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Red Rings of Death Cont..

S

stumben32

Member
So, I posted my rant about about the Red Rings of Death, now I have some real information. If this is old news, then so be it, it is all new to me.

I got on the phone with MS 360 support last night - and it was rather surprising.

For the record, I was pleasantly surpsised that this guy was really cool and knew what he was talking about ( or seems so ). I told him about my friends experience with being told to replace their hard drives and he said whoever told them to do that gave them a crock of sh**.

So I detailed my issues with the xbox, which started around November with Increasingly more frequent Read Errors. Told him about the 3 red lights, the buzzing sound / checkered screen , at which point I cannot start up the unit.

The first thing he asked as if I had been playing Halo 3. The answer is no _ I do not have it. The next question was if I had Mass Effect. Thats when my heart sank a bit - because Mass Effect is the ONLY game I have been playing - ( in fact.. one of the main reasons I got a 360 in the first place ).

As many of you may already know - Halo 3 is known to be defective ( some discs ). But it gets worse. It actually screws up your Xbox 360. The same is true for Mass Effect , it has not been *official* yet but it will be very very soon.

The problem is with the THICKNESS of the CD. Hardly noticable by the naked Eye. Frankly.. I did not buy this when he first told me.

Because of how tight everything is in the 360, even the slightest thickness variation causes a laser-burn in problem. In some cases it can even scratch the laser. Because of the way the 360 operates and memory is stored ( it is constantly reading and saving data - especially in Mass effect ) after then burn in problem happens on your CD, and you get those read errors - its actually screwing up your Drive and in some cases, the laser.

** edit.. this is what he told me... more or less. Bogus or not.....I am not sure. Just me starting a conspiracty theory? Feel free to debate 🙂 **

He told me to take my cd, turn it over and look real carefully under light. There is a visisble RING around the CD... about 1/4 from the center. This is evidence of the problem.

Defective disc, that damages your drive.

MS will replace Halo 3 discs .... but not Mass Effect ( YET ).

The good news is he took me through a ton of steps to correct the issue on the unit. He said that it MIGHT be temorary though. Short version - you need to clean out all the bad sectors which means deleting EVERYTHING Halo 3 or Mass Effect related.

It worked, my 360 is running other games again - but I cannot use Mass Effect. If the problems are permenant they will replace the unit when the Mass Effect defects become officially announced.

Once again - I might be posting old news...so ..sorry if I am.
 
Originally posted by: stumben32
Because of how tight everything is in the 360, even the slightest thickness variation causes a laser-burn in problem.
Click to expand...

The laser in the 360 is not a writing laser, its a reading laser.
 
Interesting... I've never had a problem, but my friend just told me he's on his 2nd Mass Effect disc as they were getting messed up. The first got all scratched up in his drive, so he got a new disc - put it into a completely different console - and within an hour or so of playing it got a large crack in it. Literally, cracked right down the middle.
 
I have to admit, it seemed far fetched to me too.

But... it worked.

There are a bunch of steps to do this that.. I am hesitant to list here -- because really you should call support.

But I have to wonder how many people have gotten their 360s replaced.. only to have the same problem happen again .. because its not so much the 360 is defective ( flawed ..yes )... its the damn discs.
 
Originally posted by: stumben32
I have to admit, it seemed far fetched to me too.

But... it worked.

There are a bunch of steps to do this that.. I am hesitant to list here -- because really you should call support.

But I have to wonder how many people have gotten their 360s replaced.. only to have the same problem happen again .. because its not so much the 360 is defective ( flawed ..yes )... its the damn discs.
Click to expand...

Could you just list them anyway? It'd be interesting to look at.
 
Originally posted by: Aikouka
So your XBOX RRoD'd but you fixed it by removing Mass Effect saved data? 😕
Click to expand...

Yes, but its more than that. FIRST I had to clear out the on board memory - so I could even access the saved data! I dont know how anyone would know to do this unless being walked through it by tech support.
 
Originally posted by: stumben32
Originally posted by: Aikouka
So your XBOX RRoD'd but you fixed it by removing Mass Effect saved data? 😕
Click to expand...

Yes, but its more than that. FIRST I had to clear out the on board memory - so I could even access the saved data! I dont know how anyone would know to do this unless being walked through it by tech support.
Click to expand...

