XBOX 360 ROL
Our XBOX 360 has just suffered the "ring of Death". For those who don't know: upon Power Up, the Ring Of Light indicator lights up red in 3 of the 4 quadrants indicating that there is a hardware failure. Naturally I uttered several profanities due to the box being 16 months old and out of warranty.
Now reading the Oh sugar Help! posting from vanman I was about to get the soldering iron out and stand in a bath of superheated water with a towel wrapped around box in order to fix it. But my Guardian Angel got the better of Lucifer (aka Vanman) and I googled the problem to find that Bill and the boys had introduced an enhanced 3 year warranty for this problem.
One can only assume that there has been a lot of XBOX ROL failures and therefore the XBOX was getting bad press. So now the box is winging it's way to Germany for repair courtesy of a pre-paid label.
Anyone else had this failure? I was wondering how long it would take to get the replacement back ( I understand they just do a swap out)
Mine took just over 3 months. It was a very slick reporting/collection but after that it was all down hill. I heard they just swap them over and I insisted that I got mine back, not some one else's! took alot of arguing with them but I insisted on mine as I knew the history behind it and its age. (with some ones else you have no idea how its been looked after or indeed how old it is). I kept a note of every number/marking on the case. In the end they informed me they had lost in there work shop and would look to replacing it with a new one - this was on a friday evening, on the saturday morning it turned up at my house. We got one months free live membership (after losing three months with no box!). that was over 15 months ago and no further problems
Mine bit the dust a couple of months ago after 2 years good service. I researched the subject and found that the x-clamps and heatsinks are so poorly designed, I was extremely tempted to 'do a vanman'. I did however, see sense and send it off. Just over a week from UPS collecting it to receiving a fixed 360. Not a bad turnaround, although I don't think the one I received was my original 360.
It happened to my Brothers 2 years ago, so he bought a new one and sent his old one for repair (still under warranty then), when it came back he gave it to my son. One year later it happened again, got it repaired again this time with the extended warranty and free months xbox live.
My opinion, only a matter of time til it happens again,
If you read up about what actually triggers this problem, it's quite shocking. If I remember rightly it's something like the heat sinks are held on via the x-clamps, which in turn are held on by part of the inner casing of the 360 and a few flimsy pieces of solder. If MS would've invested in screws rather than solder, I think many of the RROD would not have happened.
My understanding is the new models have fixed the problem. So if possible, get yours switched.
Also, do you think we can get "vanman" in the dictionary:
vanman [vanman] 1. an adult male who drives a wagon or motortruck used for transportation;
2. an action of extreme stupidity ("to do a vanman")
When the 360 first came out I worked at an unnamed big electronics retailer. We knew exactly how many 360's went out each week (they all came at once and I was in the dept. that dealt with them) and I can tell you that 1 in 8 came back within the 30 day return period with a failure.
IA few months ago I was chatting with a friend who still works there about the problem and he reckons the failure rate is exactly the same now as it was then. Makes me wonder whether the relatively competition-free (lets face it three companies do not a competition make) market allows for Microsoft to dodge the cost of revamping the machine. Although they appear to have changed it recently as it now supports 1080p which it never did before.
Of all 360 owners I know who have suffered the RROD myself included, We have all had our units collected and returned (not replaced) in just over a week from date of collection. On all ocasions the problem was the same, a fried Main Board due to overheating.
Now I have since modified mine and changed the entire casing to a Silver one and installed a Water cooling system withfantastic results as not only does my 360 not get hot but it also runs silently as there is no cooling fan.
A cheap and effective prevention is to buy a External Extra cooling fan for about a tenner which work a treat on porlonged gaming sessions but personally I think mine looks much better in Silver!
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So basically, when things get realy hot theres nothing like a good screw to fix it.
My understanding is the new models have fixed the problem. So if possible, get yours switched.
Also, do you think we can get "vanman" in the dictionary:
vanman [vanman] 1. an adult male who drives a wagon or motortruck used for transportation;
2. an action of extreme stupidity ("to do a vanman")
maybe in a thesaurus under botched, vanmanned
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Friends' X360's have taken between a week and a month to return and it is definitely a common problem.
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