XBOX 360 Red Ring of Death FAQ: Soon to be known as the Red Dot of Death! :P

You can print it. Gotta find your own box though. I'm pretty sure you can argue it out with them and they'll send you both the box and the label, but then the turnaround time just increases.
 
I got an E74 on my launch date console about a month ago. I bought a Jasper Arcade a few days later so hopefully I will be set for the rest of the console's life. I felt fortunate to have made it that long since just about everyone I know with a 360 got RROD.
 
I think that's Microsoft's business strategy. Sell you a piece of shit, then you go out and buy another piece of shit to play while the other piece of shit is being repaired. I'm debating going out and getting an Arcade unit for that exact purpose.
 
[quote name='crunchb3rry']I think that's Microsoft's business strategy. Sell you a piece of shit, then you go out and buy another piece of shit to play while the other piece of shit is being repaired. I'm debating going out and getting an Arcade unit for that exact purpose.[/quote]


I'm gonna put this on the FAQ just for kicks! Thanks Crunch!
 
[quote name='WhipSmartBanky']Are there any graphical indicators that an E74/RLOD might be on the way?

I was playing RB and the picture got very "static-y" and looked like it was starting to lose v-hold. It did it for about 10-15 seconds and then returned to normal. Just wondering if it might've been some impressive interference, the 360, or maybe the TV.

First time I'd ever seen something like that. Weird.[/quote]


Well I did ask MONTHS ago for people to post pictures of various Graphical Glitches that eventually lead to a RRoD or other failure, but NO ONE HAS CONTRIBUTED!! It was to help compile a list of things to look out for. But alas, no one wants to help :(
 
Hey i took a picture of a graphical glitch before my 360 rrod on me. I can contribute if you want lol.

I finally got my 360 back yesterday. It makes a wierd little clicking noise though. I don't think I heard that before.
 
[quote name='saggypockets']Hey i took a picture of a graphical glitch before my 360 rrod on me. I can contribute if you want lol.

I finally got my 360 back yesterday. It makes a wierd little clicking noise though. I don't think I heard that before.[/quote]

Is it a "Clank" or a "VRRRrrt" sound? My refurbs do that and now my arcade (10/08 Jasper) does VRRrrt sound.

Please post that visual glitch... it will help inspire others to post photos as well!
 
I got my refurb back yesterday. My Elite prior to being send in made the very loud VRRrrt sound. This one does a quieter VRRrrt and a faint higher pitched weeeeeee. The higher pitch definitely wasn't there on the last one.

In positive news, the refurb I got has the ~2007 heatsink in it that my last one didn't have, and what appears to be new fans for the exhaust.

I'm glad we're talking on such scientific terms.
 
[quote name='Luftwaffles08']I got my refurb back yesterday. My Elite prior to being send in made the very loud VRRrrt sound. This one does a quieter VRRrrt and a faint higher pitched weeeeeee. The higher pitch definitely wasn't there on the last one.

In positive news, the refurb I got has the ~2007 heatsink in it that my last one didn't have, and what appears to be new fans for the exhaust.

I'm glad we're talking on such scientific terms.[/quote]

I need to start recording these noises :)
 
nah my 360 just makes these little click sounds, they're barely noticible. I doubt it's something bad, hopefully lol. ill post the pic soonish.
 
[quote name='ITDEFX']I need to start recording these noises :)[/quote]

That description only makes me think of one thing, Dreamcast.
 
[quote name='sp00ge']That description only makes me think of one thing, Dreamcast.[/quote]


Damn... it's been years since I powered up my dreamcast. 4 Years I think? ever since I got my PS2! Seems to be a habit of mine to abandon a gaming system once I get a new one :|

Anyways I would need to get a good mic because the one I am using would pick up the background noises. I just want the clank/Vrrrttt sounds
 
My 3rd one is on its way. I wish I had a backup system. Nobody rents systems out anymore. Wait, I think some of those RAC do. All I have to play is the Wii (kind of boring) and a Ipod Touch.
 
