Sunday, July 1st 2007
Gamer returns his Xbox 360 11 times, is he unfortunate or is there a real problem?
Anyone who's ever had the Red Ring Of Death (the Xbox 360's way of saying it's dead) knows what an unfortunate position they are in. There are various ways to fix the RROD, but most of them indicate that it's time to get a new Xbox 360. Ordinarily, this would not be a problem. In a classic RMA (Return Merchandise Authorization), a customer says they got a broken product, want a new one, ship the broken one to the manufacturer, and get a new one for their troubles.
However, what happens when this keeps happening? A certain Justin Lowe has done this classic RMA procedure with his Xbox 360 eleven times over, and still isn't sure whether or not he'll have to do it again. And with the wide range of problems he's had, why should he be sure? He's lost three Xbox 360s to the infamous red ring of death, two to disc read errors, two were dead on arrival, several had random audio and video-related issues, and one actually exploded. Customer support was at first friendly and fast, but now, it seems to Justin as if they are slow and unhelpful.
Justin also noticed a disturbing trend in the Xbox 360's he gets as "replacements". Unless Justin requests a new Xbox 360, Justin gets a refurbished unit. When Justin did request a new unit, he claims that it took a lot longer than it took him to get a refurbished unit.
This problem would be comical if Justin was the only one who had to return his console several times just to play his games on his console. Unfortunately, it's hardly a laughing matter. Several gamers report that they have had to send in their Xbox 360s, getting nothing more than refurbished units for their troubles. Some gamers might have gone through even more broken consoles than Justin.
After Justin got his 12th console, Microsoft was contacted about this problem. Microsoft confirmed that they are investigating Xbox 360 failure, customer service for people that are unfortunate enough to get a broken Xbox 360, and have shipped Justin a brand new Xbox 360 (Jason also confirmed that; he's probably happily fragging as you read this). Microsoft refused to comment on exact Xbox 360 failure rates. Please follow the source link for a more complete investigation into this Xbox 360 problem.
Source:
1Up
However, what happens when this keeps happening? A certain Justin Lowe has done this classic RMA procedure with his Xbox 360 eleven times over, and still isn't sure whether or not he'll have to do it again. And with the wide range of problems he's had, why should he be sure? He's lost three Xbox 360s to the infamous red ring of death, two to disc read errors, two were dead on arrival, several had random audio and video-related issues, and one actually exploded. Customer support was at first friendly and fast, but now, it seems to Justin as if they are slow and unhelpful.
Justin also noticed a disturbing trend in the Xbox 360's he gets as "replacements". Unless Justin requests a new Xbox 360, Justin gets a refurbished unit. When Justin did request a new unit, he claims that it took a lot longer than it took him to get a refurbished unit.
This problem would be comical if Justin was the only one who had to return his console several times just to play his games on his console. Unfortunately, it's hardly a laughing matter. Several gamers report that they have had to send in their Xbox 360s, getting nothing more than refurbished units for their troubles. Some gamers might have gone through even more broken consoles than Justin.
After Justin got his 12th console, Microsoft was contacted about this problem. Microsoft confirmed that they are investigating Xbox 360 failure, customer service for people that are unfortunate enough to get a broken Xbox 360, and have shipped Justin a brand new Xbox 360 (Jason also confirmed that; he's probably happily fragging as you read this). Microsoft refused to comment on exact Xbox 360 failure rates. Please follow the source link for a more complete investigation into this Xbox 360 problem.
30 Comments on Gamer returns his Xbox 360 11 times, is he unfortunate or is there a real problem?
I bought a Samsung Monitor/LCD TV from PC World and after a while I noticed that the speakers had stopped working. I got it swapped out for a replacement, which had exactly the same problem. The next one had excellent sound but a cluster of dead pixels around the screen. Monitor number 4 had the dodgy sound again.
At this point I said I'd had enough and they said they could send me a new monitor rather than a refurbished unit. I declined and they gave me a letter authorising the store to give me my money back. So although it was all a bit of a hassle, they did make good on it in the end.
Micro$haft should admit that there is a fault with these systems and offer peeps money back or a new console (not one of these refurbished systems)
news.teamxbox.com/xbox/13691/Xbox-360-Pictures-of-the-New-GPU-Heatsink/
my brother has had his since Christmas with no issues so far.
Although MS wont release exact numbers, it seems the attrition rate for the Xbox360 hovers on the 25~30% mark... Some ppl are very lucky, and some not :wtf:
It seems the problem is with overheating, the motherboard bends in some units, causing the CPU and GPU to loose contact to it, and hence the RROD. MS has even tried to prevent this by gluing the procs with epoxy to the motherboards on the new elite model, hope they start doing it with all models of the 360
There are "problems" so you send it to microsoft and they make sure everything else is fine and reset the "problem"-timer.
Thats very stupid of m$, it just delays the problem, if a cooler is poor, get a better cooler design! Heatpipes or whatever, this is ridiculous!
www.llamma.com/xbox360/news/inside_the_xbox_360_elite.htm
Dunno how long the procs will stand the stress, I mean, the BGA packaging doesn't bend as much as the motherboard, in time cracks might develop after many heat/cool down cycles... at least it's a step forward...
LOL.