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"My Xbox 360 Died and I Lived to tell the story" Official Thread

Dekelia

Member
I may have spoken to soon.

I feel a bit dumb, but I thought I'd post this in case other people have the same problem.

Mine was freezing up about 20 min into any game. I had tried everything I could do to help ventalate.

So it turns out the problem was....my internet connection. I haven't played a live game since Chrome Hounds last Sept. It was freezing in offline games. Well...last night, grasping at straws, I just pulled the internet connection, and viola!, it worked perfect. No more crashing.

I don't know why this works, so more investigation is needed. I have a fairly bad wireless connection (I need to rethink the placement of things), so it usually logged me out of live 5 min into a game unless I took special steps to get a better connection. Maybe the service that is checking for Live has bugs. I don't know.

Anyway, if you are having the same problem, try unplugging the internet connection and see if it works. I'll let you all know if I find out anything else. My next step is to run a hard wire and see if the problem still exists.
 

Flynn

Member
How is it that there's a class action lawsuit for broken Wii straps and none for 360s that brick after nine months?
 

DJ Sl4m

Member
The Faceless Master said:
basically, they used tin based solder instead of lead based solder, and it just isn't as good of a performer under the heat related stress the 360 puts on it, so reheating and reflowing the solder with a hot air gun resets the condition... of course, this is only something you want to do with certain advanced error codes, like 0102 or 0110... but as you can see, you're just back to square one, and eventually, days, weeks, months later, you will be back to 3 red lights of doom, and have to do it again... and it may not always work...

Lead based solder isn't supposed to be used anymore, it's been like that in the NA for several years.
 
Mana Knight said:
I wonder if MS used that type of solder because of Europe banning lead solder in many consumer electronics (strange law that doesn't make any sense, that went to affect in July 2006).
that's what people have speculated...
DJ Sl4m said:
Lead based solder isn't supposed to be used anymore, it's been like that in the NA for several years.
in the EU yah, NA, not so much...
 

op_ivy

Fallen Xbot (cannot continue gaining levels in this class)
my 4th 360 arrived today and it booted! i've played 30 min of gears with no issues. i plan to run it through the pgr3->dead rising->halo 2->gears guantlet for several hours tonight to make sure its not another lemon. wish me luck, its good to be back :)
 

Norse

Member
Flynn said:
How is it that there's a class action lawsuit for broken Wii straps and none for 360s that brick after nine months?


because, unless you pick up your 360 and throw it into your plasma, your plasma is safe...a broken wrist strap and controller flies into your perty plasma...kaplooweee!
 

pollo

Banned
lol played GOW tonight and kept freezing when loading the Epic Games screen..

i just got my 360 two weeks ago.

Gah I have to go to Toys R Us tomorrow. This sucks. I was looking forward to playing R6 tomorrow too
 

op_ivy

Fallen Xbot (cannot continue gaining levels in this class)
nextgeneration said:
I can't believe you're on your 4th one! Thankfully, we all have 1 year warranties now. I'm on my second one right now and so far so good. *crosses fingers*

the 2nd and 3rd maybe shouldnt count, as they never worked :p
 
I got my 360 shortly after launch and it died a few weeks ago. I was out of warranty until the extension. I talked to MS tonight and they are sending me a box.

So sad, it worked perfectly for so long.
 

JCBossman

Banned
Yoz, I have eat bitten(get away bugs) Using Lead Solder for all my shit!(No ...I said No bugs) The shit works, Noz need for that stupiz, No lead formulaz?
 

pollo

Banned
so I brought my 360 back yesterday :D

Good news! I picked up a new one, and apparently they were having some deal where if you buy a 360 you get a free 100 dollar gift card :D

So now I got a new 360 + a 100 dollar gift card - going towards a new x360 controller and Castlevania: PoR.

Freaking awesome.
 

SleazyC

Member
I know that this post isn't here to report a dead 360 but I just picked up a 360 for Christmas and was wondering if I could get some advice on how to prevent mine from dying (if there is anything I can do)?
 

