The famous Red Ring of Death is nothing new to anyone that has been playing video games the last couple of years, specifically anyone who has owned an Xbox 360. There have been many tails of people sending back easily a handful of Xbox’s to Microsoft because of the dreaded Red Ring, between the editors here alone we have sent back over a dozen easily.
In a recent article an independent company put out some stats:
Over 18 million Xbox 360s have sold through since the console’s launch in November 2005, but just how many of those are still working? Squaretrade, a company that specializes in providing warranty support to purchasers of electronic goods from various manufacturers, claims 16% of Xbox 360s experience a hardware failure within six to ten months after a warranty purchase. Three out of every five failures were for the infamous “Red Ring of Death” general hardware failure error, a problem often linked to overheating.
That many returns is a bit ridiculous and those numbers could even go higher with prolonged usage. Not a reigning endorsement for a quality product from the MS camp.
The article even goes on to talk about some helpful remedies, i.e. putting a fan on the back of your system, which should not be necessary if these units were engineered correctly from the get go. They even reference the famed towel trick, which only works for a short time so don’t depend on that to save you.
Hit the jump for some hints on how to not brick your 360.
[Via Yahoo Games!]
Thanks to Omala03 for the tip.
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August 17, 2007 – 4:45 pm
Some of our readers have been plagued with Xbox 360 problems and are stressed becasue they are not sure where their machine is after they send it in for repairs… worry not anymore MS actually has given us the ability to track repairs and service to your registered machine now.
Click here to sign up.
From the stie:
Registration, Warranty and Repair Service for Devices
To begin, please sign in using your Windows Live ID account.
Your Windows Live ID helps keep track of your registered devices and allows us to provide you with the highest quality service experience.
I believe the first step in solving a problem is admitting you have one. Myarcadeplanet has reported that Microsoft will be manufacturing their very own first party cooling devices. I understand the third party devices that are currently on the market and I hear they are doing reasonably well, but with the new three year warranty and now this, a reasonable person would have to believe a full admission is coming soon to the heating problems.
In an effort to boost stability, Microsoft has been putting in an additional heat sink on the graphics chip of refurbished Xbox 360’s as of late. Now, that added heat sink is in all new Xbox 360 Elite models being shipped. Ben Heck, modder extrordonaire, took apart his newly purchased Elite to find the change.
This is good news for people thinking about buying an Xbox 360 right now, as the stability problems have been widely publicized.
I’m going to take Ben’s word on this one. I’m not about to void the warranty on my Elite and see if I have the new heat sinks.
I have the Today Show on this morning, for God only knows what reason. They had a segment on about video games, again, who knows why.
The interesting part of the segment is that their “tech guru” told consumers to stay away from the Xbox 360 because of the massive hardware problems. He let everyone know that Microsoft issued a 3 year warranty extension amounting to $1 billion. The “tech guru” indicated that is is the same as a recall without the legal issues surrounding an actual recall. Microsoft would not confirm to him what is causing the hardware problems, but he advised all consumers to not buy an Xbox 360 until at least the end of the year.
Along with this, he strongly recommended the PS3 and Wii for their very high reliability and technological prowess. Letting everyone know the PS3 is a much stronger machine than the Xbox 360 and it’s recent $100 price drop, the “tech guru” encouraged users to grab one. He also talked up the Wii’s motion controls and innovative games, and also informed consumers of the high demand that’s still around.
It was actually a decent segment, better than I had expected. I wonder how much effect this will have on the Xbox 360? Millions of people watch the Today Show every morning. I’ll try to find a video later today and post it up for you.
Apparently Robbie Bach admitted to the media in a conference call that all Xbox 360’s have a design fault which may cause them to fail within the first 2 years of console life, as being reported by LazyGamer.
This honestly doesn’t surprise me. I’ve personally gone through 7 Xbox 360’s, and have tons of friends who are on at least number 2.
In the conference call, Robbie Bach told everything this design flaw only recently surfaced. I’m calling Bravio Sierra here. These things have been failing like crazy for almost 2 years now. You really mean to tell me the design team JUST found what’s causing the problems?
Microsoft recently increased the 360’s warranty to 3 years because of these problems. You’d think they’d just fix the damn thing already.
You read correctly. This is an OFFICIAL press release from Xbox stating that they will pay everyone back who had to have their Xbox360 repaired due to the RLoD. Also, the new 3 year warranty will be extended for the price of on the house to anyone in the world who has the console. The new warranty is very specific and will only deal with issues that result from the RLoD and not other problems. You can contact Xbox by following the above link. I can’t say anyone saw this coming.
