Xbox360 Failure - Advice? Or should i revert to PS3 Fanboy :)

Question

Ok, so basically 3 month back i brought a 360, worked like a charm, odd crash once or twice, should be expected. The other day, my little cousin was playing on it for 6 hours O_o and during gameplay it froze, thinking nothing of it, i rebooted the console, set him on it again.

Turned out, it then wouldnt get past the microsoft logo, freezing at sporadic times, after a few more attempts i left it. Got up next morning, and played a good 2 hours with my little cousin on co-op. only to have it freeze, and sporadically crash at logo, dashboard, and 20 seconds into game. I called up support, took out hard drive - tried, failed. ran inital setup again - tried, failed. Its not been connected to xbox live for a few month, so thats not an issue.... Not happy to add to the fact that it scratched halo 3 in a perfect ring, and Cod 4 with some nice lines (just brought it). Any advice on how to stop this? dont want to have to RMA it back to them and have to wait 4 weeks to get another one. Customer support also refused to refund / replace halo3/cod4, even though its the console scratching the disk (Cod was brand new this morning). So im not a happy bunny. Any advice to get it to work? or should i just Ditch my 360, set it on fire, and convert back to the land of ps3... with no games.

Answer 1

You wont have a choice but to mail it to Microsoft, but I would recommend you buy a ps3 because they are more reliable and are amazing.

Answer 2

It sounds like it has a well known issue with the DVD scratching which I believe the European Commission ordered MS to cough up on, i.e., pay for the games, cos they were denying liability. However not sure how that is going;

http://www.itwire.com/content/view/12627...

Make sure you never move the console when it's on - that's guaranteed to scratch discs. Also is better flat than upright to stop scratches.

http://www.llamma.com/xbox360/news/Xbox-...

The llamma website has a way of sorting it but will void your warranty.

However......... the scratching isn't your only prob cos it's freezing before even booting into games and that will be the precursor to the infamous RROD (Red Rings of Death). It's at the first stages of overheating. So yes, definitely send it back.

You *could* buy an 'x-clamp fix kit' from me for around £5-7 on ebay.co.uk (depending on where in the world you are). My kit is a collection of bolts and washers + thermal paste and full instructions on how to replace the x-clamps to fix the overheating issue and prevent it from returning. Just look up XBOX_EXPERT on Community page of ebay.co.uk

But in your case DON'T since your Xbox is in warranty cos it voids it when you open the console + you have the disc issue which needs sorting.