# Xbox 360 Problem



## tommers (Nov 11, 2008)

Right, I turned on the xbox this evening, loaded up fallout, got about 2 mins into the game and it said that it couldn't read the disc.

It told me to check the disc and reboot.

So I did this and now it isn't loading any of my games.

I had a quick look at llama something or other and that said to use a CD lens cleaner.  So I tried that (and have since seen about 5 people telling me not to ) but still no luck.

Anybody got any ideas?  Everything else works fine but it looks like there's a problem with the DVD drive.  Thing is, it was working fine last night. 

Fucking microsoft, it's only a year old.  In fact it might even still be in warranty, I'll have to check.


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## keybored (Nov 16, 2008)

Sounds like the laser lens unit on the DVD drive is on the way out. You can get a replacement but I'm not sure how much or how easy they are to swap out. Good luck.


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## kerb (Nov 16, 2008)

got a smiliar problem with mine to, but usually happens on games that are old... certainly not brand new. 

dont microsoft offer extra guarantees on their website due to the problems with 360's?


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## Addy (Nov 16, 2008)

kerb said:


> got a smiliar problem with mine to, but usually happens on games that are old... certainly not brand new.
> 
> dont microsoft offer extra guarantees on their website due to the problems with 360's?


 
They extended the warranty to 3 years only for the RROD error.
(RROD = Red Ring of Death 3 flashing red lights due to CPU/GPU overheating)

If you want to get a free repair you need to give your xbox this problem.

Use a hairdrier to warm up the M$ warranty sticker for easy removal.
Open up your xbox and strip down to the motherboard.
Remove heatsinks and clean some of the thermal grease off them.
Replace heatsinks and reassemble xbox.
Switch on and hopefully have RROD.
Call M$ and ask for repair, hand box over to UPS man, wait 10 days and get new box.


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## Ranbay (Nov 16, 2008)

or just wrap a towel around it and leave it on for an few hours


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## tommers (Jan 7, 2009)

right, well I got that box repaired and it came back at the end of November.

So why are you telling us that now tommers?  I can hear you cry.

BECAUSE THE FUCKING THING HAS ALREADY BROKEN.

Red Ring of Death when I turned it on tonight.  What's that?  A month and a half?

Fucking rubbish fucking bollocks piece of shit. Jesus christ.   Can they not make a fucking console that fucking works?  Cunts.


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## alsoknownas (Jan 7, 2009)

tommers said:


> Fucking rubbish fucking bollocks piece of shit. Jesus christ.   Can they not make a fucking console that fucking works?  Cunts.


This last bit very eloquently sums up exactly how I felt having suffered an almost identical set of circumstances with my own Xbox 360.  I have gone very swiftly from drooling fanboi to rabid ex-postal-worker with Bill Gates grinning visage carved onto a hollow-point round.


ETA: You don't buy Xbox 360's - you rent them.


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## tommers (Jan 7, 2009)

weird.  I just turned it on again and it's working, at first it wasn't recognising the hard drive but it does now.

Should I still send it back?  It gave me the RROD twice, but seems to work now...


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## Sunray (Jan 8, 2009)

Send it back.   Spend MS money, they have plenty to go round.


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## keybored (Jan 8, 2009)




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## DG55 (Jan 12, 2009)

I'm not 100% certain about this, but I think it will give a 'red ring of death' if the video cable isn't plugged in correctly. So always check that - turn the console off, remove the cable completely then plug it back in.


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## tarannau (Jan 12, 2009)

Why do people buy this console? 

It's cheap, but it's absurdly noisy has a level of reliability that would have ashamed British Leyland and their chocolate engined range of cars. Oh, and it's made by cunts too


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## tommers (Jan 12, 2009)

DG55 said:


> I'm not 100% certain about this, but I think it will give a 'red ring of death' if the video cable isn't plugged in correctly. So always check that - turn the console off, remove the cable completely then plug it back in.



OK, I'll try that.  It seems to need to warm up, first couple of times I turn it on it will fail to start up but after a while it works...   When it fails there are 2 red segments on the console light.  RROD is 3 isn't it?

