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You are here: Home / Gaming / For whom the bell tolls

For whom the bell tolls

March 12, 2007 by Tony 7 Comments

(or, alternatively, For whom the red lights flash)

It tolls (they flash) for me.

Mrs. buttonMasher mentioned to me earlier this week that the 360 was acting up, freezing during the kids movies, going fuzzy and finally it stopped working all together. I powered it up Saturday night and sure enough, I was greeted with the three flashing red lights. Anyone who’s dealt with a 360 before knows what that means.

I had previously watched with apprehension as people on my friends list would suffer the fate of the red lights. I read with pity about the guy who had seven boxes die on him. I even thought I had made a mistake buying extended warranty coverage on my 360. Then the inevitable happened — it happened to me.

Perhaps the catastrophic failure I had while playing Dead Rising was a portent of things to come. Maybe it was just the poor ventilation in my TV stand. Whatever the case, it’s dead now and there’s not much else I can do.

So in the mail goes my dead 360. I doubt I’ll be seeing it again for a couple weeks. Looks like the criminals in Pacific City just got a reprieve.

I hope they know it won’t last!

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Comments

  1. Seth says

    March 12, 2007 at 8:30 am

    Seems like you have taken the flashing lights well. I recently sold off my 360 as I hadn’t enjoyed it since mine died and it took MS over 3 weeks to send me the box to ship it and over 5 weeks before I saw it again. I hope they treat you better.

    Maybe I’ll be back in when and if they revise the hardware and produce a quality (hardware wise) product. If not, then the competition likely will get my gaming dollar.

    Reply
  2. Josh says

    March 12, 2007 at 10:28 am

    I’m really thinking this is a much larger problem than Microsoft is willing to admit:

    Most blogs I read by 360 owners have encountered some kind of issue – either 3 blinking lights, or freezing up or the like. eBay is flooded with either refurbs or broken units. Most people who buy multiple units at a time seem to have the same problem across all of them.

    I just wish there was a way to really quantify it outside of the magnifying glass which is the net.

    Reply
  3. agentgray says

    March 13, 2007 at 6:28 pm

    Welcome to the club. Go vote. We’re at 36%.

    I also think it’s a larger problem.

    Reply
  4. Bobster says

    March 13, 2007 at 7:46 pm

    360 failures due to overheating are due to operator error. Read the manual. It says to aim two fans at it, pack it in dry ice and don’t let it run for more than 33 minutes. Simple.

    Reply
  5. Tony says

    March 15, 2007 at 12:29 am

    Seth – I honestly went into purchasing my 360 knowing that it would die on me. How pathetic is that? The fact that I survived this long amazed me.

    Josh – I have to believe that the engineers at Microsoft are pretty smart guys. Surely they understand that pumping that much power into the unit is going to cause heat issues. They must have their hands tied because of cost and schedule. And now that the cat’s out of the bag, that can’t add some new cooling features, leaving all the current Xbox owners out in the cold. I feel sorry for them, but you’re definitely right — this is a HUGE problem for MS.

    ag – I previously voted. Before it broke 🙂 What a pain!

    Bobster – I totally ran out of dry ice, man!

    Reply
  6. ARogan says

    March 16, 2007 at 7:33 pm

    My launch machine died back in December 06. Overall the repair process wasn’t too painful and so far so good (finished crack down on it without a hitch) knock on wood! All I can say a 2 year extended warranty is a MUST with the 360.
    http://aroganworld.blogspot.com/2006/12/my-xbox-360-died-but-world-did-not-end.html

    Good luck on your repair process. I hope you get a solid working one quickly.

    Reply

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  1. Really hot things : buttonmashing.com says:
    August 15, 2007 at 12:48 pm

    […] course, this isn’t the first time my little white heat-sissy died. But it’s dying at the most inopportune time possible. 360 […]

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