Have MS moved the RROD goal posts?

[dongratius]

Hi all. Recently my Dec'05 360 started playing up. The colours went all wrong, seemingly no red was getting through. If I shut it down when the colours were messed up it would re-boot with a black screen with white dots.

Sometimes it boots okay, and I know it will start up okay if I shut it down when the colours are fine.

Anyway...been reading lots of forums, and it appears many people have been experiencing similar issues recently. Mainly since the most recent update.

Now my question to you guys is:

Could the update have changed the firmware's criteria for showing the RROD to prevent the masses from using MS's extended warranty.....or is this just my paranoia.

Please tell me that this is not the case.

 

[SkilledNutter]

Well firmware can be recoded do do what ever they want it to do and if one of those is no 3 red lights then it is easily done.

In this case I would say you just have a different issue.

 

[dongratius]

I think you're probably correct....it's just lots more people seem to be discussing this fault.

 

[CounterWhine]

Could the update have changed the firmware's criteria for showing the RROD to prevent the masses from using MS's extended warranty.....or is this just my paranoia.

I congratulate you on your paranoia. I love a conspiracy theory as much as the next man and this one's a doozie!

I'm sure your Xbox will die soon. One way or the other.

 

[dongratius]

It's bizzare, i'm actually sat there hoping my 360 will die soon!

 

[CounterWhine]

That's a cool gamerscore by the way. Don't ever get another achievement

 

[rikki2ks]

Hi all. Recently my Dec'05 360 started playing up. The colours went all wrong, seemingly no red was getting through. If I shut it down when the colours were messed up it would re-boot with a black screen with white dots.

Sometimes it boots okay, and I know it will start up okay if I shut it down when the colours are fine.

Anyway...been reading lots of forums, and it appears many people have been experiencing similar issues recently. Mainly since the most recent update.

Now my question to you guys is:

Could the update have changed the firmware's criteria for showing the RROD to prevent the masses from using MS's extended warranty.....or is this just my paranoia.

Please tell me that this is not the case.

Mate, Just call them and say you've had 3 red lights. When they ask you what colur the light is on your power pack, say green.

I doubt very much if they will check the console, and even if they did I'm sure they'd replace it as faulty anyway

 

[andersonshatch]

I have the same fault too

Josh

 

[wormvortex]

I had the same fault, it soon turned into the 3rings and off my 360 went to M$

 

[PRODIGY8]

My 360 has done the same, colours went dodgy!

turned it off and back on again now no display, but NO 3 red lights

No matter how many times i turn it off and on again it still has no picture, I have check leads and tried a different TV.

One thing to note is the fans are really quiet, dont know whether this means anything or not??!?!?!

If i was to try blagging the 3 red light fault, the power supply light should be green, but what does your TV display???

 

[dongratius]

Whatever you do don't cover the back of your console with your hands then wait till it gets hot and fans don't rev up any more and then reboot.

You might find that doing this will lead to normal operation. Do switch off when the colours go funny again, this will ensure that you have a black screen when you reboot.

Doing this will mean things get really hot...which can't be good.

 

[PRODIGY8]

My 360 has done the same, colours went dodgy!

turned it off and back on again now no display, but NO 3 red lights

No matter how many times i turn it off and on again it still has no picture, I have check leads and tried a different TV.

One thing to note is the fans are really quiet, dont know whether this means anything or not??!?!?!

If i was to try blagging the 3 red light fault, the power supply light should be green, but what does your TV display???

I wish it did have 3 red lights, at least i could get it repaired for free then!!

Never thought id say 'i wish my 360 has the red ring of death'!!

 

[Zzebedee]

I'd stick mine in a box with no ventilation and play gears or bioshock (or any other game that pushes the xbox really hard. It'll soon overheat and conk out with the red lights

 

[andersonshatch]

I thought if you overheat the console it would show 2 red lights and just sit there with fans blaring until you unplug it??
Plus I have been reading that this problem is related to solder on the underside of the graphics card not having good contact and heating the console up can make the situation better.

I have tried overheating it and this is what happened when I did - it seems to have temporarily fixed the problem - Perhaps I didn't leave it for long enough since I turned it off as soon as I saw 2 red lights for overheating.

Josh

 

[rikki2ks]

You should all be sending them back to M$ saying you had 3 red lights.

