siderealshift
CAGiversary!
My Xbox 360 was working great until I started playing Splinter Cell Conviction tonight. I thought I was in for some stealth-action fun times, but instead I was suddenly met with a weird pixel pattern and a horrendous noise, which caused my system to become completely unresponsive. This freezing problem always shows up ~5 min after starting the system. The pixel "noise" pattern looks something like this (picture taken after rebooting the system and starting the Forza 3 demo):
After talking with someone on the Xbox support line for 45 minutes and trying all of their troubleshooting procedures, it looks like this is a serious hardware problem. Also, since this is not an E74 or a RROD, and my system is more than a year old, they want $99 to fix it (a "deal," the person on the phone told me
). I could buy a new Arcade for $200, so I'm not leaning toward this option.
So, what should I do? It's not like my life is empty without a functional Xbox 360, so I'm not really in a huge rush to get it fixed... but I would like to get it fixed ASAP. Is this going to eventually turn into an E74 or a RROD? Can I MAKE it turn into an E74 or a RROD? My system was purchased in March 2008 according to Microsoft (it was actually December 2007, I think), so if it will eventually E74 or RROD on me, I should be able to get it fixed under warranty, no?
I'm sure a lot of you have had this happen before, so I'd really like to hear what you ended up doing, or what you would do in this situation. Any advice/recommendations would be appreciated!
Thanks!

After talking with someone on the Xbox support line for 45 minutes and trying all of their troubleshooting procedures, it looks like this is a serious hardware problem. Also, since this is not an E74 or a RROD, and my system is more than a year old, they want $99 to fix it (a "deal," the person on the phone told me

So, what should I do? It's not like my life is empty without a functional Xbox 360, so I'm not really in a huge rush to get it fixed... but I would like to get it fixed ASAP. Is this going to eventually turn into an E74 or a RROD? Can I MAKE it turn into an E74 or a RROD? My system was purchased in March 2008 according to Microsoft (it was actually December 2007, I think), so if it will eventually E74 or RROD on me, I should be able to get it fixed under warranty, no?
I'm sure a lot of you have had this happen before, so I'd really like to hear what you ended up doing, or what you would do in this situation. Any advice/recommendations would be appreciated!
Thanks!