[quote name='mer71']My Elite arrived in TX at midnight today. I shipped it out Tuesday afternoon. What seems to be the turn around time?[/quote]

The repair is usually finished in a day. Both times I sent my in the total turnaround was 14 days.
 
Well my 360 RRoD'd again about 2 weeks ago now... the repairs completed today, and I'm hoping it gets shipped out tomorrow.

Basing it off of this:

Serial Number = LNNNNNNYWWFF

L = Production line in the factory
NNNNNN = Xbox in the week
Y = Year (last digit)
WW = week of the year *
FF = Factory # (05 & 06 are China)
Click to expand...

I should have an '05 model again... not sure if it's the same one or what, but we'll find out.

And I'm basically just reposting this because it took me like 25 minutes to find it.
 
[quote name='ProtoEXE88']Well my 360 RRoD'd again about 2 weeks ago now... the repairs completed today, and I'm hoping it gets shipped out tomorrow.

Basing it off of this:



I should have an '05 model again... not sure if it's the same one or what, but we'll find out.

And I'm basically just reposting this because it took me like 25 minutes to find it.[/QUOTE]

If I get a console from 2005, I'll be pissed. It's like taking your car to the dealer while it's under warranty, and when you pick it up they try to give you an older model. No thanks.
 
[quote name='ArthurDigbySellers']The repair is usually finished in a day. Both times I sent my in the total turnaround was 14 days.[/quote]

Keep in mind that this 'repair' is not real. They will send you a machine that has the same serial number, but the innards will be different (yours will essentially be the shell). That's why the repair takes a short time. They just send you some refurbished unit, in most cases.
 
[quote name='dragonjud']Keep in mind that this 'repair' is not real. They will send you a machine that has the same serial number, but the innards will be different (yours will essentially be the shell). That's why the repair takes a short time. They just send you some refurbished unit, in most cases.[/quote]

I'm not even sure if it's the same case either. My case was pretty dinged up when I sent it off, and the one I got back looks brand new. My old serial numbers were just printed on the back.
 
Very impressive! I shipped out my console last tuesday, and it arrived yesterday. I already bought a new jasper, so I gave it to my ex-wife's bro as a late wedding present.
 
[quote name='Luftwaffles08']I'm not even sure if it's the same case either. My case was pretty dinged up when I sent it off, and the one I got back looks brand new. My old serial numbers were just printed on the back.[/quote]I got a refurbished unit back when I sent my 360 in, different serial number and everything.
 
[quote name='dragonjud']Keep in mind that this 'repair' is not real. They will send you a machine that has the same serial number, but the innards will be different (yours will essentially be the shell). That's why the repair takes a short time. They just send you some refurbished unit, in most cases.[/quote]

Yeah, I commented on that in previous pages in this thread. I should have put "repair" in quotes. You can tell that the actual internals were swapped because games installed to your hard drive will no longer play on the refurbished units.
 
Uh oh, mine froze tonight during GH:WT. Last time it took about 3 weeks to hit full RROD after the first set of intermittent freezes.
 
Well i just got on gamefly.com and i finnaly got my game in..res. evil 5. I used the xbox in my living room first and it didnt play through the first movie with out locking up and now i have the three rings of death. So i played in on my bedrooom xbox and it froze on the main screen. Again three rings of death. So i just lost to xbox's on one stupid game....FML

any way to get these xbox;s fixed???? i heard if u go through the company it takes like 4months.

~end of rant.
 
as long as you are within the three year warranty, you can have them fixed by Microsoft. takes about two weeks, not four months.
 
I assume it still doesn't work on other games?

Either way, the game didn't kill those, they were going to die anyway. Just go through the warranty process if they're still under warranty.

And out of curiosity, what generation were they? So far my Falcon is still going strong.
 