I just cant imagine that a game disc would cause a general hardware failure... no matter how "thick" the CD is pressed.
 
you can just access the save data from the console blade under memory and delete it there.

This is getting even more unclear
 
I'll offer up the first "I've never had a 360 RRoD on me so the problem must not be that bad!"-style anecdotal evidence:

After 3.5 playthroughs, I have 80 hours into Mass Effect without a hitch (or incriminating ring on the disc, for that matter).
 
I could not boot up the unit to access anything.

Until I removed the HD.

At which point I had to follow like 10 steps to access a device options - then system maintenance screen I had to punch in a crap load of codes ... which is why I am not going to even try to post it - I didnt write it down.

It was something like xxypumberxxybumperxxy. Then there is a system maintenace screen.

THEN I could put in my HD, reboot and essentially reformat the drive.

Moral of the story -call support. And I was curious if anyone else has gone through this with tech support. Maybe I am one of the lucky ( or unlucky ) first people to hear this.

Funny I thought everyone would just tell me that this is old news 🙂
 
As if RRoD wasn't enough... ugh.

Why is Mass Effect's DVD thicker? I am sure there are a lot of DVD9 (dual layer) games out there.
 
Originally posted by: Dacalo
As if RRoD wasn't enough... ugh.

Why is Mass Effect's DVD thicker? I am sure there are a lot of DVD9 (dual layer) games out there.
Click to expand...

Thicker DVDs are needed for all the virtual interactive rape scenes.

Back to the OP....I'm taking this with a Rosie O'Donnell sized grain of salt unless I hear something official. This just sounds....I don't want to sound conspiratorial and say something like dubious....but let's just say I'm skeptical.
 
Originally posted by: Dacalo
As if RRoD wasn't enough... ugh.

Why is Mass Effect's DVD thicker? I am sure there are a lot of DVD9 (dual layer) games out there.
Click to expand...

I have NO idea. I put the disc next to another one and there is NO noticeable difference. Maybe this part of the explaination is false... I really do NOT know. But there IS for sure an odd ring on it, one that I do not see in any other discs. New meaning to the rings of death?

You know, Infinity gave me a similar explanation regarding our Qx4's CD changer. We went through 2 of them! He said that SOME cds, especially the burnable ones have the slightest thickness difference which causes jamming in certain cd players - especially changers. That also sounded bogus to me. They replaced our changers for free thankfully. I stopped using burned cds out of fear but I always doubted it.

Moral of the story - call tech support if your having issues, ask about defecting Halo 3 or mass effect disks? 🙂

 
The damage to your game discs is an issue with the dvd drive itself.

RROD is a general hardware failure, visit xbox-scene forums. they have a list of secondary error codes. More often that not its the issue with the soldering, but it applies to other errors to.

You probably had bad sectors or soemthing got corrupted, on your hard drive.

Halo 3 issue is the scratched discs from poor packaging. That is the only thing Microsoft is replacing. Any claims them replacing them because its destorying your system is BS. CS asked about halo 3 because Microsoft right at the onset admitted that the collector edition discs had packaging issue that scratched hte discs up and they would be replacing those copies.

While thickness maybe a problem, chances are that the drive will be damaged before it can kill the whole system. Hell the discs will probably crack before that happens.

If the discs the factory got were defective, it'll probably affect more titles than just Mass Effect. Unless they just happen to load all the defective discs into the machine that pressed Mass Effect.

Oh and here's what you did

--==Console Reset Codes==--
Clear All Installed Game Updates and Console Cache
Go to the "system" blade
Select "memory"
Press Y on the HD symbol
Press X,X, Left Bumper, Right Bumper, X,X
A message will appear saying: "Do you want to perform maintenance on your Xbox 360 storage devices?"
Select Yes
 
Originally posted by: stumben32
because Mass Effect is the ONLY game I have been playing - ( in fact.. one of the main reasons I got a 360 in the first place ).
Click to expand...

The good news is that Mass Effect is coming to the PC, although I guess the news is a little too late for you.
 
The Xbox drive is pretty crappy if a slightly thicker disc and damage the laser.

Maybe people should turn their Xboxes upside down like old Playstations. Maybe that'll help.
 
