Tracking My Xbox360 Repair

Microsoft Done Right?

2008-07-15T20:37:00.000-07:00

Well, I got another Xbox back...and it's curious. It's NOT a 3-year-old piece of shit this time. Actually, the manufacture date is 4-18-2008, meaning that i may have gotten a new xbox (or just someone's lemon). We'll see if this one lasts; I play to put it to the test.

And It's OFF!

2008-06-30T18:37:00.001-07:00

Xbox #3 is out the door. Here's the interesting thing this time: Xbox has asked for the power cord and power unit to be shipped w/ the core unit. It seems that they may be replacing those as well. I've read online that people have long suspected the power brick being faulty...looks like that speculation may be true.

Strike of the 3RRoD again!

2008-06-26T21:39:00.000-07:00

It's happened again. Tonight I was playing a little Mass Effect, and the game froze. I went to restart the console and I got the 3 red rings. Crap. Back to Microsoft you go.

This is my 3rd xbox in 9 months. Pathetic if you ask me. This xbox was made in 10-2005 (note: 2 months OLDER than the 1st piece of crap that a received). Again, I bought my original xbox in December 2006. I'm tired of xbox sending me this old, clearly flawed pieces of shit. It's not like I'm up every night playing for hours on end. I might play an hour or two a week...surely the console should be able to handle that?

Here's the best part: I'm now a Microsoft Xbox 360 frequent flier. Because this is my 3rd repair, they are using "expedited" shipping for me. Wow, thanks. How bout sending back an xbox elite...or is that for my 10th repair???

~1 more week

2007-11-10T15:27:00.000-08:00

Well, my console was received, and now my 3rd console is on it's way back. It was shipped yesterday. My guess: I'll have it next Friday. Should be interesting to see the manufacture date of this console...

It's off

2007-11-02T18:13:00.000-07:00

My 2nd Xbox360 Console is out of the door, into the UPS truck. Now it's waiting time until another refurbished unit arrives...I'm keeping my fingers crossed that this time I will receive a truly fixed one.

How to Lose Your Fan Base

2007-11-01T22:27:00.000-07:00

Here's an excerpt from the Xbox.com Forums/Technical Issues:

"im currently an EXTREMELY angry xbox 360 owner, as i have just suffered my 3rd (yes 3rd!!!) RRod with a gap of no more than 2 weeks between repairs. Its dust free, ventilated and all that jazz, and ive hardly played on it, in fact my sessions have been no longer than a few hours, if that, since the most recent repair so my patience is running extremely thin...i think it might be a ps3 for me, over to the dark side, after being stuck firmly on microsofts side since 2001 with my xbox. Ive dispised some of my friends' ''sony this'', ''ps3 that'' rantings, but i want a next generation console thats not off in some repair centre somewhere when i want to play. IF i had of known this was going to happen when i excitedly paid full price for my premium xbox 360 package about a year ago, i would of thought twice about shelling out the 300 or so pounds...-loving Microsoft fan"

Man, that's just not acceptable. Clearly Microsoft needs to find someone else to fix their Xboxes because the company(ies) that is doing it now just can't get it right (assuming the above story is true). I tend to believe the guy because he's not alone. If you read around, it seems there are a lot of people out there with the same story!

Emails With Microsoft

2007-11-01T21:29:00.000-07:00

I found Microsoft's service unacceptible, so I sent an email (through the Xbox.com website/support) letting them know that I was disappointed. This was a small portion of their response:

"The console has no defects and it is fully functional. The service center fully tests the console. The console you receive is a fully functional console in exchange for a problematic console."

Really? If the console I received was fully tested, then the testing needs to be fully tested. The console I received was not functional, as evidenced by it's complete failure in 9 days.

Now where's the phone number for that local news, consumer advocate??? This could be bad for 360 sales as X-mas approaches.

Yay

2007-11-01T21:19:00.000-07:00

It's a miracle, the cardboard shipping box arrived today. Good riddance you white, unfixed, un-refurbished Xbox360 console!

I'm not alone!

2007-10-30T07:06:00.000-07:00

Just for my records

2007-10-29T21:42:00.000-07:00

Here's a photo of my xbox with the 3RRoD

I hope I'm not this guy

2007-10-29T21:09:00.000-07:00

Wow, clearly microsoft didn't fix the xbox that they sent to this guy.