Yeah my buddies' launch unit just went out. Personally, I'm on my 4th Xbox 360. 2 red rings, 1 replacement Pro, and then I got an Elite/Falcon when it came out so I wouldn't have this trouble again.

That was November 2007. I was playing Mass Effect. Not a single issue in a year and a half. Knock on wood.
 
I'm on my fourth too! First Falcon ("Pro" bundle). Probably bought it around the same month.

It's lasted through Mass Effect, Lost Odyssey, Blue Dragon I think too so far (amongst lots of shorter games).

I did have a scare last week when I hooked it up to my new TV. Wouldn't boot except intermitendtly. Turns out the (Microsoft) HDMI cable had died somehow. Which is...weird.

I switched to my Playstation 3/Sony cable and it works fine. (I'm going to have to by more of those, I guess...only issue is they're almost TOO heavy.)
 
[quote name='niceguyshawne']Uh oh, mine froze tonight during GH:WT. Last time it took about 3 weeks to hit full RROD after the first set of intermittent freezes.[/QUOTE]

Well, fuck, I just joined the club. I bought a launch Elite on April 29th, 2007. At the time, Gamecrazy was forcing their extended warranty which I thought was 2 years on top of the MS 1 year (at the time) but looking at the receipt I see he marked one year (I swear he told me two :bomb:). But of course, it died ONE day after the end of the second year. I know I'm covered by MS still, but I was hoping to get a new one and not a refurb. What do they do with refurb Elites? Will I get some crappy old launch refurb innards, or do they at least stick to newer ones in that case?

I was about 80 hours into Oblivion too, and I have the GotY stuff installed on my HD but don't have the disc any more - dammit. Will that cause problems with a refurb or not because it wasn't truly a download?

FWIW, it was freezing occasionally the last few days on Oblivion but usually only when I transitioned to a "loading" area while some other action was going on. So I figured those were "legit" freezes. But then today my son tried playing GHWT and it froze in the dashboard, and then 3 or 4 times during the game. Then we got a screen of just vertical blue lines. When I turned it off and back on, RROD... I told the kids it was likely to happen soon with the freezes but I didn't expect it THAT soon.

Edit - Oh yeah, I completely forgot about the HDMI. So I had better get back an HDMI unit which means it can be no older than mine which was one of the very first made with HDMI. That's good at least.

One thing the FAQ is dearly missing is the issue of DLC - do you have to live with the DLC only being playable by the person who downloaded it (or with another controller plugged in and signed in to that profile) or do they let you reset all that stuff now? That is a huge issue as my kids play it more than I do but all the stuff has been bought through my profile. I think Shipwreck had that issue and resolved it in some way. What's up with that?
 
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Glad to hear at least that it wasn't a Falcon. I get scared when I start hearing about Falcons or Jaspers that died :whistle2:/

And dang it, I had some point or question to ask, which is why I clicked on this to begin with, but I can't remember what it was. Probably means its time for sleep...

BUT NO! First it's time to start the second Legacy of the Force book, and then maybe some Banjo Tooie :lol:
 
OK, after looking at the xbox.com site (funny, but I assumed there wouldn't be any good info there so I tried to find it via Google which didn't work at all) it does appear they transfer the licenses over automatically now. Plus, I had no idea you could just transfer stuff to a new 360 whenever you wanted. I guess things have changed a lot from when I last looked into this stuff (over a year ago)! I thought they made it all a real pain. So, I still may try to contact Gamecrazy and see if they'll just give me a new one. That way I can get a Falcon/Jasper or whatever the hell they are now and not a refurbished PoS.
 
You can still only do it once a year, right? I didn't actually read the info in the link I gave that one person :D
 
[quote name='Wolfpup']You can still only do it once a year, right? I didn't actually read the info in the link I gave that one person :D[/QUOTE]

Yeah - if you go to xbox.com and check it out there you can even watch a video of Major Nelson explaining the process and he mentions this a few times. But it doesn't count if it is a repair, obviously. Even if they screw up the transfer during the repair and you have to do it yourself it looks like you can get a "reset" of the 12-month rule if you later want to transfer to a new console.