How would the extra thickness scratch the laser? If the thickness is greater, the distance from the laser and the bottom of the disk doesn't change, since the disc is held from underneath. Any extra thickness would make the top of the disc closer to the top, and there's plenty of room for that. The most that could happen from the unnoticeable extra thickness is that the layer of the disc with the data is slightly higher, and I guess that could cause read issues, not sure how the laser works so I don't know if it needs to or can adjust the focal point (if lasers even use one).

Not calling BS but this leaves me skeptical. Not sure what you mean by burn in problems on the disc, the laser only reads.
 
Yep, I had called MS once because I kept getting disc read errors on many games. They had me take off the HDD and try some games out. It worked, then they said to delete all saved games and I said HELLNO it took me so long to get acheivments and I really didnt want to redo everything again. They should come out with some HDD utility to fix those issues with the data.
 
Well, I know for a *fact* that when I install games off a DVD and not a CD on my PC, I can't overclock my processor as high. Don't ask me how media type and my FSB are related, they just *are*. Someone told me that.
 
Originally posted by: stumben32
So, I posted my rant about about the Red Rings of Death, now I have some real information. If this is old news, then so be it, it is all new to me.

I got on the phone with MS 360 support last night - and it was rather surprising.

For the record, I was pleasantly surprised that this guy was really cool and knew what he was talking about ( or seems so ). I told him about my friends experience with being told to replace their hard drives and he said whoever told them to do that gave them a crock of sh**.

So I detailed my issues with the xbox, which started around November with Increasingly more frequent Read Errors. Told him about the 3 red lights, the buzzing sound / checkered screen , at which point I cannot start up the unit.

The first thing he asked as if I had been playing Halo 3. The answer is no _ I do not have it. The next question was if I had Mass Effect. Thats when my heart sank a bit - because Mass Effect is the ONLY game I have been playing - ( in fact.. one of the main reasons I got a 360 in the first place ).

As many of you may already know - Halo 3 is known to be defective ( some discs ). But it gets worse. It actually screws up your Xbox 360. The same is true for Mass Effect , it has not been *official* yet but it will be very very soon.

The problem is with the THICKNESS of the CD. Hardly noticeable by the naked Eye. Frankly.. I did not buy this when he first told me.

Because of how tight everything is in the 360, even the slightest thickness variation causes a laser-burn in problem. In some cases it can even scratch the laser. Because of the way the 360 operates and memory is stored ( it is constantly reading and saving data - especially in Mass effect ) after then burn in problem happens on your CD, and you get those read errors - its actually screwing up your Drive and in some cases, the laser.

** edit.. this is what he told me... more or less. Bogus or not.....I am not sure. Just me starting a conspiracy theory? Feel free to debate 🙂 **

He told me to take my cd, turn it over and look real carefully under light. There is a visible RING around the CD... about 1/4 from the center. This is evidence of the problem.

Defective disc, that damages your drive.

MS will replace Halo 3 discs .... but not Mass Effect ( YET ).

The good news is he took me through a ton of steps to correct the issue on the unit. He said that it MIGHT be temporary though. Short version - you need to clean out all the bad sectors which means deleting EVERYTHING Halo 3 or Mass Effect related.

It worked, my 360 is running other games again - but I cannot use Mass Effect. If the problems are permanent they will replace the unit when the Mass Effect defects become officially announced.

Once again - I might be posting old news...so ..sorry if I am.
Click to expand...

Not true. I have a Falcon-based 360 and have played Mass Effect/Assassins Creed/Halo 3/Call of Duty 4/Lost Odyssey/Dark Messiah constantly with no freezing or any issues.

It is your console and MS is just trying to place the blame elsewhere. As far as Halo 3, the reason they offered disk replacements for free (until February 2008) was because the Limited Edition version of the game was severely scratched upon transit to retailers. They also extended this offer to people who bought the Legendary Edition. Also, there are no issues with the Mass Effect disks.

I would seriously seek out a Falcon 360 (revised heatsink/board layout, 65nm CPU, HDMI) and I promise you you won't have these problems...or you could wait until the Jasper-based 360 (revised heatsink/board layout, 65nm CPU, 65nm GPU, HDMI) comes out which is rumored to be Summer 2008.
 
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