ring of death on 360

[masterg]

have an Xbox360 and was playing halo3 live. had halo3 since it came out and been playing it every couple nights. tonight after my first match, the screen died to vertical blue lines, and the xbox started blinking the 4 red ring of death. any idea?

[Kobalt]

You need to RMA

[trance565]

RMA and hope the next box lasts longer

[YukonTrooper]

RMA. There are about 20 different things that could be wrong. You are fail safe with Microsoft's new three year warranty from purchase date policy. Here is a story of my excellent customer experience with Micrsoft...

About a year ago I purchased a refurbished 360 off of eBay and ran into the three red light problem. Fortunately it was in the first 30 days I purchased it and the seller was happy to replace it for me. Downside? It was another refurbished unit. This meant that the box obviously had problems in the past but I have never had problems with refurbished products. I decided to save some money rather than worry about the unit being past broken and then repaired. Anyways, my second unit also started having the three red light problem after the 30 day warranty instilled by the eBay dealer. However at this time Microsoft had just acknowledged the faults with the 360 and the new three year from purchase date warranty had taken effect. My refurbished unit was from 2005, so I was within the date requirement, however the warranty sticker found underneath the front panel had been cut and therefore any warranty is supposed to be void if not repaired by Microsoft. I called Microsoft at any rate and decided to give it a shot not knowing if it was MS who repaired my 360 or some random Joe Schmoe. I did not tell them that the sticker had been cut and just played along with the process. They asked for the serial number for the Xbox and there had been no prior history which meant indeed some random nub had attempted to repair the box. I thought "Crap I wonder how this is going to go over.". I decided to send it away anyways to see what happened. All shipping is paid by Microsoft and they send you a box first that you send back to them with your console inside. At the time there was a high number of units being repaired because of the policy being fresh, so they said it would take awhile. Indeed it did take 3-4 weeks but when I received the package back I was more than ecstatic. They had not repaired my Xbox but had replaced it with a BRAND NEW, NON-REFURBISHED 360. How f'n cool is that? This was last month and the console's manufactured date was half a month prior to that. I sent them a 2005 console with warranty sticker cut, USB port flap broken off, plus cracked faceplate and they sent me a brand new spankin' freshly off the assembly line Xbox 360. Encore Microsoft encore.

[zanzabar]

halo3 kills the 90nm cpus so thats probly your couse of the ring o death

[IFMU]

Overall I do have to agree with Yukon Trooper, M$ has done a dayumed nice job with the whole 360 and RRoD problem(s).
While I personally don't own one, my sis/bro in law do.
The first time they called into M$ they had to do a few tests and resetting of the software. Which seemed to fix the problem for a week or two.
Once it started back up, they called again and were given the details and info on sending in their unit.
It was about 2 or 3 weeks turnaround for a replacement/repair.
I am unsure which was done for them, never had the chance to check it before they sent it in or when it got back.
The replacement/repaired unit has worked flawlessly since though.

So while you do have a bit of turnover time, it is not too bad IMO all things considered.

Again, agree with Yukon Trooper, kudos to M$.

[Kobalt]

There's always this guy (http://www.curtpalme.com/CRTforSale_Misc.shtm#XBOX360Repair) who will fix your RRoD xbox if there is no warranty for some reason. I know him personally, and he is very trustworthy.

[Sparky]

halo3 kills the 90nm cpus so thats probly your couse of the ring o death

:eh:

[trance565]

if MS doesnt fix it, i would tinker with it, see if you cant fix it, and if you cant, send it in to the guy for a hundred bucks.

[Mudkips]

Overall I do have to agree with Yukon Trooper, M$ has done a dayumed nice job with the whole 360 and RRoD problem(s).


I have to disagree with you. The correct thing they should do is a recall on all xbox 360 since its a design problem and not a case by case issue. Now of course this would pretty much kill off the whole gaming division as the cost would be insane but imo thats what they get for selling untested hardware.

My Jun 2006 360 died on me in May of this year, when I sent mine in I got a referb that had a somewhat banged up exterior which pissed me off but at least I could play my games. This referb dies in July and again I get it back only to have it fail late September (yes I am one of the unlucky ones to have multiple systems fail), by this time I am not only furious but sick of not being able to play the software I bought and absolutely no confidence in their product or making me happy. After the last repair I promptly sold it and will probably never buy another Microsoft console again.

tl;dr: All 360s and even the new ones have the same design flaw and will fail at some point. This to me is inexcusable and unfair to customers who have invested a lot of money into the software and accessories for the system. My advice to gamers thinking about buying a 360 is wait for a total redesign of the system.

[coyotetu]

That's complete and utter rubbish, Mudkips. I have a friend in the 360 Repair and Refurbishment division of Microsoft that directly deals with these issues. I cannot speak for your experience, but I've confirmed with him the true extent of this "design flaw". Only five percent of total units sold have had this problem and been sent to them for repair, mind you, that's in the area of 500,000 units at the time he said this (some months after the warranty extension), but it's a relatively low percentage all the same. This vocal minority and alarmism tiff is getting quite tiring.

