is300eater

what was the down time? (from the day you sent it in)

jiggaman

my 360 just died for second time. probably wont be playing for like a month. this sucks. i hate microsoft.

AznX TL

dec 7th til jan 5th.

thats the slowest i've had though, probably because of the holidays. the other 3 or 4 times ive sent it in it only took 2 weeks.

jiggaman

do you need HDMI cables to upconvert?

is300eater

I believe so

is300eater

damn, how many times have you had to do this?

Costco has confronted me... they let me return for the last time about 6 months ago (I think they tagged my membership or something)... so the next time it breaks down... I'm gonna have to send it in to MS.

AznX TL

i had a launch console but lets see
first 360 crapped out the dvd player (#1)
got that back and got RROD acouple months later (#2)
got that back and got RROD almost a year afterwards (#3)
bought another 360 with an hdmi port and got the one from microsoft back
and the hdmi port just crapped out on dec (#4) so i had to play with the other for awhile.

so i've sent it in 4 times and have had 6 new/refurbished 360s.

jiggaman

360 is a piece of junk

AznX TL

meh, atleast they fix it for free.
my friend's ps3 crapped out on him, and PS wanted $150 to just look at it.

jiggaman

this is true, also forces me to figure out other things to do with my downtime. i am actually reading a book now, Artie Lange - Too fat to Fish. Pretty funny!

Myxomatosis

well, I just fixed my 360, cost $15. I'm tired of sending my broken xbox to microsoft just to get another inherently flawed 360. I used this tutorial
http://www.i-hacked.com/content/view/263/62/
worked great, followed the instructions to a tee. Bolted right together like the girl said, I did one better though. I read up a lot on all the mods everyone is trying with their 360's, and decided to do two of them. I cut out the back of the 360, which really helps move the air faster and sealed up the duct better that channels the air through the heatsinks. I also covered the GPU's heat sink with a piece of plastic and sealed it to the ventilation duct.
Result, I played Forza last night for 6 hrs straight, to really make sure the mods worked. I noticed a 15 degree decrease of the exiting air from the fans. I've always measured this, since it seems to be a good thing to keep an eye on went from 117 down to a peak of 102.
So far so good.

AznX TL

from what i've been reading on, its not the fans but the thermal grease that is flawed on the 360. when my warranty runs out ill start DIY it. but for now since i've had more than just RROD ill stick with the warranty.

Myxomatosis

there's lots of ideas of why it happens, I've got my own and you wont really get a grasp till you have the motherboard on your lap. I did make sure to use the correct thermal grease. Arctic Silver #5. I feel silly not going the warranty route, but I think it was more of curiosity that caused me to breech that warranty seal. Mine had this add on heat sink, that I've yet to see in any other pictures of 360's. Really weird, but I guess that the type of stuff you'll see on a product that as I said is inherently flawed.
edit; in case you didnt look, you'll have to watch the video in that link to see what the major mod was. the fans were an after thought.

jiggaman

its pretty sad how flawed teh 360 design is. thing is loud as hell and runs way too hot.

is300eater

whatever, but in the end... its still a better gaming console than the PS3. Live gaming is better. I can even argue that the graphics is better. I have a copy of COD4 on both consoles.... the difference is night and day (both consoles are setup on the same TV). Go to the official PS3 thread, there are plenty of people having their PS3's taking a dump on them too.

AznX TL

yeah, and DL speeds are way faster than ps3 demo downloads. it took me almost an hr to download 300mb on ps3, as xbox would take like 3 mins tops.

Myxomatosis

well, all the mods for fixing the 360 and even the bitching actually give the 360 merit for how damn good of a system it is. People dont want to let go of it, no matter what the cost. I've heard of people buying 3, so they can rest assured that one of them will always be working. Then there's the price of the PS3... it's ridiculous, Microsoft has the value, games, a multitude of functions and the best online setup.

Shoot, I've been thinking about water cooling mine, sounds crazy, but if done properly it could guarantee that it wont overheat.

Then again, one could buy the new system which has the new cooler running chipset "Jasper."

Sarlacc

never had an issue with either of the two I've owned. And my original was an initial release model. Just wanted HDMI just I sold it.

I haven't gotten the impression they are junk at all. You just have bad luck.

Costco

I had a launch console too, but at times I would leave it on overnight or have people over and go on hours-long gaming binges. Whenever I got really sick or injured I'd sit my lazy ass at home and play for 4 hours at a time.

Eventually my 360 died on me but the replacement I got has been great so far. No graphics delay or anything like that yet. Plus the people that I know who have PS3s don't play the same games that I do (for the multi-platform games like COD4) and I play online mostly, so yeah.

Mizouse

ehh 150 is to fix it if its out of warranty.

jiggaman

bad luck is part of it, but if they weren't made well, how come there are all these aftermarket cooling kits and the red rings of death problem is well known by everyone. if they didn't have many issues nobody would hardly know what the red rings of death are.

even the guy at UPS said he ships tons of these things out to microsoft for repairs.

Doom878

The price difference closes when they are comparable. Add a similar sized HDD, wireless capability, BD player, LIVE and you actually surpass the base $399 PS3. The beautiful thing about the 360 is that you can part it little by little and it's easier to mod.

Sarlacc

PS3 has their problems as well.

Yeah, the whole cooling issue might have been designed better. But as I said, and I had an original unit, I've never had an issue. I keep my unit in an open area with air can circulate.

