The Red Ring of Death strikes again
The Red Ring of Death nicely accents the faux wood finish.
"On a long enough timeline, the survival rate for everyone drops to zero," wrote Fight Club author Chuck Palahniuk. The same, it would seem, is true of Microsoft's Xbox 360 video game console. The general hardware failure known as the Red Ring of Death has affected many thousands of consumers (Microsoft won't say exactly how many), including nearly everyone we know in the video game industry (and that's a lot of people). However, our main Xbox 360 console has always been fine, and is arguably one of the oldest systems still in the wild, with a manufacture date of October 29, 2005.
That is, until this past Sunday, when after playing a little Call of Duty 4, our system froze up while on the Xbox dashboard. Rebooting the system led to the now-infamous red lights around the power button.
Fortunately, Microsoft has received reasonably high marks for its extended no-questions-asked warranty program for the Red Ring of Death, which started over the summer and will reportedly cost the company up to $1.15 billion. On the Xbox support Web site, the company says it has had, "an unacceptable number of repairs to Xbox 360 consoles," and the current three-year warranty is long enough to cover any system purchased since the system's launch.
We'll be packing our old Xbox 360 up for return this week, and hopefully it will go as smoothly as we've heard from our friends and colleagues.
New York native Dan Ackerman, a former radio DJ turned journalist, has written about technology and music for publications including Spin, Blender, The Hollywood Reporter, and USA Today. He hosts the weekly Digital City podcast and the New York edition of Editors' Office Hours. Dan's new album, Tales Out of Night School, is available now. E-mail Dan.
I am really mad that someone who shelved 400$ on their crappy console cannot get proper support because they feel my country is not worthy of their support. Shame on you microsoft!!!
My XBOX 360 has been down since August 11th...My Original I bought on October 7, 2006 and crashed the beginning of August with no picture. I called and the said they would send me a new hd/video cable and I would have it in 7-10 days...2 weeks later nothing. I called and they said I was supposed to send in my cable, but they didn't tell me this so they sent me one anyway. Got the cable and it didn't work, so they sent me a box to send in my system, and I mailed it on 9/15 they received it on 9/20...I was supposed to have back in 3-4 weeks and they would call me once they received it to confirm the serial number and such.
I called after two weeks and then after that weekly, every time I called they had no information that they had the console, after 5 1/2 weeks they decided to send me a new one.
I received the replacement console on 10/31/07 (manufacture date 10/14/07), 5 days later, I get the red ring of death.
They now want me to send it in for repair and I told them no, they should send another replacement console because I am not waiting another 3-4 weeks and have them lose another console.
This is absolutely ridiculous.
But what if you get over excited and the players that are playing start pressing every button on there controller 5 times per second.. isnt that kinda like over loading the cpu? Well it has to take in all the buttons you press and make all the movements go on the screen... maybe thats the problem??
Or maybe some people need to stop playing 24/7 and let the thing rest and take a breath!!, and so do you!!!!
Hopefully I don?t get the rings again. So sad, such great games but such a crappy unit. People bash the PS3 but yet honestly, it?s had no issues what so ever.
I guess this is what happens when u buy Microsoft. SAD.
I should have known better being a longtime windows admin...but I didn't. And to respond to the post about people doing something that could cause this, I don't think so...When you get one out of the box new and it fails with the RROF you know there must be a major design flaw.
It's not news, and feels a bit like a contributor abusing his perks to get his grievance a bit of extra visibility.
Microsoft's cop'd to the unacceptable console failure, extended the warranty, and your box -- by your own admittance -- is an old box that falls in this high failure group.
By sticking this on the front page, and saying the "The Red Ring of Death strikes again", you intentionally or unintentionally imply that new 360s are having the same failure rate. That's not true, and it undermines my confidence in the quality of the stuff I should expect to see on this first page.
My own Xbox 360 died, Microsoft fixed it for free, it was inconvenient, but I'm back in the game.
But I think posting this piece on the front page of CNET is creating a false impression you're reporting on a resurgence of an old problem.
And I don't work for Microsoft or anyone associated with them.
- Another 2005 system falls
-
by sakanagai
November 13, 2007 7:15 PM PST
- I had mine also get the red lights, though mine immediately followed an "update" to Madden 08. It did eventually start up again, only to have the same thing happen to a movie I was watching. I've just shipped the system on to the repair center this week.
-
Reply to this comment
-
Showing 1 of 2 pages (48 Comments)I got my system at launch and was pretty sure I was now safe from the horror stories concerning the console. It's reassuring (to some extent, at least) that I'm not the only one with this problem.