September 8, 2007

red ring of death, part I

file under: my life
tags: xbox bioshock

my Xbox360 died the true death, this coming right as i was about to run out and buy Bioshock following my friend Chooky's mouth-frothing review of the game. suffice it to say: we were not amused

...

for those of you who aren't either mouth-breathing gamer geeks (like me), or generally interested in the gaming industry or microsoft's foray into it, the red ring of death is a term used to describe a problem with Xbox360s. when an indicator on the front of the console flashes with three (not four) red lights, this indicates a "general hardware failure". while this can mean any number of things, the biggest problem it seems to indicate is an issue with heat generated by the 360s chip set. the chips heat up, everything around the chips heats up, things thermally expand or melt, and unhappiness ensues.

so what does one do when this happens? gotta send your 360 back to Microsoft for repair or replacement. i called Microsoft Xbox support last night to get the process started, steeling myself for what i thought would be an unpleasant battle with the behemoth. as it turned out, they were extremely helpful, and it sounds like the process should go smoothly (famous last words?). the CSR took down my information and told me they would be sending me a box within which i can ship back my 360. the box comes with packing materials and pre-paid shipping via UPS, so all i have to do is pack it up and drop it off at UPS. supposedly, 3-4 weeks later, my repaired 360 will be returned to me. let's hope the rest of this experience is as good as the first part has been (aside from the hardware failure and need to postpone Bioshock gratification).

stay tuned for more...

Posted: 09.08.07 at 9:19 AM | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBack (0)