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Just got it while playing Rainbow 6 Vegas and im pissed. Now i wont be able to play Halo 3 god damn it.

I got the Red Circle, called Microsoft and they sent a box to me for shipping and I got a refurbished one back in about a week and a half. It has been a couple weeks since then and this new one is still working fine (fingers crossed)

I'll fix it permanently for $50 plus shipping.

TheMuffin wrote:I'll fix it permanently for $50 plus shipping.

Ill ship it to micorsoft first that way i can still use the 2 years left on the warranty. But ill keep that in mind if it happens after. So do you know what causes the ring of death to appear and why the towel trick seems to temporarily fix it?

Megatron_Wolf wrote:

TheMuffin wrote:I'll fix it permanently for $50 plus shipping.

Ill ship it to micorsoft first that way i can still use the 2 years left on the warranty. But ill keep that in mind if it happens after. So do you know what causes the ring of death to appear and why the towel trick seems to temporarily fix it?

The X-Clamps that hold the heatsinks on are horrible. When the system starts to get hotter because of the horrible thermal paste they used, the clamps warp, causing the heatsinks to no longer cool the GPU and CPU properly. Hence the 3 red lights error. I'm honestly not sure why the towel trick works though.

TheMuffin wrote:

Megatron_Wolf wrote:

TheMuffin wrote:I'll fix it permanently for $50 plus shipping.

Ill ship it to micorsoft first that way i can still use the 2 years left on the warranty. But ill keep that in mind if it happens after. So do you know what causes the ring of death to appear and why the towel trick seems to temporarily fix it?

The X-Clamps that hold the heatsinks on are horrible. When the system starts to get hotter because of the horrible thermal paste they used, the clamps warp, causing the heatsinks to no longer cool the GPU and CPU properly. Hence the 3 red lights error. I'm honestly not sure why the towel trick works though.

That makes me wonder if the Elite's have the same problem.

Mine's going strong, thankfully.

Although, you'd think with Microsoft's long history of building computers, they'd have reworked the whole 'the 360 has terrible ventilation etc while standing up' thing.(I have mine on it's side)

Microsoft doesn't build computers. They only create software.

And yeah the clamps are the same in the Elite. Some folks will never have a problem though if the clamps were installed perfectly centered. If they're off by even half a millimeter then you can expect to get the three lights eventually. Hell one of the systems I opened up had the clamps off center by almost a quarter of an inch. It was positioned at the farthest limit of the allowed play in the holes they use. I'm astonished at the overall lack of quality control that they used when designing the system....Regardless it's still my favorite console of the last 10 years.

All consoles are at risk. The only 360s that are safe are the ones made in the past month. microsoft has supposedly fixed the problem with those. But ill believe it when i see it.

I got mine last February or so, maybe longer. Only problem I've had from it thus far is a disk read error on my R6: Vegas disk. I think the inter-cooler fans I bought are helping it out a lot, but thats jsut my theory. I've heard the coolers also cause the 3 rings aswell but I guess mine was done right or I'm just lucky.

*knocks on wood*

I had a friend who's died and he cracked it open to sodder the wires back on. bad move. Didn't work for long and no warranty for him. Another one of my friends had his die and the towel trick worked for him until the "coffin" came.

Cowboy Bebop wrote:I got mine last February or so, maybe longer. Only problem I've had from it thus far is a disk read error on my R6: Vegas disk. I think the inter-cooler fans I bought are helping it out a lot, but thats jsut my theory. I've heard the coolers also cause the 3 rings aswell but I guess mine was done right or I'm just lucky.

*knocks on wood*

I had a friend who's died and he cracked it open to sodder the wires back on. bad move. Didn't work for long and no warranty for him. Another one of my friends had his die and the towel trick worked for him until the "coffin" came.

Yeah the towel trick gives me about 5-7 hours of game time before i have to do it again. So i can play until the "coffin" comes. Great sig by the way. UP THE IRONS!

What is this "Towel Trick" you guys keep mentioning?

I've only gotten the Ring of Death once, and that was b/c it got zapped in a thunder storm. I just turned it off and turned it back on. No problem! Though it seems to have a hard time loading or playing little things lately. Maybe it's b/c I was playing an XBox 1 game and the emulation isn't perfect. But I've been playing the GTA games recently, brushing up on the story in preparation of GTA4 even though it's been delayed. And often I'll loose sound effects. Especially while driving. I can hit something and loose the engine sound, but as soon as I let go of the gas and press it again, it's back. Or like during cinematics, half the time the sound will be off! Sometimes a millisecond. Sometimes a minute! 1 time, I entered a build ing and it totally failed to load. I just got a black screen. Couldn't even use the 360 button. That ever happen to anyone?

