Nov 12 2007

The Red Ring of Death strikes again

The Red Ring of Death nicely accents the faux wood finish.

"On a long enough timeline, the survival rate for everyone drops to zero," wrote Fight Club author Chuck Palahniuk. The same, it would seem, is true of Microsoft's Xbox 360 video game console. The general hardware failure known as the Red Ring of Death has affected many thousands of consumers (Microsoft won't say exactly how many), including nearly everyone we know in the video game industry (and that's a lot of people). However, our main Xbox 360 console has always been fine, and is arguably one of the oldest systems still in the wild, with a manufacture date of October 29, 2005.

That is, until this past Sunday, when after playing a little Call of Duty 4, our system froze up while on the Xbox dashboard. Rebooting the system led to the now-infamous red lights around the power button.

Fortunately, Microsoft has received reasonably high marks for its extended no-questions-asked warranty program for the Red Ring of Death, which started over the summer and will reportedly cost the company up to $1.15 billion. On the Xbox support Web site, the company says it has had, "an unacceptable number of repairs to Xbox 360 consoles," and the current three-year warranty is long enough to cover any system purchased since the system's launch.

We'll be packing our old Xbox 360 up for return this week, and hopefully it will go as smoothly as we've heard from our friends and colleagues.

Posted in: Games and gear
Tags: Microsoft, Xbox 360, Red Ring of Death
 

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Add a Comment (Log in or register) 46 comments (Page 1 of 4)
Sorry to hear it, guys...
by benpatt November 12, 2007 8:23 AM PST
...and welcome to the club. You'll find there's a lot of us here. :)
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International xbox 360 customers left hopeless
by Darth-Mike November 12, 2007 9:15 AM PST
I live in Venezuela and bought my xbox 360 through amazon.com, 3 months later I suffered from the infamous ring of death. I called microsoft support in my country and they said they could not do anything about It because the 360 was not officially launched in my country. This is bull because you can find the 360 in most stores and microsoft has headquarters here in my country. I am really mad that someone who shelved 400$ on their crappy console cannot get proper support because they feel my country is not worthy of their support. Shame on you microsoft!!!
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Xbox break, Xbox "fixed", Xbox breaks again......
by Kielarosa November 12, 2007 11:15 AM PST
I got the red ring of death shortly after getting Halo 3 (worst timing ever!) and sent it back in for repairs. I will admit that it was a fast turn around and I got my system back with in two weeks. But now when I turn on my system it will just have the power light on and nothing comes through the TV... I tried turning it off and on several times as well as unplugging it and plugging it back in to no avail. All of a sudden i turned it off and then back on and it worked! I called Xbox about this and person there said that the only thing they could do is have me send it in again for repairs. I asked for a supervisor and ended up being put on hold for literally 45 mins. waiting for a supervisor... I hung up. I'll try again soon hopefully with better results.
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Mine went down about a week after Halo 3 launched.
by markdc1 November 12, 2007 5:43 PM PST
Mine went down about a week after Halo 3 launched. It took 19 days to get it back.
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Best buy warranty well worth it on xbox 360
by sting7k November 13, 2007 9:42 AM PST
I normally do not get warranties with most products I buy. However my xbox 360 purchased in May 2006 the $40 I paid was worth every penny. You get unlimited exchanges for brand new consoles off the shelf with everything no need to deal with MS or wait weeks, just walk in tell them its broken and grab a new one off the shelf. I did this at best buy, have exchanged my console 2x, they do let you keep your HDD to preserver your saved games and gamer profile. I would recommend this to anyone who buys an xbox 360.
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RROD in 4 Days
by jacasto November 13, 2007 9:51 AM PST
Avoid the XBOX 360 like the plague. My XBOX 360 has been down since August 11th...My Original I bought on October 7, 2006 and crashed the beginning of August with no picture. I called and the said they would send me a new hd/video cable and I would have it in 7-10 days...2 weeks later nothing. I called and they said I was supposed to send in my cable, but they didn't tell me this so they sent me one anyway. Got the cable and it didn't work, so they sent me a box to send in my system, and I mailed it on 9/15 they received it on 9/20...I was supposed to have back in 3-4 weeks and they would call me once they received it to confirm the serial number and such. I called after two weeks and then after that weekly, every time I called they had no information that they had the console, after 5 1/2 weeks they decided to send me a new one. I received the replacement console on 10/31/07 (manufacture date 10/14/07), 5 days later, I get the red ring of death. They now want me to send it in for repair and I told them no, they should send another replacement console because I am not waiting another 3-4 weeks and have them lose another console. This is absolutely ridiculous.
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What the heck do you guys do with them???
by skyline6 November 13, 2007 10:18 AM PST
Well i cant fight it because there are so much people that met the ring of death.., But i still wonder... Is it something the player duzz to freeze the system and open the portal to the ring of death? (this all sounds like a sci-fi movie)! Try to remember anything wierd that happened right before the freeze.., like if you run a lot of programs on a computer and try to make it multi-task while burning a dvd, downloading, rendering video and playing a game.., well thats like imposible! ur computer would sooo freeze!!! But what if you get over excited and the players that are playing start pressing every button on there controller 5 times per second.. isnt that kinda like over loading the cpu? Well it has to take in all the buttons you press and make all the movements go on the screen... maybe thats the problem?? Or maybe some people need to stop playing 24/7 and let the thing rest and take a breath!!, and so do you!!!!
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First my HARD DRIVE DIED then the RINGS.
by minaeione November 13, 2007 10:42 AM PST
I bought my 360 in July and about a month later my system stopped recognizing my hard drive. Sad because I have a lot of stuff on there. So I called the 1800 number, I was given a reference number and told ill get a box in the mail. So I waited and waited and nothing...At this point I had stopped playing my 360. So one night I had a few friends over and as soon as we turned the system on, I got the RED rings. SAD!!! I called again and they told me ill get a box and blah blah. I said yea I?ve been waiting for your box for the hard drive for weeks now... She?s like we don?t send boxes for the accessories but only the unit. Anyhow, I bought a new hard drive off eBay and sent in my 360. They send over a new unit, saying the one I had was unfixable. But then again, I have issues with this one too, but it still works. Hopefully I don?t get the rings again. So sad, such great games but such a crappy unit. People bash the PS3 but yet honestly, it?s had no issues what so ever. I guess this is what happens when u buy Microsoft. SAD.
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Interesting...
by RRosal November 13, 2007 12:06 PM PST
one has to wonder why Microsoft didn't want to join in on the Folding@Home project...perhaps they knew that pushing their 360's processor to run the kinds of calculations required for F@H would cause an even earlier RROD situation? Hmmmmm....
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I wonder why....
by BillJr106 November 13, 2007 12:46 PM PST
Why is it that I myself own three Xbox 360's, one of which was from launch day. I bought 3 on launch day, 2 were for friends. Bought another one for my nephew which sits in his 90 degree tiny little 8 x 10 bedroom with zero ventilation. Yet all of these machines work fine and have not had any red rings of death. I'll admit there is clearly and over heating problem (or some other chip failure problem), but I honestly think it is less of a problem then is talked about in the press. Regardless, even if the earlier machines did have problems, atleast they are replacing them free of charge. We also have yet to see any of the newer 60nm chip systems crashing. Although I am sure there are reports, I believe they are caused by people who made them crash. Or the stories are made up. In either case, you cant deny that it simply has the games....
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