officespace56

Anyone who has a 360 has either gotten or heard about the 3 red lights of death, signifying(spell?) that there is a hardware failure in the system. This is the third 360 that I have had the 3 red lights . Anyone else having this problem, or a solution? Now I gotta send the thing in to get repaired and it will most like be 2 months or so( of course after I buy the 3 month xbox live membership).

GottaHaveIt

what is the red light issue ? I gather it just doesn't boot or nothing. Humm maybe they were all built to blow up at the same time. terrorists best .

officespace56

Not sure what you mean about not booting, but.... the power button the the 360 has a ring of lights around it that usually turn green when the system is on, and when something is wrong, red lights come on. If it is 2 red lights or 4 red lights, there are trouble shooting options. If you get 3 red lights, the manual says send it in.

ewingfly

Ya I remember some talk about that. I think they called it the ring of death. It happened to one of my freinds and he took it back to the place he bought it from (meijers or target I think) and they exchanged it for him. Try that. Mines been good since the day I bought it.

officespace56

I did an exchange on the previous 360 to get this one. That was over 6 months ago so the store won't do the exchange after 90 days. Thanks for the tips though!

Knight

one of my friends went bad and they didn't have that warrenty extension yet, so he got rid of it..then he bought an elite. and about a month ago it went toast too. he just got a refurb elite back from microsoft.

sound wave

i had the ring of death. i called and they sent me a pre-paid shipping box within 3 days of my call. i sent it back by ups and i got my console back within 1 1/2 weeks with the new circuit board and upgraded cooling system. i also got a 1 month free x-box live card for my troubles.

the xbox has a serious flaw with the original design, but at least they are manning up to it.

fordboy97f150

yea, the intercooler helps bigtime to prevent overheating which is when most of the failures happen

officespace56

I just bought a 3 month live membership a day before it broke down. Should I just give em a call?

fordboy97f150

calling would be your best bet, they could either cancle it and credit to you when your xbox comes back or re-imberse you maybe give you a longer membership for your trouble, sound angry but dont be an ***

Boomer

The Red Ring is "General Hardware Failure"
but in most cases is caused by the GPU failing/overheating.

Most of the time they won't repair your unit, they'll just send you a refurbished one with the new heatsink and new GPU.
Mine is going in for this shortly...

MS has extended all xboxs (even new ones) with a 1 year warranty (up from the previous 90 days) and all older ones prior to a certain date have a 3 year warranty ONLY on the Red RIng (3 lights)

All new XBox360s with HDMI on them "Pro" and "Arcade" models (as well as newer "Elites" won't have this problem.
They have the new heatsink, and smaller die'd CPU as well as HDMI on board.
(correction not GPU..thats next year)

If you call to get repaired/replaced... ask them regarding the live membership.
IIRC they can't suspend the account till you get it back, but they will just give you an extension...but definately ask.

Boomer

Shoulda waited... all people got reimbursed if they paid for any repairs on the red ring

Knight

did you see my first post. my friends elite fried as well. so the issue is still going.

Boomer

NEWER...
when was the manufacture date????

All newer ones have Falcon boards... (65nm CPU/90nmGPU) with new heatsink and DVD drive
Older Elites have Zephyr boards (90nmCPU/GPU) and are still prone to the overheating/GPU problems.

My PRO model (yeah I bought a new one too. will either sell the refurb or use it on another TV..) was manufactured Sept 07 and has the newer sink, quieter DVD drive and smaller die.
http://www.anandtech.com/gadgets/sho...spx?i=3152&p=3

There will eventually be a Jasper board next year with 65nmCPU/GPU and smaller RAM chip sizes to cut down on cost and heating even more.

Knight

ah i didn't catch the "newer" part. He bought the elite when it first came out.

Boomer

http://www.anandtech.com/gadgets/sho...spx?i=3152&p=1

Cool article on the Falcon board and explanations

08GTCandyApple

I hope they resolved the issues since I have 2 of them with HDMI sitting under my tree for each of my boys.

Fordman351

Im on my 5th 360.This one is a newer premium with HDMI and no problems so far. I keep an external cooling fan blowing on it whenever im playing. So far so good. Ive got the extended warranty so when this one goes the next one will hopefully be the last one i'll ever need to get. LOL

Boomer

Check the site i posted to see if they have the newer 65nm chip...
Also it seems after reading the article the die on the GPU is also a tad smaller... 80nm???

And look at the power consumption.
The newer ones use less power playing a game, then the old ones do sitting idle on the dashboard...hahaha..

Knight

where are you seeing power consumption info? i didn't see it on that page or a link to taht.

can you post a link?