Think my 360 is about RROD... again

[Train]

The person who said let it run until it dies is an idiot.

The person who said fix it yourself is an idiot.

Microsoft Replaces RROD'd machines free of charge, regardless of wether its under warranty or not. Don't do something stupid that WOULD void the extended warranty such as opening it or intentionally harming it. They won't replace it if there is some problem other than an actual RROD

 

[Queasy]

Originally posted by: Train
The person who said let it run until it dies is an idiot.

The person who said fix it yourself is an idiot.

Microsoft Replaces RROD'd machines free of charge, regardless of wether its under warranty or not. Don't do something stupid that WOULD void the extended warranty such as opening it or intentionally harming it. They won't replace it if there is some problem other than an actual RROD

If it's out of warranty, the cheapest choice is to fix it yourself.

 

[Train]

Originally posted by: Queasy

Originally posted by: Train
The person who said let it run until it dies is an idiot.

The person who said fix it yourself is an idiot.

Microsoft Replaces RROD'd machines free of charge, regardless of wether its under warranty or not. Don't do something stupid that WOULD void the extended warranty such as opening it or intentionally harming it. They won't replace it if there is some problem other than an actual RROD

If it's out of warranty, the cheapest choice is to fix it yourself.

please re-read my post. I even went back and bolded the pertinent information for you.

 

[Queasy]

Originally posted by: Train

Originally posted by: Queasy

Originally posted by: Train
The person who said let it run until it dies is an idiot.

The person who said fix it yourself is an idiot.

Microsoft Replaces RROD'd machines free of charge, regardless of wether its under warranty or not. Don't do something stupid that WOULD void the extended warranty such as opening it or intentionally harming it. They won't replace it if there is some problem other than an actual RROD

If it's out of warranty, the cheapest choice is to fix it yourself.

please re-read my post. I even went back and bolded the pertinent information for you.

Well, that's nice but MS doesn't replace RROD machines out of warranty for free. Once the three years are up, so is is the free fix.

 

[purbeast0]

Originally posted by: Train

Originally posted by: Queasy

Originally posted by: Train
The person who said let it run until it dies is an idiot.

The person who said fix it yourself is an idiot.

Microsoft Replaces RROD'd machines free of charge, regardless of wether its under warranty or not. Don't do something stupid that WOULD void the extended warranty such as opening it or intentionally harming it. They won't replace it if there is some problem other than an actual RROD

If it's out of warranty, the cheapest choice is to fix it yourself.

please re-read my post. I even went back and bolded the pertinent information for you.

your bolded 'pertinent' information is wrong.

 

[Train]

Originally posted by: Queasy

Originally posted by: Train

Originally posted by: Queasy

Originally posted by: Train
The person who said let it run until it dies is an idiot.

The person who said fix it yourself is an idiot.

Microsoft Replaces RROD'd machines free of charge, regardless of wether its under warranty or not. Don't do something stupid that WOULD void the extended warranty such as opening it or intentionally harming it. They won't replace it if there is some problem other than an actual RROD

If it's out of warranty, the cheapest choice is to fix it yourself.

please re-read my post. I even went back and bolded the pertinent information for you.

Well, that's nice but MS doesn't replace RROD machines out of warranty for free. Once the three years are up, so is is the free fix.

Mine was out of warranty, the site stated RROD's were an exception. Replaced for free, MS shipped both ways.

 

[joutlaw]

Well it hasn't flaked out yet. I'm sure it is on it's way though.

 

[fatpat268]

Originally posted by: Train
The person who said let it run until it dies is an idiot.

The person who said fix it yourself is an idiot.

Microsoft Replaces RROD'd machines free of charge, regardless of wether its under warranty or not. Don't do something stupid that WOULD void the extended warranty such as opening it or intentionally harming it. They won't replace it if there is some problem other than an actual RROD

I'm an idiot? Please explain.

I've had one xbox 360. I've had to replace it 5.... FIVE.... times. I don't know about you, but that pisses me off. I don't want to keep sending consoles in, only to get another one that is still fatally flawed. Yes it's free, but it's fucking annoying. If you like doing that, good for you. Do it then.

I suggested an alternative. That if you want the problem fixed for good, you have to fix it yourself. It's not that difficult, and it's a shitty situation that you have to do something like that but it is what it is.

Originally posted by: Krakn3Dfx

Originally posted by: fatpat268
As far at rrod's go, the best thing you can do is to get your hands dirty and learn to fix one yourself. It's pretty easy to fix, and you'll have a much more stable xbox.

What? No.

I shouldn't have to invest my time and money in a flawed-from-the-factory system.

MS needed to recall a majority of these systems, and replace them with Falcons or Zephyrs. Just tightening the screws, booting it up, and sending it out is a slap in the face to people who bought their system when it first came out.