They will send you a refurb and that will be that.

Remember - He who dares, wins

 

[PRODIGY8]

You should all be sending them back to M$ saying you had 3 red lights.

They will send you a refurb and that will be that.

Remember - He who dares, wins

Yeah im sending mine back saying its Red ringed, what do i say displays on the TV.....ive heard it should be a blue screen is that right???

 

[rikki2ks]

Yeah im sending mine back saying its Red ringed, what do i say displays on the TV.....ive heard it should be a blue screen is that right???

Mine was just a blank screen mate. They didn't ask me about the screen.
They just wanted to know what colour the light was on the power brick (mine was green).

Also get them to e-mail you the UPS label to save time. It's 20 -25 working days turnaround at the moment so every day counts!!

Good luck

X Hotshot B X

 

[PRODIGY8]

well, I rang up first and told them first it red ringed and when i turned off and on again it had a blank screen, the guy said that that was fine and it will be free to repair, he then took my email and said he would send me the labels.

24hrs plus and still no labels via email, rang them back up again and explained what had happened, turns out he had my email down wrong . so the lady said she would have to cancel this repair and start a new one but I would have to ring back in an hour, something to do with there system apprently.

rang back and this women then asked me for my credit card details . So I explained that this was now the 3rd time I had called up, waiting in a queue everytime and that the first guy I spoke to said it was going to be free. She said that if the fault was a blank screen it would be a chargeable repair, so explained the fault again. She then said ok and gave me a new reference number.........

another 24 hours on and still no labels, looks like Ill have to ring them again!!

At least now I can tell them that my 360 has 3 red lights, the power brick has a green light and there is no picture on the display!!!!

thanks all!!

 

[wormvortex]

Yeah im sending mine back saying its Red ringed, what do i say displays on the TV.....ive heard it should be a blue screen is that right???

They test it first they don't just fix it. So when they turn it on and don't get the 3 rings they will simply phone you up tell you it's not covered by warranty and ask for payment to fix it or ship it back to you.

Could always do what my mate did when his 360 kept freezing smash it really hard repeatedly with your fist. He soon got the 3 red lights after that and got it repaired for free

 

[PRODIGY8]

They test it first they don't just fix it. So when they turn it on and don't get the 3 rings they will simply phone you up tell you it's not covered by warranty and ask for payment to fix it or ship it back to you.

Your probably right mate, my thinking was that with that many people having them going faulty, they may just ship out replacements when they receive a faulty one. and then repair the faulty ones and refurb to ship out as a replacements for other peoples faulty ones?!?!? like a cycle
that would keep there turnaround time down as they wouldnt have to go through the process of testing, then ringing you, etc etc....

I could be completely wrong though!!!

 

[smokingreen]

Your probably right mate, my thinking was that with that many people having them going faulty, they may just ship out replacements when they receive a faulty one. and then repair the faulty ones and refurb to ship out as a replacements for other peoples faulty ones?!?!? like a cycle
that would keep there turnaround time down as they wouldnt have to go through the process of testing, then ringing you, etc etc....

I could be completely wrong though!!!

It would also put their costs through the roof as it would not take long for the community to figure out that every console that was reported to have the three red lights was replaced no questions asked.

Doesnt the three red lights have something to do with a problem caused by overheating? If so cover up all the ventilation holes and then wait...

 

[wormvortex]

When mine returned it was the same one as I noted the serial number and date before hand. The letter with it stated as well that they tested it and changed the motherboard over. So for me at least they did physically test and fix mine

 

[PRODIGY8]

looks like im paying for it or get it to overheat!!

Is it 60 quid for an out of warranty repair??

 

[wormvortex]

if its a standard price to repair it (wanna check that first) then you could always purposely cover the vents and leave it running with a game to try and forcefully crash the console. That way you'd get it repaired free Though if the repair charge depends on the problem it wouldn't be a good idea.

 

[dongratius]

Well seemingly this fault occurs because a chip (possibly the GPU) is not attached the motherboard correctly, or the solder fails over time. You would therefore assume is was only a matter of time before it conks out completely.

I just can't understand why a loose chip does not induce the RROD!? Can you get a bigger hardware failure? (rhetorical question)

Which leaves me with the question, if this does not cause the RROD then what does?(non-rhetorical question)