And there went my second 360.

[blurredvision]

Well, after a pretty exciting day, I sold my old TV and picked up a new 42" LCD 1080p set. So excited was I, I threw in my M:I3 HD-DVD in the 360, and marveled in the sharpness and color of the picture. I still have it hooked up via component, so the dashboard showed at 1080p fine, but the movie would switch to 1080i.

So, I switched back out of the movie, and fired up Gears of War. The first thing I noticed was the backlight bleeding I was getting in upper right (which is very noticeable, I'll have to see about getting that fixed), but I decided I'd hop into a game to see what it would look like. While Gears was loading, I'll be damned if I didn't get the jarbled mess of a screen. I immediately knew what was coming. I rebooted the system, got the same thing at the splash screen. Next reboot resulted in the 3 red rings.

Needless to say, 1080p apparently killed my 360. IMO, the system hadn't even had time to warm up yet after being off for a few hours, so I'm not sure how heat would've affected it so quickly. Oh well, this was my second 360. My first lasted 8 months from purchase, one which I swapped out for a new unit at Walmart, the one I have now. It was brand new, and lasted for 10 months.

I need to decide now if I want to go through the Microsoft warranty merry-go-round, or if I should look into doing the x-clamp mod, something I've heard of, but know nothing about.

EDIT: I'm going to keep a log of the turn-around for repairing my console.

1. Console died on Friday, August 17th, 2007. I called in to start the in-warranty repair the night of the 17th.
2. Received shipping box via UPS on Monday, August 27th, 2007.
3. Shipped console out via 3-day prepaid UPS label on Tuesday, August 28th, 2007. Box is headed to a Texas repair facility, from Kentucky.
4. Package was received at repair facility in McAllen, TX the morning of August 31st, 2007.
5. When phoning support to check on the status, they said that the 360 was entered into their system on September 1st, 2007. The call was made the morning of September 7th, 2007, at which time the guy said it was still being diagnosed, and a "new unit" (his quote) would be most likely be shipped in 3-5 business days.
6. System was boxed and billing information sent to UPS on September 14th, 2007. Packed was actually shipped on September 17th, 2007.
7. Received refurbished system on September 20th, 2007. So far, so good!

 

[Farmer]

Sorry about that man, but I guess you do expect more heat than usual when you migrate to a higher resolution (in this case, much higher).

 

[CrackRabbit]

That sucks dude. I would go the MS route and hope the refurbed console you get back has the updated heatsink in it.

 

[bucwylde23]

I'd go the MS route and get it taken care of before Halo 3 arrives

 

[blurredvision]

When you get another unit back, what is the warranty on it? Does it start over fresh with a new year "bumper to bumper" and 3 year RROD? Seems like I read that somewhere, but can't remember.

Atleast it's not a week before Halo 3 comes out or anything.

 

[tdawg]

Originally posted by: blurredvision
When you get another unit back, what is the warranty on it? Does it start over fresh with a new year "bumper to bumper" and 3 year RROD? Seems like I read that somewhere, but can't remember.

Atleast it's not a week before Halo 3 comes out or anything.

My console died tonight (had it since 10/06). After speaking with MS support, I can confirm that they told me I will get a 1 year warranty from the date I get my replacement console (4 to 6 weeks after they receive it. I just got Madden and was only able to get 2 games in before the 360 kicked the bucket). They didn't mention 3 additional years of the RROD issue, so can't tell you if you get a fresh 3 years.

 

[Queasy]

Originally posted by: blurredvision
When you get another unit back, what is the warranty on it? Does it start over fresh with a new year "bumper to bumper" and 3 year RROD? Seems like I read that somewhere, but can't remember.

Atleast it's not a week before Halo 3 comes out or anything.

Link

Any replacement parts or Xbox Product will be new or refurbished or serviceably used, comparable in function and performance to the original part or Xbox Product and warranted for the remainder of the original Warranty Period or 30 days from the date of shipment of the Xbox Product back to you, whichever is longer.

I'd go with an exchange with MS as well. Getting a system with the extra heatsink can't do anything but help.

 

[tatteredpotato]

You have my sympathies, but part of me wishes mine would die again. It freezes a lot but it's out of the general 1 year warranty so RROD is the only thing MS will take it for. Maybe I'll just upgrade to an Elite sometime instead.

 

[BDawg]

The console may have a 33% failure rate, but it has HALO!

You may not be able to play it, but it'll be there.

 

[EvilComputer92]

I'm having some issues with my 360 as well. For the past couple months, the DVD drive randomly makes a screeching noise and slows down, then starts to make clicking noises as if the disc is stuck. It's happening very often, but it doesn't damage the discs in any way. Is it worth calling MS? I got RROD last year, but I think my warranty has since expired. Not sure what to do, don't want it to cause any trouble once all the games start coming out.