I've booked a collection for weds morning anyway.  They can sort it out.


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## The Groke (Jan 12, 2009)

tarannau said:


> Why do people buy this console?
> 
> It's cheap, but it's absurdly noisy has a level of reliability that would have ashamed British Leyland and their chocolate engined range of cars. Oh, and it's made by cunts too



It has it's flaws, agreed.

That said, my original 2005 machine is still going strong and out of the three current gen consoles I own, it is the one that gets the most love.

The XBox still has the best and biggest catalog of games, still has the best system exclusives among the cross-platform releases, delivers the best online gaming experience (admittedly for a fee) and - assuming it doesn't melt - is still technically the most capable machine amongst it's peers in terms of delivering smooth, pretty gameplay.

Following the latest update which allows you to install your games to HD, it is also much, much quieter!


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## ChrisFilter (Jan 12, 2009)

tarannau said:


> Why do people buy this console?
> 
> It's cheap, but it's absurdly noisy has a level of reliability that would have ashamed British Leyland and their chocolate engined range of cars. Oh, and it's made by cunts too



My first one worked for 18 months before I sold it, and has worked for another year since then. They don't all break.

Also, it really isn't that noisy. Sure, it's far from quiet, but I don't notice the noise at all. Perhaps you're a little oversensitive to it, or perhaps it was a particularly noisy box you borrowed.

I own one because it's nearly £200 cheaper than the PS3 with a much better range of games. I don't care about blu-ray either.

I have absolutely no reason not to love the Xbox 360.


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## elbows (Jan 12, 2009)

Ive got an old one that still works, but I do get the occasional disc error during play (mostly solved with the copy to HD feature, though it doesnt support crackdown, waa).

Also bear in mind that there have been 2 big revisions to the xbox360 hardware in recent years, which have brought power consumption down considerably, failure rates down quite a lot and noise down a little bit.

If anybody is shopping for a new xbox360, you are bet off trying to get the latest revision, jasper, which has a smaller gpu as well as the smaller cpu from the falcon revision. Smaller = less watts & heat. I shall get one of these eventually to help reduce my energy use, right now its tricky to get a jasper, blockbusters have had some, but only the arcade version is currently available in jasper form and there is still old stock in many stores.


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## Addy (Jan 12, 2009)

I doubt very much that Jasper revision 360's are on the Uk retail market yet, theres going to be a huge amount of Falcons to shift first...probarbly why there was a price drop just before xmas...kill 2 birds n all that.

The M$ admitance of the new revision was only made in the last few days, and as yet, there is no distinct way of identifying one from the serial no. alone.

And furthermore, there is no acctuall proof that they wont suffer the same RROD fate....only M$'s word (do you really trust them?)

The only way your gonna guarantee your box wont bork is to strip it out of its housing, assemble it in a pc case and add a water cooling system using bolts on the watercooled heatsinks.


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## elbows (Jan 12, 2009)

There are certainly some arcade Jaspers in UK retail. There is a lot of older stock too, so if you just buy one randomly you have more chance of getting a falcon.

You can tell if it is a Jasper by pushing the xbox along a bit in the box, until the portion of its rear where the volts and amps are written is visible. If the 12v line is marked as being 12.1 Amps, its a Jasper.

You are quite right that we wont really know if the RROD problem is solved with the new one. Its not just based on microsofts words though, but some technical reasons: as the chips generate less heat, they are less prone to the failures that caused such a high rate of return for xbox360's in the past. But it could be that the new revision has different weaknesses that could cause failure. All the same as the rate of return of xbox360's was so far above the average in the past, it will take some crap effort to fail so badly again several years later, Im sure they've learnt something from their expensive mistakes. Some xbox's will always fail, they just have to get the failure rate down to more normal levels.



Addy said:


> I doubt very much that Jasper revision 360's are on the Uk retail market yet, theres going to be a huge amount of Falcons to shift first...probarbly why there was a price drop just before xmas...kill 2 birds n all that.
> 
> The M$ admitance of the new revision was only made in the last few days, and as yet, there is no distinct way of identifying one from the serial no. alone.
> 
> ...


