Console Repair Ireland or Microsoft to repair my X360?

Leprekaun

Hi all. My X360 is out of warranty so I'm going to have fork out some cash to get it fixed. The problem basically is that it doesn't read discs (only after 3 or 4 eject, close tray that it sometimes works) so I bought a new BENQ lens, removed the solder point and put it in. I was very careful placing it, not to touch the lens itself but now it won't read any discs. I checked the resistance of the pot and found it 6.8k Ohms so I kept lowering it until 3.2k Ohms but it still won't read any discs. It makes a strange noise when the lens moves a bit and then I can hear the disc spin but it still won't read the disc so I'm guessing there is something wrong with the drive now. I've looked at the options available and I ended up with 2. Console Repair Ireland or Microsoft themselves. According to Console Repair Ireland, it will cost €50+p&p costs to repair a DVD drive and they'd give me a 6 month warranty and Microsoft would charge €100 and would give me a 90 day warranty. To be honest, I'd lean more towards Microsoft more since they would know the Xbox better than anyone else. The p&p for the X360 I'm guessing will work out at around €20-€30 so in total, it would be around €70-€80 so for an extra €20, I thought its worth my piece of mind but I'm willing to give CRI a shot if they're credible and are known to fix problems so what would be best? Thanks.

enfant terrible

Could buy a new one for 154 euro delivered off amazon.

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Microsoft-Xbox-360-4GB-Console/dp/B003UTUBQG/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1316371172&sr=8-2

Jimbobjoeyman

third party repair for a dvd drive is as good as any,
Its just a matter of replacing the dvd drive or laser.

I replaced a laser yesterday and it did the same thing as yours did then I realized I had the flex cable coming from the laser to the drive pcb upside down.
After I turned it the right way around it fired right up

Snake Plisken

Microsoft will probably send you out a re-conditioned Xbox so you won't be getting your original back, god only knows what was originally wrong with the one they send you at lease Console repairs will send your own one back and 6 months guarantee is decent enough compared to the 90 days M$ give u

after_shock3000

You could just fit a new drive yourself. They can be had pretty cheap on ebay.
You said you bought a BENQ laser, so I'm assuming this is your drive Benq VAD6038.
You'd need to read your firmware from the old drive, then flash it to the new 1 because you're key is in there. It a fairly easy process with the Benq's.
Do a little bit of reading on it first before you buy to make sure you could do it, but like I said it's not hard with those drives.
The are plenty of tutorials out there, but most of them involve modified firmware, so I won't link to them here. You can just ignore the modified bit and flash your original unmodified firmware to the new drive instead.

corcaigh07

if you fancy a gamble, you could pretend you have RROD and provided its within the 3 year extended warranty, Microsoft will prob replace it. i replaced a broken console that wasnt RROD about 21 months ago by claiming it was RROD. i reckon there are so many RRODs to get through that Microsoft simply don't have the time to check each console and you could get a reconditioned, fully functional and free xbox in about 2-3 weeks