 

[blurredvision]

I called late last night and started the process of the warranty repair. Man this really sucks! I feel like my brand new TV is completely gimped now, because all I have to fall back on is OTA and cable HD channels (which look absolutely fantastic, so it's not a big loss). The thing that sucks is that when my 360 is out of service, so is my HD-DVD player .

 

[tatteredpotato]

Originally posted by: blurredvision
I called late last night and started the process of the warranty repair. Man this really sucks! I feel like my brand new TV is completely gimped now, because all I have to fall back on is OTA and cable HD channels (which look absolutely fantastic, so it's not a big loss). The thing that sucks is that when my 360 is out of service, so is my HD-DVD player .

You can use it with a Windows PC. You need to "borrow" some software, like a software player and maybe the tool to remove HDCP (depending on your video card).

Power DVD works good for me for a player, and AnyDVD HD works nicely if you need around HDCP.

 

[DaveSimmons]

Time to pick up a $350 PS3?

Curse of the Golden Flower, The Fountain, The Prestige, Pirates otC, Spider-Man trilogy in October, 5 free B-list movies . . . .

 

[Aikouka]

Well, the GPU and CPU do have to do more work in 1080 rather than 720 for decoding the VC1 streams. I don't know how well the GPU in the xbox 360 takes over the task of decoding VC1 though and I don't think there's really a good way to test it. Most games do not actually render in 1080 but are resized by the hardware scaler in the XBOX 360, so 1080 wouldn't make a difference as compared to 720 when it comes to the GPU itself.

 

[Farmer]

Originally posted by: Aikouka
Well, the GPU and CPU do have to do more work in 1080 rather than 720 for decoding the VC1 streams. I don't know how well the GPU in the xbox 360 takes over the task of decoding VC1 though and I don't think there's really a good way to test it. Most games do not actually render in 1080 but are resized by the hardware scaler in the XBOX 360, so 1080 wouldn't make a difference as compared to 720 when it comes to the GPU itself.

Interesting to know. I was debating whether using the 360 on a 1080p-capable display would reduce lifespan (due to excess heat) and create problems (due to GPU capability limits). I guess I have my answer there.

 

[Newfie]

*Pats release console*

Sorry to hear about that m8. Good luck on getting it replaced.

 

[bob4432]

i have taken a lot of temp readings and the gpu heats up really quick. just when you turn it on, say if it is sitting there @ 77F, within just a minute or two w/ just the dashboard it will already be ~100F, so even if it was on for just a bit, it could be at max temp in no time.

the other thing is that both the fans are controlled independently and they don't kick speed up until ~180F (well at least the gpu, the cpu never gets that hot, at least not yet), which i can't understand why ms would do this - why not make it 70C?? and this is a temp reading on top of a heatsink, so the core would probably be warmer.

 

[PricklyPete]

Do the warranty...its painless and fairly quick. I'm sorry this occurred right before Bioshock's release...that would suck.

 

[PricklyPete]

Originally posted by: DaveSimmons
Time to pick up a $350 PS3?

Curse of the Golden Flower, The Fountain, The Prestige, Pirates otC, Spider-Man trilogy in October, 5 free B-list movies . . . .

This is not a bad idea at all...and I would have considered it if the PS3 had the $350 deal when my 360 died.

 

[blurredvision]

Originally posted by: PricklyPete
Do the warranty...its painless and fairly quick. I'm sorry this occurred right before Bioshock's release...that would suck.

On Thursday night (it died on Friday night), I was contemplating reserving one of the last 4 LE editions of Bioshock at Gamestop. I'm glad I decided not to now .

 

[tatteredpotato]

What TV did you end up getting?

 

[randay]

get back a falcon ftw?

 

[blurredvision]

Originally posted by: ObscureCaucasian
What TV did you end up getting?

Vizio GV42LF - 42" 1080p....and it looks absolutely brilliant.

Originally posted by: randay
get back a falcon ftw?

If there is a way to tell from the info sticker on the back, I'll gladly let you guys know what I get. That'd be sweet, especially since I'm sure that I'm sending mine in after the initial rush after the new warranty announcement. I'm looking forward to hopefully getting back a completely quieter system like the other guy here posted about a week or two ago.

Actually, now that I think about it, my brother sent his 360 off to repair last week (3 rings on his, obviously), so we'll see what he gets back in a week or two. He said he called for service on the 3rd, got the box in the mail on the 9th, sent it back out on the 18th, and they received it on the 16th. Hopefully he'll have it sent back pretty soon and get it back by the end of the week. Although he's lucky in that he works at a rent-to-own type place, and he's just been borrowing one of their units on the house for the past couple of weeks.

 

[tatteredpotato]

Originally posted by: blurredvision

Originally posted by: ObscureCaucasian
What TV did you end up getting?

Vizio GV42LF - 42" 1080p....and it looks absolutely brilliant.

You know I just read that Vizio was the biggest LCD manufacturer last Quarter (based on units shipped).

 

[BDawg]

Originally posted by: randay
get back a falcon ftw?

Unless something changed in the last few days, they're not available.