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## tommers (Jan 13, 2009)

elbows said:


> Some xbox's will always fail, they just have to get the failure rate down to more normal levels.



Over the past 25-30 years I have owned a BBC B, Amiga, Amstrad 6128, SNES, Dreamcast, PS1, PS2, Wii, DS, Intellivision, Atari and Xbox 360.

Out of all of them the Xbox is the only one that has ever broken, and it's now done it twice in a year.


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## kyser_soze (Jan 13, 2009)

What I love most about the 360 is that M$ have shown they _can_ get away with the same shitty QA model for hardware as they do for software. I for one am awed by that, since if you go back to press commentary when the first eggs box was launched that was one of the main crits, that they'd have to pull their collective socks up about QA cos you can't 'patch' hardware.


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## tarannau (Jan 13, 2009)

That's the thing though, isn't it? The odd failure is acceptable, but when nearly everyone you know has a tale of woe about their xbox(es) then there's surely a duff design and contempt for the customer at the heart of the issue.

They're cheap, but shoddy. And they're noisy, ugly blocks of console too, whatever Filter may say. Goes to show that if you throw enough money and subsidise a platform enough that it'll help people to overlook some gaping flaws. It's probably the worst quality controlled console in history.


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## kyser_soze (Jan 13, 2009)

Indeed. Sony haven't been whiter than white in this - the endless updates, PS2 compatibilty issues, changing the HD spec, number of USB ports etc, but ultimately it's still a buy it once box, as opposed to 'Well, you can buy a 360 for £120, but you'll then have to buy X,Y & Z to make it anything like useful'.


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## ChrisFilter (Jan 15, 2009)

I bought it for £99 then bought a hdd for £20. £118 all in.

But yeah, undeniably awful failure rate. Would still rather have an Xbox than a PS3 though. As confirmed by the "recommend me a ps3 game" thread..


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## ChrisFilter (Jan 15, 2009)

tarannau said:


> And they're noisy, ugly blocks of console too, whatever Filter may say.



I didn't say they weren't noisy. Just not as melodramatically noisy as your collywobble might have suggested!


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## Kid_Eternity (Jan 16, 2009)

They're only noisy while playing games, fairly quiet watching DVD's on them...


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## tarannau (Jan 16, 2009)

ChrisFilter said:


> I didn't say they weren't noisy. Just not as melodramatically noisy as your collywobble might have suggested!



I know I'm a sensitive fanless audiophile type, but...


...the Xbox whirr would be bad for a workstation pc, let alone something designed to sit unobtrusively in the living room. Big fail if anyone else is nearby.


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## The Groke (Jan 16, 2009)

ChrisFilter said:


> I didn't say they weren't noisy. Just not as melodramatically noisy as your collywobble might have suggested!





Kid_Eternity said:


> They're only noisy while playing games, fairly quiet watching DVD's on them...




And now if you install your game to the HD, they are not noisy at all.


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## Kid_Eternity (Jan 16, 2009)

Swarfega said:


> And now if you install your game to the HD, they are not noisy at all.



Oh yeah forgot that, how much quieter is an installed game? Can all games be installed or only newer ones?


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## tommers (Feb 12, 2009)

Guess what?

Turned my "new" (replacement) console on last night and got the weird chinese writing "your console may need a service" and 2 red lights again.  That's about 3 weeks.  Must be some kind of record.

However, I've turned it on and off again about 5 times since then, including this morning when it's had a chance to cool down and it all works fine..

does anybody else get this?  Does it just do it occasionally, or is it a sign that I'm going to be onto my 4th console in a year soon?


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## tarannau (Feb 12, 2009)

Send it back mate. My experience is that anything that plays up is only likely to get worse - it's a battle of hope against better judgment.

Really bad luck though. I've known people onto their 3rd Xbox before, but the fourth's a new one on me.