DJ Sl4m

Member
SleazyC said:
I know that this post isn't here to report a dead 360 but I just picked up a 360 for Christmas and was wondering if I could get some advice on how to prevent mine from dying (if there is anything I can do)?

Just keep it in a well ventilated erea, somewhere it wont get knocked around as well.

The Intercooler pulls an enormous amount of heat from inside the 360 out of it, but the power connections are so shitty it can scorch and or kill 360's because of the bad connection.

from a bit more reading on Xbox-scene it looks like some 360 mobo's weren't properly heated up enough for the soldering process to take fully, but I'm sure at this point the problem has been corrected.
 
SleazyC said:
I know that this post isn't here to report a dead 360 but I just picked up a 360 for Christmas and was wondering if I could get some advice on how to prevent mine from dying (if there is anything I can do)?
don't turn it on.
 

DJ Sl4m

Member
Odysseus said:
This is the only 100% guaranteed sure-fire method where it won't break. And if it's already broken, at least you won't find out.

That's some funny shit dude :) I think the forum needed more humor right now, I noticed a lot of pessimistic posts today, I'm sure still posting on a game forum right now in time is a pretty strong sign we aren't having such a grand holiday. HA! :(
 

DJ Sl4m

Member
Holy shit, the heat gun trick worked!!!!!!!!

Untitled.jpg


That's my 360 at the bottom, still not fully assembled, it doesn't have the cover on yet as it worked on the first try.
This rocks, xmas am saved.
 

Qwerty710710

a child left behind
I just finshed gears of war on insane mode as I get into the last cut sence my 360 freezes. When I turn it off and turn it back on I get 3 red lights. So my dad and I just about strip it to the bear bones. We noticed only one fan is working, could that be the problem?
 
Qwerty710710 said:
I just finshed gears of war on insane mode as I get into the last cut sence my 360 freezes. When I turn it off and turn it back on I get 3 red lights. So my dad and I just about strip it to the bear bones. We noticed only one fan is working, could that be the problem?
why bother, take advantage of MS new extended warranty!? my dec 05 died last month and they replaced it with a 08/06 model meaning it should be good until 08/07? all at no charge, I'm worry free until 08/07, bring the pain.
 

Qwerty710710

a child left behind
He waited about 20 minutes and it worked perfectly again. So I was playing with it again within 20 minutes it frozed on me again so we're assuming it's overheating.

Ouch. He opened it too. You may have screwed your chances of ever dealing with MS for repair/replacement.

My dad doesn't believe in warranties or other people fixing your stuff. He's "do it yourself guy" he basically took it out of my hands and started to play around with it.
 
Five hours of play total (not all at the same time) and mine has the 4 ring of death.

I never buy warrenties, but for the 360 I bought the mother of Product service plans at bestbuy. Still a pain, but ahh well.
 
funkmasterb said:
Five hours of play total (not all at the same time) and mine has the 4 ring of death.

I never buy warrenties, but for the 360 I bought the mother of Product service plans at bestbuy. Still a pain, but ahh well.
4 red lights in ring = no/loose A/V cable

check your A/V cable in the back of the 360...

3 or 2 red lights = doom
 

shpankey

not an idiot
funkmasterb said:
Five hours of play total (not all at the same time) and mine has the 4 ring of death.

I never buy warrenties, but for the 360 I bought the mother of Product service plans at bestbuy. Still a pain, but ahh well.
this is not the ring of death. you need to check your cables is all.
 
Flynn said:
How is it that there's a class action lawsuit for broken Wii straps and none for 360s that brick after nine months?

Because broken straps injure people & property . . . . strict liability.