Their billion dollar loss on supporting these flawed systems means nothing to me if it didn't fix my problem in the long term.

What else should you do? Sprinkle magic pixie dust on your 360 and hope it'll work again?

Microsoft hasn't done anything to fix the problem. They're still using xclamps, and until they redesign their cooling system, rrod's are gonna keep coming back. If you fix it (when you get one), you'll more than likely have a much more stable 360 as a result of it.

 

[Krakn3Dfx]

Originally posted by: fatpat268

Originally posted by: Train
The person who said let it run until it dies is an idiot.

The person who said fix it yourself is an idiot.

Microsoft Replaces RROD'd machines free of charge, regardless of wether its under warranty or not. Don't do something stupid that WOULD void the extended warranty such as opening it or intentionally harming it. They won't replace it if there is some problem other than an actual RROD

I'm an idiot? Please explain.

I've had one xbox 360. I've had to replace it 5.... FIVE.... times. I don't know about you, but that pisses me off. I don't want to keep sending consoles in, only to get another one that is still fatally flawed. Yes it's free, but it's fucking annoying. If you like doing that, good for you. Do it then.

I suggested an alternative. That if you want the problem fixed for good, you have to fix it yourself. It's not that difficult, and it's a shitty situation that you have to do something like that but it is what it is.

Originally posted by: Krakn3Dfx

Originally posted by: fatpat268
As far at rrod's go, the best thing you can do is to get your hands dirty and learn to fix one yourself. It's pretty easy to fix, and you'll have a much more stable xbox.

What? No.

I shouldn't have to invest my time and money in a flawed-from-the-factory system.

MS needed to recall a majority of these systems, and replace them with Falcons or Zephyrs. Just tightening the screws, booting it up, and sending it out is a slap in the face to people who bought their system when it first came out.

Their billion dollar loss on supporting these flawed systems means nothing to me if it didn't fix my problem in the long term.

What else should you do? Sprinkle magic pixie dust on your 360 and hope it'll work again?

Microsoft hasn't done anything to fix the problem. They're still using xclamps, and until they redesign their cooling system, rrod's are gonna keep coming back. If you fix it (when you get one), you'll more than likely have a much more stable 360 as a result of it.

Honestly, I may just Craigslist the thing and cut my losses at this point. I have 2 PS3 systems that I'm more than happy with at this point.

We'll see tho, I would miss EDF and Fable 2 occasionally.

 

[joutlaw]

Update:

My Xbox RRoD'd on Saturday. I turned it on and the 3 quadrants were lit up. Did the diagnostic test by hitting the sync and eject button and got an error 0020.

Called m$ and they say my Xbox is out of warranty as of 11/25/08. The problem is I didn't get this Xbox until December 25, 2006. I talk to 3 different people all the way to supervisor and they can't explain how they base the console age. I assume they go off the console manufacturing date which is utter BS. The only way to resolve this is to find the receipt. The problem is that it was a gift from my mother-in-law. I call her and apologize for asking her, but asked if she knew where the receipt was. She didn't know, but found a checkbook entry where she paid off her Sears credit card in January 2007 for the Xbox. So she is called Sears and they are going to get her statement from the archives.

The whole thing that pisses me off is they can see I first got on Live December 27, 2006, but they won't base that as a determining factor of the console age. I used the free 1 month trial and all.

So hopefully my MIL bought it after December 12, 2006 and her Sears statement is definitive on what she bought. If not I'll take it apart myself and fix it.

 

[purbeast0]

meh, if you don't have the receipt, all they can go on is the console manufacture date.

what the hell do you want them to do?

you buying live has absolutely NOTHING to do with when you purchased the console, sorry.

 

[joutlaw]

meh, if you don't have the receipt, all they can go on is the console manufacture date.

what the hell do you want them to do?

you buying live has absolutely NOTHING to do with when you purchased the console, sorry.

My problem is they won't say it goes off the manufacture date. They want you to believe m$ and every store that sells Xbox's has some sort of UPC scanning network to know when it was purchased.

This also contradicts the previous poster who said they will honor a RRoD out of warranty.

I would think the Xbox has a capability to log it's first startup date. I think that is more of a defining characteristic of when the warranty would start. Does a car's warranty start the day it was manufatured? Nope... it starts off the mileage when it was delivered to the owner... so even if it had 36 miles when sold... if it had a 36,000 mile warranty it would be until 36,036 miles.

 

[purbeast0]

come on now dude you are talking about a $10k+ purchase vs a $300 purchase...

and whoever said they will honor an RRoD out of warranty is wrong.

 

[joutlaw]

come on now dude you are talking about a $10k+ purchase vs a $300 purchase...

and whoever said they will honor an RRoD out of warranty is wrong.

