too Human came out, it started becoming more and more frequent... a hiccup here, a fuzzed screen lockup there. (Most specifically right after I turned the console on after it being off for a time). Then I got the RRoD (thankfully) after I finished the Ice Forest in Too Human. :)

So mine's on its way to la-la land... Mesquite TX for some reason. (I thought it was McAllen?) And I'll see it in 2 to 6 weeks. ;) No coffin sent to my house meant I spent $2 at the UPS store letting them pack it. :)

It's sad to say that the "fixes" aren't assured on the 360. I wonder if rushing it was _really_ worth it? I'm guessing not... and since my _last_ microsoft console failed on me, 2nd time's a charm, but 3rd time is someone else's problem. I'm not going down this road again... and I suspect there are lots of others who would say the same thing after 3, 4, or 5 repaired consoles. *shrug* I will play Too human on my Falcon Arcade box until it dies... the irony of it all is I _assumed_ my Ps2 fat was going to fail on me... after all the horror stories... but it dodged a bullet. Wasn't so lucky this time. *sigh* Oh well....
 
Got mine back, a day earlier than expected. We'll not the one I sent unfortunately. Mine was manufactured around 10/2007, I got one back listed as 01/2008 with a few scuff marks. So far so good. About an 11 day turn around from when I sent mine in till I got a replacement. Fingers crossed dead 360 #4 isn't anytime soon.
 
[quote name='Viva Las Vegas']Got mine back, a day earlier than expected. We'll not the one I sent unfortunately. Mine was manufactured around 10/2007, I got one back listed as 01/2008 with a few scuff marks. So far so good. About an 11 day turn around from when I sent mine in till I got a replacement. Fingers crossed dead 360 #4 isn't anytime soon.[/QUOTE]

I guess 11 Day turnaround is not THAT bad. I hope I get mine pretty quick. I already got my return label in my e-mail. I will be shipping it out (dropping off to UPS) today (9/6). Let's see how long it takes for me.

I'm almost debating on picking up a Arcade 360 for $199 with my GAMERUSH credit. Although, I don't really need two consoles. Just sucks as I had NHL 09 pre-ordered....I guess it's time to finish some PS3 games.
 
Yeah you should probably never dispose of your coffin because you know in the future your going to need it again, even if you get lucky and thats a few years. Just print out the label and be done with it. Turn around time is great because they have so many refurbs right now that as soon as your unit comes in they are sending it off a day or two later.
 
Just got the RROD an hour ago on my Dec. 2006 Hitachi drive version. I have already sent it in once a year ago for a bad "scaler chip", Error 80 I believe. I hadn't played it in a few days days and it died 4 kills into a online game of Bad Company.

Hopefully MS will replace th unit for another with a better disc drive as I've been getting some scratched up discs lately:(
 
My 360 just red ringed. Someone on my friends list suggested doing the penny trick. 12 pennys and a hot glue gun. It voids my warranty, but I'm also concerned with getting a shittier 360-- my 360 never scratches discs or is noisy. What do all of you think?
 
[quote name='Friend of Sonic']My 360 just red ringed. Someone on my friends list suggested doing the penny trick. 12 pennys and a hot glue gun. It voids my warranty, but I'm also concerned with getting a shittier 360-- my 360 never scratches discs or is noisy. What do all of you think?[/quote]

if you going to say screw the warrenty and the MS repair service look into the heat gun trick and the x clamp fix, did both to my launch model 360 works every time for me

 
[quote name='Friend of Sonic']My 360 just red ringed. Someone on my friends list suggested doing the penny trick. 12 pennys and a hot glue gun. It voids my warranty, but I'm also concerned with getting a shittier 360-- my 360 never scratches discs or is noisy. What do all of you think?[/QUOTE]

Penny trick? Never heard of that one.

Oh CAG forums, will you never surprise me?
 
it depends on what it does when it gets there , though if you tell MS when you call them that it happens off and on then i am sure they will list it on the repair tag. Not only that chances are depending on you motherboard version you might just get a whole new Xbox out of it as i don't hear to many reports anymore of people getting older vesion motherboards back from repair
 
The towel trick worked beautifully. No seriously, it was like it was good as new. Noticed NOTHING wrong. I'm still gonna send it in, but I got one last good night of gaming in before I sent it off (may get more if they kindly send me a coffin)
I'll be sure to tell them that it happens on and off, but mostly works when I choke it with several towels for half an hour :lol: Only Microsoft could make a system whose main problem could be remedied with overheating the system.
 
I thought the towel trick was to create RROD, not fix it, so you could send it in for warranty repair. I'm confused.
 
Stupei, Your correct in the sense It's there to give you the full RROD, but people who get the RROD use it to keep their consoles running for a week or two before their coffin arrives.
 
