My Xbox 360 just died?!

[Jonas_Lindberg]

Hi Everyone

My name is Jonas
I am new to this forum.

I just got a problem with my xbox360.
It started to blink with 3 red lights and refuses to turn on.

I started to look for the problem in Google and found that it is problem that many have had and is called "Red light of death".

I also found a couple of pages that explains it in detail.

http://www.llamma.com/xbox360/repair/Xbox-360-error-codes.htm

http://editorials.teamxbox.com/xbox/1651/The-Red-Ring-of-Death/p2/

http://xbox360redlightfix.com

http://amazh.110mb.com/recommends/redlightfix360

http://www.gamespot.com/forums/show_msgs.php?topic_id=23998153&page=0

The information that I could get for free did not solve my problem.
So my question is could anyone give any advice on how to fix my xbox?
I am short on money so I can't afford to send it to Microsoft.
I don't have any warranty on my Xbox because I chipped it my self so I have opened it up before.

Thanks
Jonas Lindberg

[katzdvd]

Hi Jonas, welcome to the forums!

Sorry to hear about your "Red ring of death" situation. I have heard about the towel trick, never tried it. On a gaming forum a guy suggested putting the xbox in the freezer overnight & then try it out. I have known pc guys to do this for temp. hard drive fixes.

[Chewy]

the damage from the red ring is usually extensive, some report receiving different units back on warranty(used) there's could not be fixed or would take too long

A friend sent his back on the first year before the extended warranty, it came back repaired/same unit

That unit crapped out a year later, they sent him another unit(not his)

he had the extra fan to prevent the red ring

[admin]

Microsoft provides 3 year warranty (from date of purchase) for the red ring problem, and they are very quick in providing the repairs (all free, including postage). I got mine back (a year old machine that died after too many hours of Dead Rising) in under a week, same machine. So far, even playing GTA IV a lot, it hasn't shown any symptoms of the RRoD problem, although it might be showing the early signs of the "disc cannot be read" problem.

My recommendation would be to get it repaired by Microsoft, and then look to sell that consoles and get yourself a new Xbox 360 (with new warranty, newer motherboard/GPU that's less likely to die from RRoD). Microsoft will release a Xbox 360 with a new GPU in August codenamed Jasper, so it might be good to wait until then to get it (that's my plan anyway).

[Altercuno]

My local Game shop (UK) say they send back 4 to 5 Xboxs a week for repair and don't think Microsoft have got a clue what to do about it...

[admin]

I don't know about the situation in the UK, but here in Australia, the turn-around time (time from sending off your Xbox to receiving it back repaired) is around 7 days. You don't deal with the store you bought it from, as Microsoft requires you to contact them directly for a repair order as well as free shipping labels. You can do this anytime within 3 years of purchase, if the problem is the RRoD one. If people are giving them back to stores (and I know some who have), then they're doing something wrong and they won't get their Xboxes back in good time. Whether the repaired console will continue to cause RRoD problems in the future is another point though, and I recommend people off-load their repaired 360's and exchange for a new one (with a new warranty). A clever suggestion I've read for those who can't offload their 360's, although illegal, is to use the repaired 360 as your main console, and get a new one that is modded but not hooked up to Xbox Live. But most game stores still do trade-ins for 360's, you will usually get half of the cost of a new 360 back.

EB Games here I think even provided extended warranties that exchanges broken 360's with new ones, but they ended up with a bunch of broken consoles that Microsoft refused to repair - not a very smart move.

Sony are doing a rather poor job of fixing the PS3's drive reading problem themselves, which costs $200+ after the 1 year warranty expires. The stated turn-around time is 20 days, but many people have waited much longer, only to get a console back that still doesn't read Blu-ray discs. There is a forum I read where a game store owner of a small town said that out of the dozen or so PS3's he's sold, more then half have had this problem.

[Altercuno]

I agree with you admin about dealing with MS direct. Perhaps sending the machine back through the retailer is an easier option. Sending something through the post here can be very risky - hope I don't get to find out. I was more interested in the comment about MS being clueless about what to do about it.

I have a ps3 so I can look forward to that failing as well? Great...

Have to get my old Spectrum out of the attic...

[admin]

The extent of the PS3 problem isn't well known at the moment, but there does seem to be an awful lot of reports of the problem. Hopefully it's just a problem with earlier models.

[Altercuno]

Yeah I had not heard about it until your post, but most of the limelight for knackered consoles has been taken by the xbox.

I had a look on some forums and they are saying the ps3s lend to fail while playing online with certain games. Machines tend to be 4 months old.

Its hard to get a clear picture as you know what fanboy forums are like - 5 posts in they start slaging each other off (you're an $sshole, no you're an $sshole, no I called you an $sshole first), and the thread goes up in flames.

A good modding and made to stand in the corner whats needed...