At least I'm not the only one out there with this problem. When I first started to read these stories abour the RRoD, I thought it was minor, vocal minority who just didn't know how to care for electronics. After it happened to me, and a guy at slashgear.com...? Just more evidence that this is a widespread problem.

More Evidence That This is A Major Problem

2007-10-29T20:22:00.000-07:00

Ouch, it appears one of the companies that Microsoft used to fix Xboxes have now stopped doing so. They state that "This problem is endemic on the XBox 360 console and the volume has made this repair non-viable."

When will the 360 just be recalled? It seems like the entire repair/refurbish system that Microsoft has put into place is broken itself.

Anyway, I'm just waiting for my the cardboard box to arrive so that I can send my second console back to Microsoft. On a side note: I wonder where my xbox360 console is...I hope it's repaired and providing someone some joy...

Manufacture Date

2007-10-29T06:43:00.001-07:00

Ugh...after reading around the web, I realized that each Xbox360 is stamped with a date of manufacture. I was curious, so I took a look a look at the date of manufacture for my "replacement" xbox: December 5th, 2005! Come on!

I bought (actually it was given to me as a X-mas gift) my original xbox at the end of December, 2006. Unfortunately, I no longer have my original xbox, so I don't know the exact date of manufacture. However, it's extremely unlikely that an xbox sold, in a gaming store, in December 2006 was manufactured a year prior to that sale. I wish I did know my original xbox manufacture date, but I had no idea that I would not be getting my xbox360 console back.

So this is how it works?: My Xbox is flawed, so I send it off for repairs, and I get back an Xbox that is an entire year older! WTF?

Again, imagine if any other company tried this. Imagine a recall on your vehicle, so you drop it off at the dealer and you return the next day (or a month if you're dealing with Microsoft repairs) only to find that your vehicle has be 'replaced' by a model that is year older.
Original car:

"My" car after MS "fixes" it:

Urgh...

2007-10-28T22:34:00.000-07:00

I read through this blog and post. Wow, it's scary to see what may be in my future...looks like there are a lot of frustrated people out there...

The Reason For This Blog

2007-10-28T11:54:00.001-07:00

On September 24, 2007, my Xbox360 developed the dreaded three red-flashing lights. I searched the web, only to find that this is a common problem with the 360s. So, I called 1-800-4my-xbox. The customer support quickly diagnosed that my xbox needed a repair. I was relieved to discover that this problem is covered by a new, extended, 3 year warranty.

The good news: all costs were to be covered by xbox. They shipped a box with a pre-paid UPS shipping label (took >1 week for the box to arrive).

The bad news: the expected turn around time was 3-5 weeks. Ouch.

On October 19th, I got "my" xbox360 console back. I opened the shipping box, only to find that xbox had sent me a different, supposedly refurbished, xbox. Whoa, I didn't agree to this? (I guess I did, somewhere, in some fine print). But I didn't buy a used xbox360. I bought a new one, and I treated my console with care. I have no idea who's xbox I just received and how it was treated in the past. Is this xbox from some 10 year old, who kicked it when losing a game of Halo? Imagine dropping off your car for repair, only to return the next day and have the mechanic give you someone else's car! So, needless to say, I was skeptical. But, I plugged in the "fixed" xbox, and things weren't quite right:
-Games would suddenly freeze. This was independant of game type, or amount of time played. Sometimes it would freeze jsut after starting up, sometimes, it would freeze after 30 minutes of playing. I tried to diagnose the problem. Nothing seemed to work...until:

October 28, 2007
I turned on my xbox this morning, only to be greeted by the three red flashing lights, again. That's right, in about 1 week, my "fixed", replacement xbox broke again.

After searching the web and even the xbox forums, it appears I'm not alone. Microsoft has admitted that the 360 is flawed. But it appears their repair process is flawed as well. After a quick read of the xbox.com forums, you'll quickly see that people complain of having to ship their "refurbished" xboxes back multiple times. Keep in mind, each time you ship, you're without your ~$300 electronics entertainment for ~1 month! Therefore, 3 returns=1/4 of the year! If this were a TV, a DVD player, a computer, this would not be acceptable.

So, after this experience, I've realized that I'm probably in for a frustrating experience. How long will this last until xbox/microsoft can resolve this problem and give me an xbox that won't break? I've decided to document my experience, through this blog, for everyone to see. There will be no hyperbole here. Just the facts, as I experience them. So sit back, relax and enjoy the xbox.com/support experience as I go for the ride!