I have been having some disc read errors on my new replacement 360 and I have examined the discs and they are perfectly fine, so I decided to give good old Xbox customer service a whirl. I call up and get the robotic voice called “Max” steers you through their crappy menus. The automated voice first tells you if you are calling about a refund request please hang up because they will send it when they get around to it and you don’t have to do anything. I try to navigate through the menus to get some technical help and instead get a list of things to look out for and one of the most frequent problems is 3 flashing red lights on your screen. I then get to another set of menus that states they are the top ten ways to troubleshoot your system, let me list a couple out for you to judge:

• Cycle the power on the console, turn it off, wait 30 seconds and then turn it back on (reboot)
• Make sure the system isn’t overheating, “let it breath”
• Check all cables are connected properly, unplug and re-plug connections
• Turn off console, remove accessories, plug in and re-connect system, re-start (reboot)

I like how the majority of the suggestions are just to restart your machine, it kind of sounds like windows troubleshooting, when in doubt reboot. I then spoke to a real person and they gave me more brilliant advice. She told me to clear the cache (didn’t tell me how), take off all the accessories and to create a new gamertag!? WTF does that have to do with a disc read error? She then proceeded to tell me that she couldn’t help me without the serial number of the unit and told me to go to www.xbox.com and look at the troubleshooting section there. All I can say is that the interaction with customer service hurt my brain and did not help in the least bit.