Got my 360 back a couple weeks ago...

I have a question, though. What will happen if we get a RROD after the 3 year warranty? Will we need to produce a reciept or are we out of luck?
 
Bah, sending me a label. Not a bad thing I suppose. Should I play my 360 until it dies again or send it immediately? I did tell them it was an "intermitten problem."
Also, screw off to Microsoft. My power brick makes funny noises, and it sounds like something is loose inside, Not to mention the power cable from the brick to the outlet barely stays plugged in. I asked if I could send it in with my system for replacement, they said no. I asked if they'd give me a shipping label for that package then and they said no.
 
[quote name='bigindian4891']Got my 360 back a couple weeks ago...

I have a question, though. What will happen if we get a RROD after the 3 year warranty? Will we need to produce a reciept or are we out of luck?[/QUOTE]

After the three year warranty of the date of purchase/production of your console you will have to pay $100 for each repair with then a three month limited warranty. In other words, you're probably better off buying a new console once your second or third console dies and your warranty is up. You can also extend your warranty but I'm not sure if you can do that after the three years is up and how much it costs. Keep in mind Falcons are not immune to the RROD and more reports are trickling in of Falcon RRODs so thats why a lot of people are keeping their eyes out on the "Jasper".

Either way MS has a lot of people by the balls. Complaints of paying $100+ are going to get really bad after December/most of the people had their launch consoles die and them and are forced to pay $100.

I'm expecting MS to announce a further extension of their warranty soon or a lot of pissed off customers. Take your pick.
 
Speaking of which, does that mean my 3 year RROD warranty doesn't reset? Meaning that MS can keep sending out shitty refurbs until my 3 years are out, at which point I'll have to buy a new 360 or pay 100 dollars?
EDIT: I think I fucked my 360 up with the towel trick. All of last night, the system worked perfect. I played some N+ this morning, and that was working fine. But when I tried to play Halo 3, the system would lock up or the screen would turn black. I gave it some time to cool, then tried N+. I got through an episode, ALMOST, but then the screen turned bright purple. I wonder if I messed up the GPU
 
[quote name='Friend of Sonic']Speaking of which, does that mean my 3 year RROD warranty doesn't reset? Meaning that MS can keep sending out shitty refurbs until my 3 years are out, at which point I'll have to buy a new 360 or pay 100 dollars?
EDIT: I think I fucked my 360 up with the towel trick. All of last night, the system worked perfect. I played some N+ this morning, and that was working fine. But when I tried to play Halo 3, the system would lock up or the screen would turn black. I gave it some time to cool, then tried N+. I got through an episode, ALMOST, but then the screen turned bright purple. I wonder if I messed up the GPU[/quote]

:shame:

This is why YOU SHOULD NOT TOWEL TRICK YOUR 360!!!!

Just let it die peacefully and call it in.

When MS starts developing a method for detecting towel tricked 360's and screws everyone over by saying towel tricking voids your RROD warranty, then don't say I told you so.
 
[quote name='ITDEFX']:shame:

This is why YOU SHOULD NOT TOWEL TRICK YOUR 360!!!!

Just let it die peacefully and call it in.

When MS starts developing a method for detecting towel tricked 360's and screws everyone over by saying towel tricking voids your RROD warranty, then don't say I told you so.[/QUOTE]
But-but CheapyD said so.
There's a lot of people in this thread that haven't RROD but said they did and got the 360. I'm hoping I should be fine since my system did legitimately break, and under warranty. I won't towel my 360 next time, definitely. I was just pissed that it died on me 12 am on a Saturday night-- that's my my time to play 360!
 
[quote name='Friend of Sonic']But-but CheapyD said so.
There's a lot of people in this thread that haven't RROD but said they did and got the 360. I'm hoping I should be fine since my system did legitimately break, and under warranty. I won't towel my 360 next time, definitely. I was just pissed that it died on me 12 am on a Saturday night-- that's my my time to play 360![/quote]

I need to remove that towel trick from my FAQ section.

Bah..ok next week I am updating it, and I mean it this time!
 
[quote name='Monsta Mack']Yeah you should probably never dispose of your coffin because you know in the future your going to need it again, even if you get lucky and thats a few years.[/quote]

So could I just fake a RRoD, get the coffin, and just say it started working again? That way, if it ever does happen, I could just print the label and ship it right away? Sounds like a good idea...

It isn't technically lying, since I did get a RRoD a few weeks ago. I turned if off, back on, and everything was fine.
 