But back to the topic at hand. Aside from that 1 time, I've never had it happen to me. And I have mine standing up, in an enclosed space, next to alot of other hot machines.

The "towel trick" to put it plainly is a way of suffocating your 360. You take your 360, wrap it in a few cotton towels and let it overheat. Remove the towels and let it sit for a few minutes. After that the system should work for another 5 hours. People have said it causes some solder to reattach itself. I think it's more along the lines of it causing the cooling compound to liquify and recoat the chips again. Hence allowing the heatsink to make decent contact and cool the system. Until the compound solidifies again and your console dies....Again. I say this because I've noticed with the one system I repaired where the guy used that trick, that the compound had literally leaked over the entire chip. Took me a good 4 hours to clean it all off because it had puddled on everything and then solidified into what can be described as modeling clay.

Bump! Just got mine back

Man are the european repair centre slow. My bro got his back 2 weeks ago repaired(badly) his was sent on July 28th, before being sent back out 2 weeks ago and him getting fed up and buying an elite.

My 360 was sent on July 31st, mine arrived back today, and its a reconditioned unit . It took an extra 2 weeks for someone to look at it and say its borked and replace it .

And then there is the condecending letter with it saying how they have given me a reconditioned console to get me back playing my xbox 360 "even quicker" .

The letter also says that they included a card for a free month of Gold, which my brother also got, but was not packaged with mine despite what is stated on the letter.

So much for their motherfracking replacement console. The piece of **** is going straight back to the hell it came from. The huge white turd that is currently sitting under my tv refuses to recognise any of my 3 wireless controllers( the wireless module and the ring of leds are broken as it connects with my GH2 guitar but the 1st quadrant doesn't light up). :-x :-x :-x :-x :-x :-x :-x :-x :-x :-x :-x :-x :-x :-x :-x :-x :-x :-x :-x :-x :-x :-x :-x :-x

I suggest this is where they stick it

Just wanted to say my Wii has never shown any problems, and has been runniny 150% since I bought it. Just like every other nintendo console I own. Not a problem with a single one of them

The Master Blaster wrote:Just wanted to say my Wii has never shown any problems, and has been runniny 150% since I bought it. Just like every other nintendo console I own. Not a problem with a single one of them

Yeah but who wants to play the same 6 games over and over?

Hurrah a 360 that actually works. My brother got his one back from repair again yesterday, since mine is being repaired again and he got an elite he has given me his 360 til mine gets back before he sells it.

TheMuffin wrote:

The Master Blaster wrote:Just wanted to say my Wii has never shown any problems, and has been runniny 150% since I bought it. Just like every other nintendo console I own. Not a problem with a single one of them

Yeah but who wants to play the same 6 games over and over?

Me of course!



I'll get a 360 soon enough. When they're a bit cheaper.





PS I actually only own 6 Wii games atm. Cos pretty much everythin else out is crap in my eyes.

happened to me a month ago. luckily, I got it back in time for Transformers the game!

Got a nice big package through my door today, yep I got my 360 back.... again. Another replacement system this time and has no problems as they gave me a brand new 360

is it worth it to get the little fan that attaches to the back???
aka "intercooler"

Well guys...mine has just given me the 3 red blinking lights.... This really sucks! This baby is a day 1 console. I got it from Gamestop on launch morning (midnight).

I don't know what I am going to do as I do not know if the warranty is still active? I know microsoft has pushed back the warranty but I do not know if it goes all the way back to day 1.

Well this could be a reason for me to get a Elite....still i'm a bit irked since my day 1 console has worked 100% since I got it.

The warranty covers the 3 Red Lights for a full three years. You're still covered.

I dont have three red lights, but My Bioshock is really choppy There is no scratch and this is the second time playing through.

Phategod1 wrote:I dont have three red lights, but My Bioshock is really choppy There is no scratch and this is the second time playing through.

This is a caching problem with the 360 version. IIRC to remove this with bioshock you have to hold down lb and rb when you start the machine until the 2k games logo appears.