[Mudkips]

That's complete and utter rubbish, Mudkips. I have a friend in the 360 Repair and Refurbishment division of Microsoft that directly deals with these issues. I cannot speak for your experience, but I've confirmed with him the true extent of this "design flaw". Only five percent of total units sold have had this problem and been sent to them for repair, mind you, that's in the area of 500,000 units at the time he said this (some months after the warranty extension), but it's a relatively low percentage all the same. This vocal minority and alarmism tiff is getting quite tiring.

Typical response, I am used to it though as I had the same attitude at one time. Why are you tired of it? I and the millions of other owners are the ones who should be tired of it. Investing money into software for a gaming platform that I cant use is very frustrating not to mention the fact that they will send you a barrage of refurbished systems to save themselves money but screw the customer over since they are nearly guaranteed to fail.

Oh and I don't buy any "I have friends at MS" as it seems everyone doing damage control for them has one. Besides, that 5% is a carbon copy of MS's official statement. 33% is the official statement from retailers and this figure is only from retailers and doesn't even include the returns direct to MS. So you either made up your friend or he is full of crap.

Go to any console game forum xbox or not and there are threads about this all the time. Retailers are dropping any kind of instore warranty on these things (something you very rarely see). I have 3 good friends who have all sent in their xboxes at one point for repair, 2 of them who are on their 2nd one.

I am only telling people who are thinking of purchasing to beware that they will have a good chance of the experience I have. If it bothers you that much, too bad, just ignore it.

[coyotetu]

Typical response, I am used to it though as I had the same attitude at one time. Why are you tired of it? I and the millions of other owners are the ones who should be tired of it. Investing money into software for a gaming platform that I cant use is very frustrating not to mention the fact that they will send you a barrage of refurbished systems to save themselves money but screw the customer over since they are nearly guaranteed to fail.

Oh and I don't buy any "I have friends at MS" as it seems everyone doing damage control for them has one. Besides, that 5% is a carbon copy of MS's official statement. 33% is the official statement from retailers and this figure is only from retailers and doesn't even include the returns direct to MS. So you either made up your friend or he is full of crap.

Go to any console game forum xbox or not and there are threads about this all the time. Retailers are dropping any kind of instore warranty on these things (something you very rarely see). I have 3 good friends who have all sent in their xboxes at one point for repair, 2 of them who are on their 2nd one.

I am only telling people who are thinking of purchasing to beware that they will have a good chance of the experience I have. If it bothers you that much, too bad, just ignore it.Again, a vocal minority, I'm not running around spouting off at the mouth that my Xbox is functioning perfectly, I have no reason to do so. The people that plague those forums feel they have a reason to do so, I'd probably be mad if my 360 failed as well, but it isn't going to.

By retailers I'm assuming you mean Gamestop's numbers, entirely taken out of context and misconstrued numbers. In regards to returns they count almost any return as defective, it doesn't matter if the USB port cover's spring came loose or if it actually did have RLoD, they don't verify these things, and Gamestop doesn't send these units back to Microsoft for repair and analysis either. They have their own in-house warranty repair, there is no reliable data on these claims, because they have no obligation to release any actual figures other than this sensationalist 33% load of bull.

Oh no, I haven't made anyone up, trust me, he does have access to objective figures of this defect and he has no reason to lie to me or anyone else. You can believe these muddled figures and whatever subjective experience your friends have had, but I'm more inclined to believe someone that actually has a hand in repairing these "defects".

[YukonTrooper]

Typical response, I am used to it though as I had the same attitude at one time. Why are you tired of it? I and the millions of other owners are the ones who should be tired of it. Investing money into software for a gaming platform that I cant use is very frustrating not to mention the fact that they will send you a barrage of refurbished systems to save themselves money but screw the customer over since they are nearly guaranteed to fail.

Oh and I don't buy any "I have friends at MS" as it seems everyone doing damage control for them has one. Besides, that 5% is a carbon copy of MS's official statement. 33% is the official statement from retailers and this figure is only from retailers and doesn't even include the returns direct to MS. So you either made up your friend or he is full of crap.

Go to any console game forum xbox or not and there are threads about this all the time. Retailers are dropping any kind of instore warranty on these things (something you very rarely see). I have 3 good friends who have all sent in their xboxes at one point for repair, 2 of them who are on their 2nd one.

I am only telling people who are thinking of purchasing to beware that they will have a good chance of the experience I have. If it bothers you that much, too bad, just ignore it.
Perhaps you should have read my post a little more closely. I sent in an Xbox that had the warranty sticker cut and had been clearly opened. I received a brand new unit fresh off the assembly line, not some refurbished unit. Microsoft has spent over a billion dollars on their new warranty program for the 360's. They released a three year warranty on Xbox's from purchase date and that is quite generous. Get your head checked man.

[DilTech]

4 ring of death?

The hardware issue is THREE LEDS. This is what the warranty covers.

4 leds is usually the video cable. Anyone with a 360 can confirm this, merely unplug your video cable and then turn it on and you'll see it boot with 4 flashing red leds. Try it yourself.


halo3 kills the 90nm cpus so thats probly your couse of the ring o death

It's not the cpu that dies on these, it's the GPU. The new 65nm cpu systems are still just as liable to die as the 90nm ones.