Once every 12 months is fine with me compared to what it used to be ;). I'm still holding out hope for some kind of slim/quiet/cool 360 being released at some point (at which point I'd buy a new one). But actually since the disc installs the noise issue has almost nearly been taken care of (just the noisy fan now which is way better than the noisy disc drive). In fact, I'm rather stunned my machine RRoD'd on me since I've been playing disc-installed games exclusively since that feature came out. I know it is unrelated but I figured the much lower stress on the system from constant drive rattle plus the reduced heat from not running the drive all the time would extend the life of the system. I also though Elite's were made of tougher stuff (they actually claimed this early on - that the Elites got the "better" parts). Buncha BS I guess...
 
[quote name='io'] What do they do with refurb Elites? Will I get some crappy old launch refurb innards, or do they at least stick to newer ones in that case?

[/quote]


My Elite that was manufactured ~March 2007 conked out and I got my refurb back a few weeks ago. It looks like since it has the Zephyr chip (which I'm assuming is the 90nm and the HDMI output), that's exactly what you get back. However, the elite refurb I got back had the additional heatsink (put into 360s ~July 2007) and what appears to be extra exhaust fans.

But yeah, I had the exact same fear you did. That I would open the box and there would be a gleaming White 360 sitting there, and not an Elite like I sent back.
 
Got my elite back from microsoft today it was not my old one I sent it they sent me a brand new 360 manufactor date 4/19/09...Thank you microsoft!
 
[quote name='io']OK, after looking at the xbox.com site (funny, but I assumed there wouldn't be any good info there so I tried to find it via Google which didn't work at all) it does appear they transfer the licenses over automatically now. Plus, I had no idea you could just transfer stuff to a new 360 whenever you wanted.[/quote]

This is very important and will save you wasted time and effort. When you get your console back from repairs, before you follow what is on the "Important Information about Your Downloaded Content" sheet, RECOVER YOUR GAMERTAG

I re-downloaded all my shit (over 200 things) like the sheet said, just to find out it doesn't work offline. I called Xbox support to figure out the deal and the woman on the phone told me that you have to recover your gamertag first. Wtf?

I already had everything on my hard-drive, so I thought I wouldn't have to recover an account I already have, but apparently not. It isn't mentioned anywhere on the sheet that comes along with your refurb, nor did I see it mentioned anywhere on the site.

EDIT: Well recovering my gamertag did nothing.

And about my earlier issue with Timepilot, the lady didn't really seem too enthused about helping me with anything, and basically said "If you want to play the game, you have to play it on your girlfriend's Xbox."
 
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Thanks, lolwut, I'll keep that in mind.

But, what the freaking hell? I just tried to submit my repair request online and it is telling me my serial number is invalid! WTF!? I got it off my Gamecrazy receipt (and they got it by scanning the console). I double checked it on the actual system of course and it is the same there. it won't let me register it so I can do the online form. fuck - now I have to talk to some jackass on the phone. I was really hoping to avoid that.
 
ummm, wtf. I registered my console online and everything, sent in a repair for 3 RROD, got the box and all, and shipped it back. just checked the status and they don't recognize any console under my name.....
 
Ok, this is getting strange. I finally called in since xbox.com would not take my serial number for registration. The person on the phone took it and supposedly registered it for me but then she instructed me to use the web site to print the return label and use my own box (what, they don't send coffins any more?). But in order to do that I had to register the console with my Windows Live ID. So, basically, I had to do the online registration yet again. This time it didn't say it was invalid but it said I would get an email with further instructions - half hour later an no email... This is just bizarre...

