XBox 360 - 3 Red Lights

Weaselator

Furp wrote: »

Just got an email from service.xbox.com and by Original Xbox is on the way back after being repaired. The ups tracking number is not active yet though.

Strange it only changed yesterday from waiting for device which according to UPS they had on Friday to Received. Now it says that its back in warranty and on the way back to me.

So thats 6 Business days since I dropped it off at UPS. seems longer.

Mine was delievered to Germany on Monday according to UPS but is still Waiting for device according to MS. Going on the above logic it should be fixed today then, happy days!:D

Keith186

Weaselator wrote: »

Mine was delievered to Germany on Monday according to UPS but is still Waiting for device according to MS. Going on the above logic it should be fixed today then, happy days!:D

Mine was delivered Monday morning as per UPS but only changed to device received this morning. Hopefully I'll have it back Tuesday at latest. Off to Prague for weekend so won't miss it...

Helix

brothers box rrod'd there last week, so i overheated it for about 2 hours and there hasnt been a problem since

when it comes back, ill be replacing the x-claps, adding a second dvd drive with a sata switch, and putting in a second fan

LegacyUser

Helix wrote: »

brothers box rrod'd there last week, so i overheated it for about 2 hours and there hasnt been a problem since

when it comes back, ill be replacing the x-claps, adding a second dvd drive with a sata switch, and putting in a second fan

I don't get you...what do you mean you overheated it? How? If so, it's fixed? So what will be coming back!?

Furp

He probably is talking about the towel trick, wherby you wrap the 360 in towels run it for 15 minutes in a warm room then let it cool down.

What this does is melt the solder connections inside the console therby reconnected any connections which have cracked or not making good contact, as the connections are supposed to be the source of the RROD as the original heat transfer design of the 360 is not supposed to be adequate.

See http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=avWs4-wD15w
or
http://thexboxdomain.com/2007/01/15/the-towel-trick-fixes-360s/

BTW the status of my 360 is still Delivered back to customer but UPS tracking still shows the it as billing received only, so its still at the service centre.

jill_valentine

Used to work in a game shop. I had arms like a shotputter from carrying RROD'ed Xboxes down the damn stairs. That said, at least with the 360, you can save your hard drive. We had a high failure rate on our PS3's too, but with those we had to swap out the whole machine so you lost all your stuff. By the time I left for greener pastures, we had more PS3 returns than 360, although I'd imagine the launch-niggles have been largely sorted by now.

witnessmenow

I fixed a RROd'd console there at the weekend. I bought it with RROD to see if i could. If anybody has one thats out of warranty ( for what ever reason:) ) xbox with rrod send me a pm.

Even if you tried something yourself and it didnt work it might still be fixable. The one i bought someone had attempted to fix it too, and i still got it going!

Snake Plisken

easy fix if you can get it open just unplug the fans from the motherboard leave it overheat, you'll get the 2 left hand lights flashing red leave it for 2 minutes leave it coold down and you should be back in action, I would not recommend the towel trick as you damage other components on the main board by doing this by unplugging the fan it just means the GPU (this is the main culprit) and CPU will overheat. I've been doing this for the last couple of months and it works but mine seems to fail after a couple of weeks off, I would also recommend that if you can stand the console up on its side, the overheat trick seems to work for longer.

niallk

So I sent mine away Monday two weeks ago. It took until the Wednesday to get to Germany, and thursday to to get to the factory. On Xbox.com, the repair status was "Waiting for device at warranty centre" for another six days. On Wednesday last week it went to "Device being repaired" and then to "Device shipped to customer" within a few hours. Got an email saying it shall be not longer than seven days. Today was day seven: no xbox.
UPS says:
"Location Date Local Time Description FRANKFURT,
DE 02/05/2008 21:10 EXPORT SCAN 02/05/2008 20:56 ORIGIN SCAN DE 01/05/2008 23:13 BILLING INFORMATION RECEIVED
Tracking results provided by UPS: 06/05/2008 16:13 ET "
so according to this it hasn't been scanned into Ireland yet which means it probably won't be here tomorrow, Day eight.
16 days since it left my house.
23 days since I contacted Microsoft.
30+ days since it inexplicably broke down through zero fault of my own.
4 years since I began my longing for GTA4 and the wait agonisingly continues. I am going to murder someone if my xbox doesn't come tomorrow. Give GTA a bit more publicity at least.

witnessmenow

Great first post!

ShaneU

Add me to the list No more gta for me for 2 weeks third time in 16 months

Helix

cheesedude wrote: »

I don't get you...what do you mean you overheated it? How? If so, it's fixed? So what will be coming back!?

as explained below overheating your xbox can fix dodgy solder points and get everything working again (you can do this via the towel trick or with a hot air gun), its not a permanant fix however which leads onto your next question

the rrod will come back, when that happens itll be a proper fix im gonna do, not overheating to fix points

witnessmenow

I presume your talking about the xclamp repair, or some variation of it?