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## internetstalker (Feb 12, 2009)

tarannau said:


> Why do people buy this console?
> 
> It's cheap, but *it's absurdly noisy *has a level of reliability that would have ashamed British Leyland and their chocolate engined range of cars. Oh, and it's made by cunts too



only the early ones are really noisy

and people buy it coz it plays better then any other console and better games then any other console


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## kained&able (Feb 12, 2009)

noisey console can be easily countered by turning tv up a bit. 

I can't belive people play at low enough volumes to notice it. I only ever notice it when i turn the thing on for the first time.


dave


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## tarannau (Feb 12, 2009)

internetstalker said:


> only the early ones are really noisy
> 
> and people buy it coz it plays better then any other console and better games then any other console



The new ones are still noisy mind, considerably noisier than their competitors. It's just a bit crap - something for your living room should aim to be laptop quiet, not overhum everything unless you whack the volume up. Careless design fail.


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## internetstalker (Feb 12, 2009)

tarannau said:


> The new ones are still noisy mind, considerably noisier than their competitors. It's just a bit crap - something for your living room should aim to be laptop quiet, not overhum everything unless you whack the volume up. Careless design fail.



no, mine is no more noisy then my laptop. I NEVER notice the noise. My step sons is noisy (his was bought when they first came out)

the thing is, you  have issues with M$, and you hate the xbox

thats your problem innit!

the xbox is flawed yes. But it's no way near as bad as you make it out to be


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## Awesome Wells (Feb 12, 2009)

Mine sounds like niagra falls after a night on the curry!


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## GarfieldLeChat (Feb 16, 2009)

tarannau said:


> Why do people buy this console?
> 
> It's cheap, but it's absurdly noisy has a level of reliability that would have ashamed British Leyland and their chocolate engined range of cars. Oh, and it's made by cunts too



1 it's cheap.
2 people still seem to think the ps3 is expensive (asopposed to investing in a system which will die in under a year and may leave you with nothing playable)
3 fanbois 
4 no independant review of games of the graphics produced by them which means people think x game is better on y system without it being true.
5 it came out before the others so the back catilouge of games is larger (not better just larger) 
6 shonkey ports of xbox games aren't as good as on they are origianl system. (bad button mapping shit grpahics ports etc)


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## GarfieldLeChat (Feb 16, 2009)

internetstalker said:


> only the early ones are really noisy
> 
> and people buy it coz it plays better then any other console and better games then any other console



bollocks i have an eleite and it's loud as fuck


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## tarannau (Feb 16, 2009)

internetstalker said:


> no, mine is no more noisy then my laptop. I NEVER notice the noise. My step sons is noisy (his was bought when they first came out)
> 
> the thing is, you  have issues with M$, and you hate the xbox
> 
> ...



i can only conclude that you have a shit laptop.

I can't hear my laptop fans at all. Even the latest model of xbox is too noisy - my mate's just got the latest model (his third) and it's still the loudest thing in the room, outhumming a 50 inch plasma, no mean feat in itself.


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## internetstalker (Feb 16, 2009)

GarfieldLeChat said:


> bollocks i have an eleite and it's loud as fuck





tarannau said:


> i can only conclude that you have a shit laptop.
> 
> I can't hear my laptop fans at all. Even the latest model of xbox is too noisy - my mate's just got the latest model (his third) and it's still the loudest thing in the room, outhumming a 50 inch plasma, no mean feat in itself.



your both welcome to come round and hear for yourself

mine makes almost no noise. In fact when I turned it on just to check i could hear fuck all.

Like I said before my step sons is noisy!

BTW I have a good laptop


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## GarfieldLeChat (Feb 16, 2009)

internetstalker said:


> your both welcome to come round and hear for yourself
> 
> mine makes almost no noise. In fact when I turned it on just to check i could hear fuck all.
> 
> ...



yeah mine was quite ish when i got it but it get's louder over time and when it's spinning the disk or working hard... 

i was taking issue at your new ones aren't loud post... mines less than 6 months old... can't get much newer than that...