Ha... I hear you, but at the time it was $400. 🙂

I'm just irritated. I'm so heavily invested in Xbox with 30 games or so, Rock band drums, guitars, racing wheel... I can't just say screw m$ I'm going to PS3.

I suppose let this be a warning to people who have purchased one... make sure you keep a receipt. If it was a gift, be that guy who wants a receipt.

 

[purbeast0]

yea, that is why i learned how to fix RRoD heh 🙂

 

[santz]

jasper, hmmmm time will tell. The wheel moves as the wheel wills

 

[BassBomb]

why are they still RRODing?

 

[joutlaw]

Well my MIL got the credit card statement, but it didn't specifically show the Xbox purchase. It was purchased on December 15, 2006 and RRoD'd on December 12, 2009. I attempted to send this to m$, but they didn't accept it as proof of purchase. Oh well.

So yesterday I attempted the X-clamp fix because I read it was more than likely the cause of the 0020 error I was getting.

So I took the Xbox appart... not too bad except for the 8 clips that holds the back half together. The x-clamps are a little tricky to get off too. After that I cleaned up gobs of thermal paste. I imagine this could have contributed to my problem as well. I've seated 4-5 CPUs in my day, but I can't imagine how someone who fixes these consoles would use this much paste. I then used 8 16x5mm bolts with 32 steel washers and 16 nylon washers to re-attach the heatsinks. After that I plugged in the DVD drive, fan, and wireless module and turned the xbox on while it RRoD. I then got a hairdryer and blew on the GPU until only 2 quadrants were flashing, indicated it overheating. I then turned it off and put everything back together. 15 minutes later I turned it on and everything worked. I play Forza for 30 minutes or so and let it cool again. Played it again for 30 minutes and repeated. Then I played COD:MW2 for about 2 hours. No more RRoD ... nice.

So it is possible to fix it yourself for around 8-10$ in parts. I just hope m$ can't tell I opened the case. I didn't see a way they could tell as far electronic methods in the case... just stickers.

 

[mindcycle]

So it is possible to fix it yourself for around 8-10$ in parts. I just hope m$ can't tell I opened the case. I didn't see a way they could tell as far electronic methods in the case... just stickers.

Glad to hear you got it working again. I have 2 xenon 360's. I've fixed both by replacing the x-clamps and adding additional cooling. The one that's lasted the longest is the one I took out of the original case and put into a PC case. I also added a CPU heatsink to the GPU as well as 80mm fans on both sinks.

I left the second one in the original MS case and replaced the original GPU heatsink with the updated version (the heatpipe version). It lasted for a year or so but has recently been RRODing so frequently that I decided to give up on it.

Once your box RROD's it's going to happen again at some point. Some have gotten lucky and have had the fix last for years while others are not so lucky. What happens is the motherboard flexes due to the extreme heat inside the case which causes the heatsinks to lose proper contact with the chips. That in turn causes the shitty lead free solder they used to heat up to the point where it's flowing, and over a period of time while cooling from that state the solder can actually crack and lose connection to the board. After that you have a problem spot that can never fully be repaired. I read a forum post awhile back on xbox scene where some guy took a microscope and took pictures of an RROD machine. He showed how a few of the solder ball joints on the GPU and memory chips were clearly cracked and not making proper contact with the board. He then did the overheat trick and it fused them back together, but the cracks in the solder were still clearly visible.

Many argue that the flawed design was due to outsourcing development of the console to save money and then rushing the final product before it had been properly tested. I pretty much agree. At some point during this whole RROD mess they must have weighed their options and decided that redesigning the console would cost them more money than fixing broken ones. All of the small hardware changes they've made over the years, such as new heatsinks, new 60-nm GPU/CPU chips, etc.. only attempt to help compensate for the real issue. In reality, the damn thing just needs to be redesigned from the ground up.

 

[joutlaw]

I could clearly see the flex in my motherboard once it was removed from the tray.

I think the X-Claimp is another problem. I think the combination of the heat and crappy x-clamp design causes the flex. This was my second console and it had mfg date of 3/2006 I believe, and the x-clamp had 2007 on it. I also had heat pipes on my heatsinks as well.

I'm hoping this one will fair better. I already got the ok from wife on a new arcade, but I'd rather not waste $200 or so if this will work.

 

[mindcycle]

I could clearly see the flex in my motherboard once it was removed from the tray.

I think the X-Claimp is another problem. I think the combination of the heat and crappy x-clamp design causes the flex. This was my second console and it had mfg date of 3/2006 I believe, and the x-clamp had 2007 on it. I also had heat pipes on my heatsinks as well.

I'm hoping this one will fair better. I already got the ok from wife on a new arcade, but I'd rather not waste $200 or so if this will work.

Yes, the x-clamp design is a major contributor to the problem. Really, the design of the whole system is flawed.

Best of luck to you. I hope the fix lasts awhile for you.