It doesnt always work (as i found out first hand). And there is also some things that you need to be careful about. If your not very careful its quite likely you'll bend the metal casing when your drilling through it. If you do bend it the contacts at the bottom of the board will be toucing the metal housing, which will cause a short. (Likely cause of RROD with no fan or dvd drive activity)

There is a few things that you probably already know about but probably worth mentioning all the same.

There is a mod to make your cooling fan 12v, which increases teh amount of air it pushes out, there is also another trick where you put extra card on the fan shrowd(grey plastic thing on fans) thats ment to help too

Snake Plisken

you don't have to drill the case if you follow Rdawg's version of the fix I've used it, problem is its not guarenteed to fix the 3ROD, I constantly have to open mine up and plug out the fans to overheight the GPU, the issue stems from the lead free solder and the poor heat sink, only proper solution would be to re-ball the gpu, not sure of anyone in Ireland who can do that at a reasonable price, and if you weigh up the price of an arcade at €200 it doesn't make much financial sense if it costs over €100 to get the re-work done on it.
I might stick with mine until the next rev of the 360 comes out where the will shrink the GPU die down, which should help with the gpu running hot, they should seriously look at sticking a ZIF socket on the board as this would help the issue and redesing the airflow system in the box, I've done die with a cornflakes box to redirect the airflow over the GPU heatsink, the air coming out of the back that I redirected over the GPU is now nice and hot which means that the air flow design was crappy before.
The joys of owning a launch 360

witnessmenow

Super long post coming up

The one i had must have been repaired a good few times before i got it I'd say.

I opened it up to find they had already tried the xclamp method(not through the case, Rdawgs method probably). I completely re-did it (Rdawgs again), with new thermal paste and everyting else. Overheated just the GPU for 15mins.

Turned it on and it worked.
Reassembled it and it worked.
Went to show my GF how i fixed it... FAIL!!

So re-attempted everything again a few times... nothing
Tried the through the case method , had the above problem i described above (RROD with no fan activity). At this stage i didnt know that the points at the bottom were touching the case. Was sure i had completely ****ed it. Solution came to me 5-6 days later while i was 100 miles from the xbox! I had read that it was quite common to bend the case when drilling through it and i had obviously did!
After unsuccesfully trying to unbend it, i lined the metal case with cardboard (weetabix box FTW!:p)

So i reasembled tried it out, nothing.
Cooked it twice (on seperate occasions) by plugging the fan out to let it overheat. Still nothing.

Not for the first time i had completely written off this console!

Came accross a crazy method to attempt to fix it. Basically its preform the Rdawg method... then put the xbox mobo in a preheated oven at 200oC for 7-8 mins , then turn it up to 230oC for another 7-8 mins!!!

If your going to try this there is a few things to note:

1. This obviously risky and mildly stupid!!
2. Capicators tend to expand/explode when exposed to high temps. You can minimize the risk of this by wrapping each of the bigger caps in tin foil
3. This is a last throw of dice method,
4. You need to have the xclamp done for it to be effective.
5. Your oven will smell a little bit like you cooked a xbox in it!
6. Your best off desoldering the eject and sync button (the blue plastic of mine are completely melted!)

The mobo was piping hot when i took it out, took nearly an hour for it to cool to what i thought was an acceptable level to try turn it on.

Turned it on and what do you know it worked! :eek:

Which brought me to my next problem, the sync button! I could get around the eject button because i got the media remote with the HD-DVD add on. So i soldered 2 wires to the bottom of the mobo where the sync button is.
When i was reasembling the case I ran the wires out through the memory card slot. So to connect up a wireless controller i have to hot wire it!(But it does actually work!)

So its currrently working away, dont know for how long though. At least I had fun with my 360 before i ever played a game on it!

Furp

Finally got my Xbox back yesterday so that was 15 days since dropping it off. its my original xbox with a new motherboard seemingly. so far its working ok but have not had much of a chance to test it out.

Rowley Birkin QC

witnessmenow wrote: »

then put the xbox mobo in a preheated oven at 200oC for 7-8 mins , then turn it up to 230oC for another 7-8 mins!!!

I find its served best with sauted dreamcast and some lightly stirfried Wii-motes, makes for a fantastic meal for two.

"Slowcooked xbox served at its best makes for an exciting and exhilirating treat for the palette" -Irish Times 26/3/2008

;)

Hornswoggle

Ok so UPS took my RROD riddled xbox away 2 weeks ago, got the confo e-mail from xbox saying it has been fixed and is back on its way back to me. Looking at UPS tracking it says this:

Package Progress Location Date Local Time Description
FRANKFURT,DE
05/06/2008 9:52 P.M. EXPORT SCAN
05/06/2008 9:37 P.M. ORIGIN SCAN


Can someone please tell me what the hell this means? How much longer am i likely to be waiting before i get it back! Im sick of waiting to play frickin GTA!!! :mad:

WAAAAAAAA

corcaigh07

i genuinely laughed out loud at cooking an xbox motherboard! why o why didnt you just send it back again!?!?!