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## internetstalker (Feb 16, 2009)

GarfieldLeChat said:


> yeah mine was quite ish when i got it but it get's louder over time and when it's spinning the disk or working hard...
> 
> i was taking issue at your new ones aren't loud post... mines less than 6 months old... can't get much newer than that...



fair enough

i've only had mine since xmas


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## Kid_Eternity (Feb 16, 2009)

GarfieldLeChat said:


> 1 it's cheap.
> 2 people still seem to think the ps3 is expensive (asopposed to investing in a system which will die in under a year and may leave you with nothing playable)
> 3 fanbois
> 4 no independant review of games of the graphics produced by them which means people think x game is better on y system without it being true.
> ...



1) Yep, this is a real factor

2) I've yet to see a PS3 for under £200...so yeah the PS3 is more expensive...also while a huge pain if your xbox does die within the first year you can get it replaced for free.

3) Hmmm....don't know about that tbh, my (well over 25 years) experience of gaming has taught me fanboism is not limited to any one system, and that there's roughly the same amount hyping up all systems...

4) Fair point but then graphical power isn't as widely different between them as it is between them and the Wii so this really isn't as much of an issue as you seem to be implying.

5) Yeah objectively it does have a bigger number of titles to choose from but the more choice the higher likelyhood of their being a decent number of games.

6) I don't know anyone who cares about backward compatibility. In fact it's never been cited by any of my gaming friends as a bonus for getting one system over another.

7) I'll add a number 7 that you forgot: online gaming. No contest, while it costs money the Xbox beats the PS3 hands down in this area. This was a major deciding factor (along with price) for me getting the 360.


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## GarfieldLeChat (Feb 16, 2009)

Kid_Eternity said:


> 1) Yep, this is a real factor
> 
> 2) I've yet to see a PS3 for under £200...so yeah the PS3 is more expensive...also while a huge pain if your xbox does die within the first year you can get it replaced for free.
> 
> ...


but 7 isn't true ...

I'd add 

7 a load of unqualified toss talked about by people who don't own all the systems trying to jusitfy their own purchases if you'd like... 

but the ps3 has online support and gaming it's on a game by game basis but all the function of the XBL system is there (if not the sensible system of account sign ins etc)


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## Kid_Eternity (Feb 16, 2009)

GarfieldLeChat said:


> but 7 isn't true ...
> 
> I'd add
> 
> ...



I'm glad you agree with all my points up to number 7 though. 


If I buy an Xbox game with online play I know I can play with everyone on my friends lists. My understanding was that with the PS3 there's no unified friends lists and each game has to offer it's own online set up?


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## internetstalker (Feb 16, 2009)

GarfieldLeChat said:


> but 7 isn't true ...
> 
> I'd add
> 
> ...



can you rent HD films on it?


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## GarfieldLeChat (Feb 16, 2009)

internetstalker said:


> can you rent HD films on it?



no, but we can play them natively  

it's all coming however, in home there's a cinema which currently only has trailers but will allow on release purchase and rental of HD films.

Basically at the moment the PS store is a makeshift thing which they aren't putting time into developing because they have these features adiquately sorted in home and once they finally sort home out and launch it (it's really a case of more content now the lag issues are gone the streaming issues are gone it's just a bit spartan in it's content now) then this will replace the current system. 

we are only 2 years in to a 10 year dev cycle for home and it has significantly greater scope than MSLive/Xblox live had at the same point in it's genesis.


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## internetstalker (Feb 16, 2009)

they are both great machines

I own an xbox and have nothing bad to say about em?

I also think the PS3 is an excellent machine.

the price goes against it, but in relation, it's the same price for an xbox ( I have to buy a wireless connector, a blu ray dvd player) but i don't spend all the money at once.
 I prefer the xbox onlly coz I own one ( and that was a freebie) which is what it comes down to for me. 

I got my xbox for free so that makes it a better console from my experiance!

plus the back catalogue of games ( but this only applies for maybe 2 or 3 games)

I got a splinter cell game for £7


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## GarfieldLeChat (Feb 16, 2009)

nah they re both gret mahines but different i know theres some die hards who can't accept this (filter i'm looking at you) but it's true...


