Ok well I am not new to AZ just this section. Anyway in December of 05 I got a 360 as an christmas present. At the time I got need for speed which I played for awhile but after awhile I lost interest and stopped using it. Then I got Saints row in December of 06 and played that for awhile. So my xbox from me hasnt gotten much use. My sister used it sometimes in there and it gets DVD played on it sometimes. So it has not been used that much.

Now I play on getting more games and taking it to college to with me (my sister says no to that but not my issue). Anyway though I am now scared whether or not my Xbox will last that long. When I had need for speed it froze once and awhlie but not often. However during Saints row it froze a lot more. I would save after every mission just in case.

So here are my questions

1) how long do these things last it seems a lot of people on here they have already died.

2) I was once told by a friend there was a recall on the 360 is there any truth to this? Will this recall prevent me from having the red lights.

3) This is off topic but I got a controller when it was new and it has never worked. Is there something you have to do to make an Xbox controler work correctly. When you push the buttons it just flashes forever.

I really hope it doesnt go out soon. We still have a Nintendo 64 somewhere around here that still runs. I do admit though once and awhile I like to play Zelda Ocarina of Time. That is one of the best games ever made in the history of games at least in my opinion. Pretty Embarrassing that I still play huh? My cousins have an orginal nintendo that still works. They also have a regular Xbox that runs well. So if mine breaks soon I will NOT be happy.

Any thoughts or opinions would be greatly appreciated.

 

If your really worried, Take it and Trade it into Gamestop, some people were saying, they are paying as much as $275 to trade into get a Elite, yes thats $200 more, but u will get a new system, Seems like you have One of the First Batches of 360's so I am sure yours is prone to have problems, but there is many people with first batches still lasting, I heard a rumour about 2 Year warranty on the First Batches, but 1-800-4MY-XBOX would be the right people to tell you if that is true or not.

 

Alright thanks a lot for the information I am going to to call now and get some info about the 2 year warranty. Has anyone here had the recall preformed or is that just a rumor I heard? Also is there anything to can be done to prevent freezing while playing?

 

I don't remember any recall, they did extend the warranty of the launch window consoles to a year from it's original 3 months. That has expired already though.

I've had my controller get confused before, when the battery is low, but a new set or recharge makes it work great again. You could try pressing the sync button on the front of the 360 and on the front of the controller in question and see if they find eachother.

There are different reasons for freezing so I don't think there is one thing you can really do, but keeping it cool is a start. Don't stick it in the deepest darkest part of your av cabinet and play for 6 hours. The power brick also needs good ventilation.

I have a launch console and haven't had any problems with overheating or freezing but I do have the same problem I had with my old xbox, the DVD drive will stop reading and tell me the disk is dirty or damaged (with perfect disks, on 20 different games). I have found that laying the console flat rather than upright helps with this, but it's still annoying as hell, I can't count on how long it will read a disk, sometimes it will go for hours, and others 10 - 15 minutes. I've basically given up on any of the endurance races in forza2 because of this.

 

Yeah I diffenently don't keep it way in the back and it gets good vents so it wont overheat. I will try that with my exra remote with the sync button. I do doubt its the battery though because its never worked right. Since it only froze with need for speed a couple times and it froze with saints row more I am hoping its the game. Thanks again for the advice.

 

I wouldn't play in fear. Just keep it ventilated and play. If it crashes completely or something cross that bridge when you get to it.

 

Its really upto you man, but if it starts freezing more and more, I would get rid of it, before you get the # RED DEVIL LIGHTS, than its useful

 

That is what I am afraid of. I wish xbox would have given us a bigger warranty or something like Acura did with the trannys on the TLs. Also with that issue its like everyone with a failure is on AZ. People have there failures so they search the internet and this site pops up and the join so you can so the majority of people on here have that problem. However, people with a 360 dont search for an Acura site to complain so if the majority of people here are having issues thats bad sign since they didnt come for that reason.

Anyway thanks for your help and I did call the number. Apparently there is not a recall. However to help with the freezing this guy gave me a process to help. He said go into the system section go under memory then hardrive and push Y. Next push XX Left bump Right bump XX. Then choose yes and it clears something out? I am going to try and see if it helps.

Also the back of my xbox gave me a date of 11/19/2005 so I am really hoping for the best. In the meantime I am going to try and find that list of games that arent as good quality as others.

 

Ah, that code clears the cache

http://news.teamxbox.com/xbox/11131/...Code-Revealed/

I've never done it, but I've never had the problem you do. Seems like it's worth a shot.

 

Ah cool read yeah my problems not that bad but I am still going try it. I was told I wont lose saved games with this either correct?

 

Probably not? You tell me.

 

It depends on what generation your box is... I have had 2 replaced, but I got my first gen a month before they were on the shelves (everytenminutes.com). There was also a huge batch of 360's that left the factory without the GPU foil removed from between the GPU and the GPU heatsink which caused video lockups and system overheating. If you can exchange it or send it off to MS, you will most likely get a 3rd - 4th gen 360 which are much more reliable, but have toned down processor and GPU proc. to lower the power consumption and temp.

Couple of tips: Keep it on its side (not standing up) and keep it well vented with sufficiant air flow. Hope this helps

 

http://www.youtube.com/v/GLOPW1Qe1HU

http://www.youtube.com/v/V7sW6VSHlCQ

 

That first video was very funny and the second one had good information. I might be in that dudes time frame because I am 11/19/05 and he said he was 10/19/05 if anything ever does happen.

 

hm well thats good to know and thanks for the tip.

 

hahah right now the freezing isnt too bad but if it gets worse I will try it.