Keith186

Hornswoggle wrote: »

Ok so UPS took my RROD riddled xbox away 2 weeks ago, got the confo e-mail from xbox saying it has been fixed and is back on its way back to me. Looking at UPS tracking it says this:

Package Progress Location Date Local Time Description
FRANKFURT,DE
05/06/2008 9:52 P.M. EXPORT SCAN
05/06/2008 9:37 P.M. ORIGIN SCAN


Can someone please tell me what the hell this means? How much longer am i likely to be waiting before i get it back! Im sick of waiting to play frickin GTA!!! :mad:

WAAAAAAAA

Relax, it means it got scanned to head back to Ireland. Mine was scanned on 3rd May and I got it yesterday so if yours was scanned on 6th May you should probablyhave it in 3/4 working days...
Its a long wait

Snake Plisken

very interesting fix Witnessmenow
I stripped mine out again last night did the overheat job on it for 3 minutes and slipped it back into the case I had tightened the screws fairly tight stuck GTA4 in and it locked up straight away, I've found that by loosening the screws it actually gets the box going again, I took out the mainboard and plugged in the dvd drive video cable and power lead without any fan cooling the gpu and cpu and it actually started up fine for about 5 minutes playing GTA4 it didn't even do the check picture freeze it just went 2 red flashing lights signifying overheating so cooked the gpu for 3 and a half minutes before powering off and leaving her cool down, I tightened two screws one on each side kind of diagonal left the other two loosly tightened and I then fitted her back in the steel casing. Didn't screw the case back together and played GTA4 for 1 1/2 hours worked fine, then I put it all back together, the only thing I've done different is leave the screws that secure the mainboard down loose enough so not to flex the motherboard, powered her up tonight for 4 hours and no issues! I will see how long this fix lasts

curry-muff

Lads this may sound weird but i think gta4 broke my 360. It was working grand up untill this week when i got gta4 which i played a lot at first and then it kept freezing and i lost game data so i thought it was a problem with the disc but then i tried playing good old cod4 and the screen was blurry and pixellated but i continued on and it was ok for a while before it froze also mid game. I took the console into smyths in derry where i bought it and it worked grand in there up untill the loading screen but the problems i had wer mid game so unless they played for half an hour they wouldnt have found the problem, but they did tell me that theyve heard of other people with this problem after purchasing gta4 and also that ps3s had a problem where it would shut down the console but they've released an update for it since. Is this just a freak accident or has anyone else heard of this too???

jill_valentine

I know Assassin's Creed was causing problems with PS3s, but I haven't heard about this...

curry-muff

Yeah well its more the 360 im worried about, i really dont kno what to do here cos it would be a lot handier if smyths would just take it back and replace it but it might just be the game???

jill_valentine

curry-muff wrote: »

Yeah well its more the 360 im worried about, i really dont kno what to do here cos it would be a lot handier if smyths would just take it back and replace it but it might just be the game???

What did Smyths say? Did they replace your disk, or tell you to come back if you had problems later on?

Batesy

There might be something in 'certain' games harming your 360.

When I got mine back from Germany there was a letter inside saying if it does happen again to take note of which game you were playing and inform the customer service staff when you phone for repair.

Makes me more certain that MS still don't fully know why the RROD is so common.

CountingCrows

Strange one, connected VGA cable for the 1st time last night. Worked for about 2mins then the display and the box froze.

Connected in back to TV (composite), 3 red lights. If I connect it back to the VGA again it will start but freeze almost straight away and, if I connect it back to the TV again I'll get 3 red lights.

I rang MS and started the ball rolling for a repair but just thought it was strange that the RROD don't appear when using the VGA cable.

LegacyUser

Batesy wrote: »

There might be something in 'certain' games harming your 360.

When I got mine back from Germany there was a letter inside saying if it does happen again to take note of which game you were playing and inform the customer service staff when you phone for repair.

Makes me more certain that MS still don't fully know why the RROD is so common.

I'm convinced EA Fifa 08 gave me my RROD...it's such an unreliable game.

ceejay

I sent my XBox 360 back for its second repair on 17th April, and it was fixed and sent back by Friday last week - though I had to wait till Tuesday to actually get it since noone was at home on Friday when UPS called :rolleyes:

Anyway, played GTA IV on Tuesday night for about 3 hours, played COD4 on Wednesday night for about 3 hours, the kids had played it for about 2 hours during Wednesday, and then Thursday morning my daughter was playing Viva Pinata for about 10 minutes when the screen went all pixellated and the 3RRoD was back.

8 fracking hours it lasted :mad:

The note I got back with it said they changed the DVD drive and the motherboard, but fat lot of good that did!

Is it worth ringing the support number instead of just booking it in for another repair online, giving out stink to them and demanding a new box and not just another repair/refurb unit?

I might just take the plunge and go get a PS3 now.

Snake Plisken

the game blame comes up whenever new titles come out I blamed Forza for killing my 360, and I do think the graphic intensive games just push the GPU over the edge causing massive heat to be disappated through a poorly designed GPU heatsink cooling system leading to the dry joints on the GPU, the GTA specific freezing issue might be a different issue as there is a lose of save data though.