Xbox laid to rest

[RegentOne]

My XBOX died on me last night while playing GoW2. I will be buying a new console Friday. See you guys shortly.

[The_Blunt]

I figured it died because you didn't come back last night.
I'm sorry for your loss. May your 360 rest in peace. :(

[Kamui]

Yea :(...., may your xbox rest in peace Regent.

[Zabka]

Are you past your three year warranty?

[Taco_assassin]

My condolences for you and Kamui. You guys better come back soon. I'm gettin nervous now though....hope mine's not the next to go...

[RegentOne]

No Zab's, the Xbox is not out of it's 3 year warranty. I will send it back and give it to my nephew. He has been wanting one. I have another Xbox that is in the process of being sent back too. This one will go to my daughter.

The one going to my daughter displayed RROD a little over a year ago. My recent one received error E 74 which has to do with the video card.

[Kamui]

thats the one I got too :(, you'd think they'd have worked on a method to prevent that by now.

[keyser28146]

Geez. Which models are these? 20GB, No HDD, or Elite?

I wanted to buy one a couple weeks ago, went into the store and asked the guy if he knew if they were still spouting RROD's on the newer builds. He proceeded to tell me "there's never been a hardware problem really... I've had mine for 2 years now and never had a problem". He told me the ones that originally launched were the only ones that had any issues whatsoever, and that was within normally acceptable failure rates, but any one with an HDMI port has no issues at all". I nodded and politely said: "I know you are a salesman, and there is room for exaggeration but you shouldn't just lie your ass off, because that one just cost you a sale."

I'm terrified of buying a 360. I want one for the netflix, but I will go into a rampage and drive to seattle and kill someone for real if I get RRoD. I'm unhinged in this regard. If I buy something like a car and it explodes in the driveway, that is acceptable. If I buy a DVD and I get home and it is in Full Screen format even though the box says widescreen I will blow a fuse and be ready to kill. Simple things done wrong piss me off.

It's a GD bunch of circuit boards. If something is causing a problem in testing, re-engineer the boards and problem solved before you launch. Anyway I'm beating a dead horse. I want a 360. IS THERE ANY SAFE MODEL YET? I know the ones with HDMI ar supposed to be safER... anybody got any info/data on this?

I DO NOT WANT A SYSTEM FANBOY CONSOLE WAR, I JUST WANT TO KNOW IF THERE'S A MODEL THAT TRULY HAS FIXED THE PROBLEM. I'm content to wait for a total redesign... like the way the PS2 slim has NONE of the issues the original PS2's did, and I'm not trashing the system. I had an original PS2 also that died after only 2 years because of the disc read problem.

[Zabka]

The failure rate--according to an article I post some months ago--has as much to do with the QC on manufacturing as it did in the actual design. Many early models of many different consumer products have higher failure rates upon launch--but they get weeded out with QC and tossed into the scrap heap--not sold to the public like the 360 was. Over time as manufacturing improves, the failure rate goes down and cost of manufacturing goes down as a result (that's how we get price drops over time--not just due to lower cost inputs). So....theoretically, a new 360 shoudl have a much lower chance of getting RRoD than the old ones---partially due to better manufacturing processes and partially due to better QC.

That being said, clearly the failure rate is above 0% for new models. I don't know if you will ever be "Safe". If all you want is a netflix player, though....$199 with a 3 year warranty is really not a bad deal. Although I would go the extra distance to get a hard drive to be able to play some of the games.

[RegentOne]

I've owned 2 XBOX Pro 20GB consoles Keyser. My first one, which I bought about 2 1/2 years ago, received the RROD at about the 1 year 3 month mark. My second and most recent XBOX Pro received an E 74 error at about the 1 year 1 month mark.

The new XBOX I bought today is an Elite and I've not heard any problems with it yet but I will not buy another Pro. I did purchase the 2 year warranty with my new Elite since my failure rate has averaged 1 year and 1.5 months. I would say, if your interested in an XBOX, to buy the Elite with a 2 year warranty that way you're covered.

[norm]

You know Keyser if you want one just for Netflix I would suggest you not get one. You can get a Roku that is built just for streaming Netflix movies. The Roku only costs you $99.00. It works great and I haven't heard of any major issues. LG and Samsung both make Blu Ray players that allow you to stream movies from Neetflix.


If all you want a 360 for is just Netflix and it's going to cause you to have an ulcer from worry you may just want to try one of the stand alone players. If you want it to play games the newer models have a lot less issues then the first models do. In fact the newer models now have a "Jasper" motherboard which is the upgrade from the Falcon model I and most of the DSA probably have. The Falcons have the redesigned chips and lower wattage PSU's. The Jaspers have more improvements then the Falcons do. Lower PSU, new internal memory, and a few other things. You can read about it here

http://www.xbox-scene.com/xbox1data/sep/EkkZlFAyyZZXEKjatA.php

In 2009 there's another redesign coming out called Valhalla that is supposed to have a smaller CPU and GPU. Since most of the heat is coming from the CPU and GPU this should help even more. There's also rumors of a redesigned case sometime in the next couple of years. Much like the PS2 Slim. Not sure how reliable that rumor is though.



Hope that helps and if you want to know more about the 360 all you have to do is ask without launching into a tirade.

[Kerry2]

Sorry to hear about your 360 regent, but glad you're up and running again. Mine froze up on me the other night when we were playing and I just shut it down and went to bed. I figured it was done for but then apparently my son reached up and turned it on Christmas eve and it worked like a champ. I'm on number 3 but this one has lasted a little over a year I think. Hopefully I'm done with the headaches for now.

[Kamui]

Mines lasted less then a year, I got this fella in February 2008 and it died on me two weeks ago. Me being a poor college student, i'm very frustrated that this happened and if this happens again, then I will have no choice than to move on because I can't afford to buy a new 360 at this time :(.

[Zabka]

Kamui--if you got yours in Feb 08, you should be covered until Feb 2011. That's a long time to not have to worry about buying a new machine---although the headache of getting the replacement is certainly noteworthy. I had no problems getting mine in 3 weeks--but like most of us here, I was jonesing too hard and went and bought a PS3 to tide me over.

Regent--I am surprised you haven't considered adding a PS3 to your arsenal instead of just getting more 360s. I think you would like having some of the PS exclusive titles--Socom, RFOM2 and Killzone2 in particular. Then you get the best of both worlds....it's something I have really come to enjoy. I love socom--even if it isn't perfect now---because it is VERY playable and remains an incredibly well done game. RFOM2 has got a phenomenal coop, crazy multiplayer (not as tactical from what I can see). KZ2 may be great---but I am always leery of overhyped pre-release reviews.

Of course...then you lose focus on some of the great 360 games out there. But I do wish that some more DSA would go cross-platform. The systems each have their faults. But if it's about the games, then they both have their positives as well!

[RegentOne]

I am interested in purchasing the PS3 Zab's just not right now since getting the new Elite. Give it about another 6 months or so and I might be able to purchase a PS3. I do want to game with some of the old and new DSA on the PS3 platform.