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## internetstalker (Feb 16, 2009)

GarfieldLeChat said:


> nah they re both gret mahines but different i know theres some die hards who can't accept this (filter i'm looking at you) but it's true...



I read an article the other day that compared the 2 machines 3 times, once when the PS3 first came out, once a year later and one now.
after reading all 3 articles I wanted the author to commit and say which console was better.
He didn't/couldn't.

As for Fillter I without doubt think he knows both machines are quality (he has said many times) I think he just likes to wind up other posters who _really_ don't accept this (tarannau I'm looking at you)


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## ChrisFilter (Feb 16, 2009)

internetstalker said:


> As for Fillter I without doubt think he knows both machines are quality (he has said many times) I think he just likes to wind up other posters who _really_ don't accept this (tarannau I'm looking at you)



 True

Garf, have a look at the poll about consoles owned. You'll see I have no problems admitting that the ps3 is a great machine, just too expensive and too limited a games catalogue (in comparison to the 360) for it to be worth it for me.


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## GarfieldLeChat (Feb 16, 2009)

sorry proably shoulda included a smilie I'm sure filter knows i'm only joshing...


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## GarfieldLeChat (Feb 16, 2009)

internetstalker said:


> I read an article the other day that compared the 2 machines 3 times, once when the PS3 first came out, once a year later and one now.
> after reading all 3 articles I wanted the author to commit and say which console was better.
> He didn't/couldn't.



you can't really...

It's like saying which is better a porsche or a ferrari ... it boils down to personal taste over all the ps3 - thin which will be launched in the next 2 years will bring the cost down imeasureably and as a result will make it a direct competitor to the 360 (at which poitn i expect ms to rush out a 720 or some such with similar build problems but still with a modern version of XBL) 

thing that MS has done over sony and what sony still don't get yet is that MS aren't really selling a console they are selling an cut down Operating system in the form of XBL.  it's this familarity which will proably ultimately win over people even if it's a bit MS in some of it's functions (and you have to pay to go online and game and all the other shite credits instead of cash amounts on your account etc...) and once the next gen of younger gamers are preconditioned into the MS/XBL way of doing things this is what will stick much like people get currently conditioned into the windows way of doing things.  and unlike most people the console market has changed from it being rich kids with new toys or spoddy techies with mech fanstaies to be almost the 3rd essential electrical component after the tv and the dvd player... so the cutlure has massively  changed as a result the gaming public at large don't want to learn new ways of doing things and are happy by and large with fancy new icons every so often rather than improvd functionality or a dev's wish list of features.  

To a certain extent this has been helped along with the sucess of the wii and really it reenforces the change in gaming from the publics POV.

however i guess we might be at the peak here for gaming in terms of hard ware for a bit as the current economic crisis has hit the gaming world hard with even EA making losses and smaller firms shutting up shop left right and centre so there maybe no need for a tech expansion for some time (and as japans economy is tanking it there might not be one again as the only company to make money ont heir consoles is nintendo who are always reluctant to release new products if the old ones are still selling/making money...) 

so i guess this current crisis int he economy if it continues for two long might overly reduce the hardware expansion making the only saleable features the online component which of course will only be of benefit to both systems as it'll lead to a 'live enviroment' arms race which cold be very intresting...

however to go back to the original point they aren't the same it's not possible to pick one and say this is better, neither ofhtem are perfect both have issues...

I'd dispute filters they have a bigger back catoglouge now though this might have been true intially (although MS included all previous xb games as well as the launch titles for the 360 and a hell of a lot of ported ps2 games as their launch range) it certainly isn't now true and as i've said before the jump off will come when dev's decide fuck it were not making a reduced game because we can only limit the data to a single layer dvd format... 

MS see it as an Os sale basically, sony as an advertising horading for other sony brand (or approved brand) products one you pay for your online gaming the other is sponsored in the hope of enticing you to buy more stuff is the main difference... 

who get's to the convergance of both quickest (currently as i said looking like XBL) will be the one who ultimately wins the console war.

home however will introduce a second life type avatar system which will entice a lot of people on to it (look how popular the wii mii's were and frankly their limtied scope is a touch shite...)


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