My 360 makes a high "bee" noise, it's the noise where like, you can't exactly hear it since it's really high up, but you can tell it's there and it hurts your ears. I hope it RRODs so I can send it. I'm pretty sure the noise is from the drive, but I never bumped or damaged it in any way. RROD. RROD. lol.
 
My May 2006 unit just RROD'd. Bummer, thought I'd landed one of the select few serviceable units MS managed to ship that first year! On the bright side I'd been getting sporadic disc read errors on pristine discs, so hopefully my replacement unit'll have a fresher DVD drive.
 
[quote name='Jagged Toaster']So could I just fake a RRoD, get the coffin, and just say it started working again? That way, if it ever does happen, I could just print the label and ship it right away? Sounds like a good idea...

It isn't technically lying, since I did get a RRoD a few weeks ago. I turned if off, back on, and everything was fine.[/QUOTE]

You should always tell them you have RROD even when you have a single red ring. Lately they aren't even checking in the consoles and just throwing the dead ones in the pile, and taking refurbs out of the pile and sending it out. MS "isn't tehnically lying" either when it comes to the RROD being a non-issue with their three year warranty. Again, let's see how pissed people get after December/what MS decides to do when launch/first year 360s are no longer covered for free.
 
Good deal, I'll call sometime soon. Once the RRoD does hit my 360 (which I believe is inevitable), I'll be good to go. I'm liking this idea.
 
[quote name='dfo']My May 2006 unit just RROD'd. Bummer, thought I'd landed one of the select few serviceable units MS managed to ship that first year! On the bright side I'd been getting sporadic disc read errors on pristine discs, so hopefully my replacement unit'll have a fresher DVD drive.[/quote]

chances are you'll ed up with a new lite-on drive, reports from modding websites I've read with a lot of people saying that there repaired systems came back with lite-on drives
 
My June 2006 Xbox 360 just got RRoD, in a way I found it to be a blessing in disguise because I was having issues with my dvd drive, and they wanted me to spend $100 dollars(Which I don't have) to have it repaired. Then like a week later I get the RRoD. Which means I get a free repair. So I'm not too upset about this. But it's still a pain because I was half way through Tales of Vesperia(I would've liked to be able to finish it). But oh well I get a new dvd drive out of it so, I'm happy bout that. Anywho just thought I'd share. Hope all goes well with the repair though.
 
Just curious....has anyone who sent an older console back got a Falcon chipset (or better)? If so, do they also send you a new power supply? I know we only send ths console, but I was just curious.
 
Man, so the rep I spoke with asked me for my email address. He then asked me to spell it. I did, and he read back email address. He had it wrong, so I corrected him. He then read the email address again, spelling it (" 'F' as in Frank, etc) Well it sounded like he had it right that time.
HE STILL GOT IT WRONG. So luckily I checked online this morning since I hadn't received my label. He had my email as "FriendsofSonic." How am I gonna be a "Friends" when I'm one person!
 
The Ironic thing about my Xbox 360 getting RRoD is that one of my friends also got a RRoD on the same exact day I did.
 
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[quote name='GogetaSS4']The Iron thing about my Xbox 360 getting RRoD is that one of my friends also got a RRoD on the same exact day I did.[/QUOTE]

Sounds like a Silver lining to your Iron thing.
 
is the arcade more stable? I would think the harddrive not being there means less of a power draw as well as increased air flow
 
more stable no if it's going to fail it will many people without hard drives had their systems fail just like the people who have the hard drive, all the hard drive is your regular old 2.5 laptop SATA hard drive so it still eats the same power as you PC's hard drive. The whole power issue i am sorry is a joke people are to quick to find a lower wattage power source for there systems case in point like your PC it uses what is needed sure it a waste to hook up a 500w power supply to a system that can get away with a 350w but you still have it and you know you'll never be starved for power were when a electronic power source tires to push more power then it can will heat up and blow a lot faster then one that sits idle. Another fact to point out is that if you unhappy with you power supply you can change it to a PC power supply without voiding your warranty.

http://www.divineo.com/cgi-bin/div-us/zz-36-psucomb
zz-36-psucomb.jpg
 
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360 shipped out today and should get it on Friday. According to the lady I spoke to
at Microsoft I'm getting the same unit back. Poop. I was hoping for a new one.
 
Found this very long article about the history of the Xbox 360. Every statement is presented as matter-of-fact but who really knows if every detail is true or a misinterpretation of an event. Still, the failure/defect numbers are well-documented and astounding and the insider info are very interesting.

http://venturebeat.com/2008/09/05/x...tory-of-microsofts-video-game-console-woes/1/

This statement was surprising if not unexpected as Sony and Apple have the same sort of dedicated fans:

"Bach said that Microsoft’s own research shows that fans continued to love the console and buy games, in spite of the problems with the defective units."
 
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