Edit - One more phone call (at least there is no wait on the calls). It appears the issue is that I cannot be logged in to my Windows Live ID. When I am NOT logged in I get a fields to enter the repair number and zip code and from there can print the label. When I'm logged in (which of course was the first thing I did) it only looks for ones registered to my Windows Live ID and apparently won't let me do that registration any more. Sheesh - what a bizarre system...
 
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The no coffin thing sucks if they've changed that.

And why is it the software company has the most broken web site for all this stuff? Doing ANYTHING with my Live ID is always a pain and backwards like you're describing. Never works like I think it will.
 
[quote name='SoulReaver']ummm, wtf. I registered my console online and everything, sent in a repair for 3 RROD, got the box and all, and shipped it back. just checked the status and they don't recognize any console under my name.....[/quote]

Chances are you're getting a different console (refurb) back in the mail. I didn't check it while it was in the shop, but once I got it back (today) it was a different console and my original one was wiped from my account.


[quote name='io']Ok, this is getting strange. I finally called in since xbox.com would not take my serial number for registration. The person on the phone took it and supposedly registered it for me but then she instructed me to use the web site to print the return label and use my own box (what, they don't send coffins any more?). But in order to do that I had to register the console with my Windows Live ID. So, basically, I had to do the online registration yet again. This time it didn't say it was invalid but it said I would get an email with further instructions - half hour later an no email... This is just bizarre...[/quote]

The no-coffin thing is what they say when you call. If you request a repair order online you can ask for a box, although I see the online request is what you're having problems with.

With the late email thing, you aren't alone. I called xbox support to get help with my license transfer, talked to one person, he gave me off to his supervisor, he said a lot of which I couldn't understand, and told me to wait for an email from the software support people (or something like that). That was 3+ hours ago, and I don't think I'm getting an email tonight. If I don't have one by tomorrow, I'm calling Xbox support again; ugh.
 
lolwut - the thing about the email was that this is supposed to be an automated one from the registration process. I wasn't waiting for a reply from a person.

Anyway - I'm guessing they are just being cheapasses and trying to get you to use your own packaging to save them the money of sending you a box. It isn't really a problem as I think I have an Amazon box big enough for it and can find some packing material. A question though - how thoroughly padded/supported are the coffins? Because I certainly don't want to underpack it in comparison. Also, I figure it will be quicker if I sent it myself right now (tomorrow hopefully if UPS is open then).

Edit - Oh for cripes sake! Now that I got the label printed I can see that she misspelled my last name :bomb:. Isn't it a core lesson in Call Center training to make sure you get names correct? She never did read anything back to me - I'm susprised my first name and address are OK, actually. But maybe that's why it won't sync to my Windows Live ID. Grrr - well, it's close enough so I'll send it off anyway. I'd probably just confuse things even further trying to fix that.
 
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So last night my 4th xbox got the RROD. I got the original one at launch, so I guess that my 3 year warranty is up. What are my options?

Does Microsoft repair 360s that get the red ring if they are past the 3 year warranty?

Every other time I replaced my 360 I was never asked when I purchased the system or to provide a receipt/ proof of purchase. Is this still the case?

Thanks.

Edit: One more thing, I have always called up Microsoft when my xbox has broken. Is there any reason to do this over submitting a repair request online?

Edit 2: I am trying to add my xbox to the my registered consoles section of the xbox support website, but it keeps saying that the serial number is already registered. Anybody have any ideas? I got all my other RRODS repaired over the phone. *Never mind - got it; it was under a different name*
 
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Personally I'd just by a new one. You know any repair you get is going to die again for sure, and it's a lot less hassle, and I doubt the price is much different :whistle2:/

You *might* even be able to sell the broken one to Gamestop-I mean obviously telling them it has the RRoD, but they said they'd take my broken Wii, and just knock something off of it.
 
I finally got the console registered online and it says that it will cost me $99.99 to fix it. Right now I'm thinking I might just open it up and try to follow a tutorial for fixing it .
 
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