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Posts with tag red ring of death

Dean Takahashi completes chronicles of Xbox 360 red ring of death

by Joshua Fruhlinger, posted Sep 8th 2008 at 10:26AM

Red Ring of Death
By now we have all heard of (or experienced) the infamous Xbox 360 Red Ring of Death, and we also pretty much know what causes it. Heck, we've even seen ways to avoid it by spending more money on fixes instead of going through Microsoft's replace / refurbish / replace process. In what he calls his final chapter on an extensive bit of investigative journalism, Dean Takahashi uncovers the early quality control-absent rush to market that resulted in a massive number of Xbox 360s being sent to market despite known design flaws. Dean goes on to propose that all this has kept Microsoft from winning this round of the console wars, as costs to keep the consoles working crippled Microsoft from aggressive marketing measures such as price cuts. In the end, he concludes (via an anonymous quote) that Microsoft treated the Xbox 360's launch like a software company would, as if some future patch would cover up the inherent problems with the console's design.

Microsoft gets RRoD at GDC

by Darren Murph, posted Feb 19th 2008 at 2:36PM


Just days ago, we heard that Microsoft's Xbox 360 failure rate was at a staggering 16-percent. Not helping Redmond's cause in making you believe otherwise, one of the hand-picked machines used at the 2008 Game Developers Conference was actually suffering from the infamous Red Ring of Death. Comedic gold? Yes, indeed. Check the video after the jump!

Continue reading Microsoft gets RRoD at GDC

Commercial X-clamp fix for red-ringed 360s: mostly new screws

by Nilay Patel, posted Aug 30th 2007 at 10:13PM


Warranty extension or not, the widespread nature of Xbox 360 failures pretty much guaranteed that it was only a matter of time before a third party stepped forward with a commercial fix. The X-Clamp Fix from Next Generation seems to the be first of these solutions available, although it's certainly not as simple as we would have expected. Consisting of some replacement screws and washers, the $15 kit helps you tighten down your GPU heatsink, possibly resetting your GPU in the process, a strategy modders have been using to escape the red ring of death for some time now. Probably worth a look if you're unable to get warranty service and the other wing-and-a-prayer fixes don't work for you, but the kit looks like it involves pretty significant disassembly -- we'd recommend picking up the phone and begging for an RMA first. Check the world's most boring installation video after the break.

[Via MaxConsole]

Continue reading Commercial X-clamp fix for red-ringed 360s: mostly new screws

Extreme PS3 "stress test" garners praise from Sony

by Joshua Topolsky, posted Aug 15th 2007 at 1:21PM


Clearly due to the current heat on Microsoft concerning the Xbox 360 RROD, disk scratching, and overheating scandals, Sony's Dave Karraker is mooning on the company's official blog over a recent PS3 Vault "stress test" called "How to kill a PS3 console" which showed the company's game system to be surprisingly resilient in the face of extreme conditions. "A lot of noise has been made recently about the reliability issues of one of our competitor's systems," Karraker said, then went on to kick some sand in Redmond's eye by adding "Did it fail? Nope. Like the Energizer Bunny, it kept going and going and going." Admittedly, the tests -- which included running games and Blu-ray movies for 108 hours in a typical "living room" environment, placing the console in a freezer van then lowering the temperature from 50 degrees to zero, and powering the PS3 in a sauna where heat increased from 100 degrees to 120 degrees over a nearly three-day session -- were quite extreme. In the end, however, the testers say besides being "extremely hot" after coming out of the sauna, the system is running fine and back in regular use. Microsoft, the ball's in your court.

[Via DailyTech]

Microsoft launches US Xbox 360 service website

by Darren Murph, posted Aug 6th 2007 at 1:17AM


Amidst all of this not-exactly-forthright price cutting going on with the Xbox 360, it looks like Microsoft has finally launched a more organized method of detailing and tracking the process of sending your faulty US-based Xbox 360 back in for repair. Reportedly, the new web portal allows American console owners to register their machine, attach a Windows Live ID, schedule a repair, and track the status of said mending. Additionally, users who register will supposedly receive a five dollar credit towards out-of-warranty repair service should they need it, but considering that the warranty was just extended to three full years, you should be covered for a good while yet.

[Via Xbox 360 Fanboy]

Xbox 360: refused repairs, and really high failure rate?

by Donald Melanson, posted Jul 3rd 2007 at 10:03PM

It looks like Xbox 360 users in the UK suffering from the dreaded Red Ring of Death now have once less option to get their console fixed, as repair specialist Micromart recently announced that it'll no longer fix the consoles, calling the problem "endemic." While it will apparently still perform other repairs on the console, it says that the most common of all problems just isn't feasible for them to undertake, stating that it would end up costing them around $200 for each repair and still leave them unsatisfied with the result. In related news, DailyTech recently conducted a poll of retailers in an attempt to find out just how high the Xbox 360's failure rate was, one of which reportedly pegged it to be as high as 33 percent. That number comes from a former EB Games employee, who also said that the company was forced to nearly double the price of its over-the-counter warranty prices as a result. According to DailyTech, a Best Buy manager also claimed that the failure rate was "between a quarter to a third" of all units sold, although it seems that those numbers are based only on personal experience.

Read - DailyTech, "Console Service Center Refuses to Repair Xbox 360 RROD"
Read - DailyTech, "Retailers Estimate Xbox 360 Failure Rate High as 33 Percent"

[Photo courtesy of AnandTech]
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