Updated: August 12th, 2007
So there I was last night watching a movie and enjoying the 4th when I got the Ring of Death on my Xbox 360. At first I thought “Ill just turn it off and on again it will be fine”. But its as dead as Anna Nicole Smith. Now I might understand if I was playing some game like Forza 2 and the system crapped out on me but all I was doing was opening the tray to get the movie out. And this happens after all the reports of the 33% failure rate on the 360.
So what I thought I would do is keep this post updated with a time line of getting the console sent back in, repaired and returned to me. I hope its just a new console and not a repaired one but that’s just hope. Lets begin.
Edit: After posting this I saw the letter that Peter Moore put on Xbox.com about extending the warranty of all the consoles that have had or will have the ring of death to 3 years from the date it was purchase. Good timing and about time.
July 4th, 2007 – Console shows the 3 red rings after pushing the open tray button after watch a movie.
July 5th, 2007 – Called Xbox support and Max (there so friendly automated answering machine) told me to take the power off the console and remove the hard drive and and then plug the power brick back into the console. Did so and still have the rings. After about a 20 minute wait I got a real person. She sounded older but was very nice. Told me to do the same thing that Max did but this time to plug the power brick into the wall and not the surge protecter. Did that and the rings are still there. After going over my info she gives me a number to put on the console and said the a box would be showing up in 7 to 10 days for me to ship my console back to whoever going to fix it. So it should be here between July 12th and the 17th. Here is the support page if you get the three red rings.
July 8th, 2007 – There is a post over at Aeropause that is telling what Mark Methenitis was told about not plugging in your system to a surge protector is pretty much the same thing that I was told. There is even a Microsoft Knowledge base article that says the same thing. This is what the person at 1-800-MY-XBOX told Mark.
The Xbox 360 is highly sensitive to reductions in power, and even the slightest cut in power can cause things like the fans and even the DVD laser to malfunction. Surge protectors can cause this, and probably 90% of the consoles they see have all failed in 6-12 months of being plugged into a surge protector.
July 16th, 2007 – The box to ship back my 360 showed up today. I was thinking that it would be a little better box then it was. It looks like an office box with two Styrofoam ends, a plastic bag and a return label. I will drop it off sometime tomorrow and track it. Some photos of the packing are up on Flickr.
July 17th, 2007 – I dropped off the box to be shipped and the guy there asked where it was going. Before I could even answer he asked me “Xbox?”. I told him yes it was and he said ok. I told him I needed the tracking number and as he went to get me a copy of it I asked if he has been getting a lot of 360′s in to ship back and he just said “Yep.”. This doesn’t look good.
July 21st, 2007 – The Xbox showed up at the repair place in TX. on the 19th. Here is the tracking info. Now I wait.
MC ALLEN, TX, US
07/19/2007 12:08 P.M. DELIVERY
07/19/2007 6:18 A.M. OUT FOR DELIVERY
07/19/2007 5:15 A.M. ARRIVAL SCANSAN ANTONIO, TX, US
07/18/2007 11:24 P.M. DEPARTURE SCAN
07/18/2007 9:01 P.M. ARRIVAL SCANMESQUITE, TX, US
07/18/2007 4:26 P.M. DEPARTURE SCAN
07/18/2007 7:01 A.M. ARRIVAL SCANFORT WORTH, TX, US
07/18/2007 6:02 A.M. DEPARTURE SCAN
07/18/2007 5:26 A.M. ARRIVAL SCANWICHITA, KS, US
07/17/2007 9:38 P.M. DEPARTURE SCAN
07/17/2007 8:23 P.M. ORIGIN SCANUS 07/05/2007 9:44 A.M. BILLING INFORMATION RECEIVED
July 25th, 2007 – UPS called today and said a package for me would be coming tomorrow. I did ordered anything else so I guess this my Xbox. The only problem is that there times for dropping it off sucks more then the cable people. It should be here ‘sometime‘ between 8am and 7pm and I have to be the person who signs for it.
July 28th, 2007 – I now have my Xbox but its not the one I sent in. Seems they have given me a new Xbox 360. Not a big deal but the manufacturer’s date on the back is only 4 months past the one I sent in. So that means that nothing was fixed, only replaced. That also means that I could get the red rings again. Not cool. But I did get a free month of Xbox Live. Guess I will use it if I get the red rings again.
August 12th, 2007 – During all this, Erica Ogg from CNET Networks was asking me some questions for a story she did on the Xbox repair process. You can read that story here.
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i got the red rings of death out of no where like everyone else and called microsoft immediatly cuz im crazy and am willing to talk to an indian woman for 45 min at any givn moment. well she said id get my coffin within a week I wated for about a week and a half and then said fuck it ill send it in myself. it was pretty easy and wish i did it in the first place cuz gears of war 2 jus came out. so it finaly got there after a week then everytime i checked repair status it said i had no xbox repairs associated with my windows live id. then i called xbox and had a nice repetitive conversation with max and then had a shity talk with a mexican and half the time i think he would start speaking spanish. due to some complications i had to make two new windows live acounts and all kinds of shit. in the end he told me my xbox was fixed alredy and has been sent to me. so now im tracking it and it just says orign scan and over this time my friend bought gears2 and has ruind half the story for me so what the hell do i do now. and just so i can. rlat with everybody else…………………………FUCK U MICROSOFT U SUCK AND HAVE NOTHING BUT ILEGEAL IMMIGRANTS DOING UR DIRTY WORK AND I HOPE BILL FIRED U ALL!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
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