A dead xbox 360 doesn't cause any harm to people & property. You are limited to explicit & implied warranties. "The market" is supposed to take care of MSFT . . . and it has. They have repaired all pre-2006 xbox 360s for free and they have extended the warranty to one year.
 

tenchir

Member
My XBOX360 seems to be dieing on me. It crashed with that checkerboard look that was posted on the first couple of pages. This really sucks since I hardly play the 360. I put at most 2 hours into the system each month. The game that it happened on is Gears of War.

edit:

DSCN0714.jpg
 

mr jones

Ethnicity is not a race!
tenchir said:
My XBOX360 seems to be dieing on me. It crashed with that checkerboard look that was posted on the first couple of pages. This really sucks since I hardly play the 360. I put at most 2 hours into the system each month. The game that it happened on is Gears of War.

edit:

DSCN0714.jpg

That's what I'd see before mine died. :(

Call Microsoft, or get that heat gun ready.

OR, while its still working, hurry up and trade it in for 220 dollars in credit over at Gamestop! :D
 

Nameless

Member
I've only gotten error 74(AV cable) message thus far. But even new games have trouble reading. My cousin had this problem with his 360 and he said a DVD disc cleaner fixed it for him, so I'll probably buy one tommorow.
 

Kodiak

Not an asshole.
I have a launch 360, I'm guessing it's too late for me to be covered by MS's new 1 year thing? I mean, it still works fine and everything but this thread has gotten me all worried.

I don't use it too rigorously, maybe four/five hours a week at most.
 

CorwinB

Member
Just great.

My launch 360 died on EU launch day (froze in PD0 after a couple of minutes, took like 30 minutes with Kameo and PGR3). Sent it back the week after launch, got another unit one week later, which lasted a good while, that is until GOW was released. Then, it started freezing quite often (usually 30-45 minutes into the game). The real killer was Viva Pinata, though, which made it freeze after 10 minutes or so. Called MS support, sent the 2nd back, waited a few weeks. 3rd unit arrived today, and, well, I already got it freezing once in Viva Pinata, and once in Assault Heroes. Manufacturing date is Sept 30, 2006, so I doubt it's a refurbished one.

Edit : well, well, I just tried to register the serial of my brand "new" September unit, and XBox.com says this number has already been registered. So either they kindly updated their database on my behalf with the number of the new unit, or this unit has already been registered by somebody else, been returned as faulty, and then sent my way.

I can understand some units being faulty at launch (although not to that extent), but units being manufactured 10 months after launch, and being sent to customers already experiencing problems ought to work.

Is there any possibility that another element is the culprit here ? I'm still using the launch power supply, the HDD is from my 2nd one, and I've the WiFi adapter (plugged into the HD-DVD drive). I'm playing at 720p, using the VGA cable.
 

shpankey

not an idiot
my 3 red blinking lights of death came back last night

::weeps::

gonna try the hot air gun fix again, will update later, but i'm not expecting it to work again. :*(
 

mr jones

Ethnicity is not a race!
Unbelievable.

Well, it looks like I'm about to be on my second harddrive soon. The one I'm using now will allow me to load my Gamertag, and I can download and run demos and videos.

But I can't load any savegames.

I've tried Kameo, Gears of War, and Fear. None of them will load a save game. They won't let me start a new game, either. Kameo will even let me get as far as creating a name for the new save file, but when I try to select the game to start it, it just sits there. I've deleted the save file for Fear, and tried to start fresh. No go.

The games WILL allow me to play, however, if I don't have the harddrive connected to the Xbox 360.

Any suggestions?
 

JB1981

Member
mr jones said:
Unbelievable.

Well, it looks like I'm about to be on my second harddrive soon. The one I'm using now will allow me to load my Gamertag, and I can download and run demos and videos.

But I can't load any savegames.

I've tried Kameo, Gears of War, and Fear. None of them will load a save game. They won't let me start a new game, either. Kameo will even let me get as far as creating a name for the new save file, but when I try to select the game to start it, it just sits there. I've deleted the save file for Fear, and tried to start fresh. No go.

The games WILL allow me to play, however, if I don't have the harddrive connected to the Xbox 360.

Any suggestions?

Um, call MS and have them send you a new hdd.
 

op_ivy

Fallen Xbot (cannot continue gaining levels in this class)
my 4th (and days old) unit crashed on pgr3 today... a sign of things to come?

jesus christ, i really hope not. :/
 
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