Myxomatosis

lol, btw about 30min. after I mentioned water cooling, I just went ahead gathered parts from around the house and went to it. Works well, as you can see in the pics, I drilled through the existing cooling fins and inserted 3/16" brass piping. Lines come and go from the mountain dew reservoir using a small water pump I had lying around. I'm into RC models, so this wasn't that big to a deal to do. The top number on the thermometer is the peak output air temperature after 2 hours, after that, the temp started going down
So in all output temp went down from 117 stock to 83 water cooled. I think it's a bigger difference than mere numbers suggest, as that new thermal paste probably is working much better too.

is300eater

a lot more 360s have been sold (vs PS3). as stated already people with PS3s have issues too. It seems like more people have problems with the 360 only because... well.... because more 360s were sold... is that too hard to understand?

So, lets just throw out a number... say 10% of the people with 360s and PS3s had problems with their units...

10% of 360 units sold > 10% PS3 units sold

the total amount of people with problematic 360s will still be great than people with problematic PS3s... BECAUSE.... (and again..) because more 360 units have been sold....is this making any sense?




***I would NEVER make it as teacher... the frustration alone would kill me

Doom878

Unbelievable. Do you have to change its oil every 3,000 miles?

Myxomatosis

what's also unbelievable is how many people have done this already, just google "water cooled 360."

I do actually have to add some antifreeze, I plan on keeping the reservoir and pump in between my window and storm window. But no, no oil as of yet.

AznX TL

man thats crazy
did you keep the fans along with water cooling?

Myxomatosis

yep kept the fans, using both. It's crazy I've got the res outside now and I'm monitoring the temps. I stopped playing for a while and the temp dropped to 50 then I started playin forza and after about 2 hours the res was up to 75....it's 15 outside! the water is definitely removing heat.

Trackruner228

iTrader: (1)

So I am playing my xbox and it freezes. So I just turn it off and on no big deal. Well its still not loading right, and it froze almost instantly. So I turn it off and now back on again and tada the three rings of death.

:thumbsdow:angryfire

I am going to call Microsoft and see what they can do. I also had the TV muted so I have no idea what the sound was doing.

Trackruner228

iTrader: (1)

You know what else I realized its been asking me to update for awhile and I have been ignoring it and I finally tell it yes and it shits out on me a few days later. Fucking piece of shit. To the NXE version or whatever it is.

Trackruner228

iTrader: (1)

Well I just got off the phone with support and not only am I getting it fixed for free but I am getting a extend warranty, and a month free trial to live despite my warranty being up.

SRK85

Microsoft is always friendly with their warranties when its the red rings or anything other than the disc drive. But calling sucks since the tech support people can't speak English well enough. Everyone is better off using the xbox live support through xbox.com.

WdnUlik2no

yep, of the 7 times I had to return my XBOX Pro or XBOX Elite only once have I gotten someone who speaks English and was easy to understand.

Gnate

iTrader: (10)

That's fuckin crazy! haha

What an unnecessary pain in the ass, too bad they couldn't have just built it to be dependable.

Myxomatosis

Be prepared for a rant, I wish I had recorded my phone call to xbox....

So I went even more nutter and bought two cooling blocks, one for the GPU and one for the CPU. It's now run with 1/2" tubing to a 170gph fountain pump and a 15 gal reservoir. It got out of hand because I had to make custom clamp for the blocks, if I tightened too much, I got the ring of death, too little and it overheated. So It had been working fine, but the system was upgraded slowly for aesthetic purposes...well, it started overheating even with the 15gal res. :annoyed, but it wasn't overheating with halo3, just CODWaW. I figure it's the game, so I call xbox.

Oh boy, so I call, the computer answers asking me what is wrong and keeps saying "I'm sorry can you repeat that." It gets to the point that I say, "shut the F%$# up bitch!" Well the phone gets patched through right after I yell that. Indian guy answers, but sounds really smart, so I tell him whats wrong. He keeps repeating questions that are so scripted it wasn't funny. I even told him look it's water cooled, I know it can't be actually overheating. He just keeps saying "ummm well 2 lights means the system had reached a temperature to function.

He was worse than the computer. He says I have to send it in. I'm thinkin, wtf is he talking about, the thing is hacked up and modded, I cant send it in and he knows it. Long story kinda shorter, I play into it and just finish the call. I decided, wait the graphics are crapping out, maybe the block got loose....it did, and it works like a charm now. Just loose from so many moves, they are large hoses after all. I know it sounds like I went through wayyy too much for the stupid thing but it does function, my cats like the water hole and I can play whatever I want in silence.
\end rant. I'd post pics right now, but I've got full sun glaring through my window right now.

Costco

Mine is at 89% avoidance at the moment

Haters.... I think most of it came from when I used to play Halo 3. whenever someone teabagged me after I died, I made them my bitch afterwards. Teabagging me was like pissing off David Banner. I would hunt you down and then after you died, I'd teabag you multiple times at hyper-speed, donkey punch your corpse, shoot you full-auto in the nuts, and throw grenades and bubble shields at you.... EVERY time I killed you.

Now, I only mainly play CoD4 and I don't talk trash at all but my approval percentage has been dropping faster than Bush's during the Iraq invasion

I wonder what happens when I get to 100%

is300eater

you get reps on XBL? I need to go check mine...

PimpCL23

i got a couple complaints for excessive foul language lol.

this was before i realized that when u get close to some of opponents on HALO3 they can hear what u say. so everytime i killed someone.. i would say "fuck u!" or "ahhh ur my bitch now" hahaha....next thing i know i check my rep and it went down. oh well.. i canceled my membership the other day anyway since i dont play online anymore

BigLizard

My rep is at 50%. I honestly don't remember being a jerk on Halo 3.