Microsoft's Xbox 360: One RROD And My Console's Fini

I’ve written before about Microsoft’s heat-related reliability issues with its Xbox 360, including the various short- (enhanced airflow) and long-term (cooler-running, lithography-shrunk ICs) fixes that the company’s put in place over the 3+ years of the console’s life-to-date. In my personal possession are two Xbox 360s:

• An original-design system purchased in November of 2006, and
• A HDMI-inclusive Elite unit acquired the following spring

Until a few days ago, I confess that I thought the RROD (red ring of death) phenomenon, indicative of general hardware failure:

was overblown. I realized that Microsoft had consciously taken a few development shortcuts in order to garner a one-year availability lead on Sony in this particular generation of the console wars. And I realized that since I’m not a hard-core gamer (and therefore mostly use my units as Media Extenders), I probably wasn’t working out my hardware to the degree that others might be. But I smugly figured that most of the console failures were probably caused by clueless consumers putting their Xbox 360s directly on deep shag carpeting, or blocking the exhaust vents by piling stuff on top of the unit, or cooping up the console within a closed-door cabinet that didn’t provide access to cool ambient air.

I smugly figured…until last Friday night. A buddy and I wanted to watch the recordings of that evening’s news broadcasts, so I punched the power button on my original-design system mentioned above. For the first few seconds, all seemed well, but then the display froze prior to reaching the NXE screens. I powered off the system, turned it back on, and got the same lockup, even earlier in the boot process this time. My third attempt (and subsequent ones since then) resulted in the three-light RROD pattern on the front panel. Fortunately, in mid-2007 Microsoft extended the normal 1-year console warranty to 3 years for this particular error (including retroactive coverage for already-sold units)…and in a timely bit of coincidence, the company expanded its extended-warranty policy yesterday to cover another manifestation of the general hardware failure phenomenon.

Relevant portions of Microsoft’s support website were seemingly down all weekend; I’d get a blank screen after each time I logged in with my Live credentials, no matter what computer, operating system or browser I attempted to use. Monday morning, the site was back up, and I was able to submit my repair request and print out a prepaid UPS Ground (inexpensive for MS, but slow for me) shipping label. I’ll send the system in today; unfortunately the company won’t commit to getting a repaired-or-replacement unit back in my hands any sooner than 2-3 weeks from now. And if a replacement is deemed necessary, I’ll get someone else’s refurb’d first-generation console (albeit reportedly with beefed-up ventilation), versus a newer-generation design with a lower-power-consumption 65 nm CPU and/or GPU.

Since this is likely to be an ongoing issue with my two consoles, and given the lengthy time each of them will be out of my hands during each repair-or-replacement iteration (as well as the fact that they’re my primary means of viewing both over-the-air and Internet-delivered television and other video content), I went ahead and sprung for a spare Arcade unit to use during primary console down time. At ~$175 inclusive of tax and shipping, the purchase was easy to justify; I can swap the HDD from the dead Xbox 360 to the Arcade unit, therefore explaining why I didn’t need to buy a more expensive Pro or Elite SKU.