just how crap are Xbox?!
just how crap are Xbox?!
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Discussion

Davi

Original Poster:

17,153 posts

249 months

Monday 31st December 2007
quotequote all
Brother has had his Xbox 360 for a year and 1 week. It'd had problems in the past that were sorted, but this time it appeared terminal. While trying to find out a remedy he was told by one high street retailer that the warranty return rate on the 360 is 35%!!!

After a bit more investigating he's told it's going to have to go back for repairs - at a cost of £100, and to get it UPS'ed back. Queueing up at UPS there were no less than SEVEN other people with an Xbox cradled under their arm, and the women at the front informed him that they have days were a driver is employed PURELY to drive around picking up all the duff ones to be sent back.

How on earth is this thing still on sale?!

Altrezia

8,740 posts

240 months

Monday 31st December 2007
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They are rubbish, but to be fair, I've had mine for ages and its never gone wrong.

Gorvid

22,371 posts

254 months

Monday 31st December 2007
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They are shit. But great......if you see what I mean.

biggrin

Luca1973

11,976 posts

279 months

Monday 31st December 2007
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Davi said:
at a cost of £100, and to get it UPS'ed back.

How on earth is this thing still on sale?!
Shouldn't cost you anything. All 360s have now got a 3 year guarantee regardless of when you bought it.

TheCarpetCleaner

7,294 posts

231 months

Monday 31st December 2007
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Luca1973 said:
Davi said:
at a cost of £100, and to get it UPS'ed back.

How on earth is this thing still on sale?!
Shouldn't cost you anything. All 360s have now got a 3 year guarantee regardless of when you bought it.
I was informed the 3 years only covers the red ring of death from overheating... could be wrong through as it was a long haired hippy dude at Gamestation that told me this hehe

Have the warranty book at home so will take a peek when I leave the office

outlaw biker

2,458 posts

225 months

Monday 31st December 2007
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Not had any problems with mine...having said that, I've only used it a couple of times in the last year. Great dust magnet.

The red ring of death is caused by insufficient internal cooling. Supposedly thats been redesigned on the Elite.

Malx

871 posts

233 months

Monday 31st December 2007
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Out of the group of friends who have them abfou 4 out of five have broken. Mine being one i picked up on launch day has been fine.

I would say however that MS are very good at replacing/fixing it and it should not cost you anything.

So to answer your question i would say that while the systems can break the fact MS has increased the warranty to 3 years tkaes a bit of the sting away. In my opinion the 360 is not crap

Davi

Original Poster:

17,153 posts

249 months

Monday 31st December 2007
quotequote all
TheCarpetCleaner said:
Luca1973 said:
Davi said:
at a cost of £100, and to get it UPS'ed back.

How on earth is this thing still on sale?!
Shouldn't cost you anything. All 360s have now got a 3 year guarantee regardless of when you bought it.
I was informed the 3 years only covers the red ring of death from overheating... could be wrong through as it was a long haired hippy dude at Gamestation that told me this hehe

Have the warranty book at home so will take a peek when I leave the office
What's the red ring of death look like? He started his up in the morning, got 4 red lights, turned it off, back on and it started up OK, only the graphics card appeared to have been fubared - distorted / dark / fuzzy graphics.

stigmundfreud

22,454 posts

239 months

Monday 31st December 2007
quotequote all
Davi said:
TheCarpetCleaner said:
Luca1973 said:
Davi said:
at a cost of £100, and to get it UPS'ed back.

How on earth is this thing still on sale?!
Shouldn't cost you anything. All 360s have now got a 3 year guarantee regardless of when you bought it.
I was informed the 3 years only covers the red ring of death from overheating... could be wrong through as it was a long haired hippy dude at Gamestation that told me this hehe

Have the warranty book at home so will take a peek when I leave the office
What's the red ring of death look like? He started his up in the morning, got 4 red lights, turned it off, back on and it started up OK, only the graphics card appeared to have been fubared - distorted / dark / fuzzy graphics.
4 red lights = ring of death

Mr Will

13,719 posts

235 months

Monday 31st December 2007
quotequote all
All xboxs have a 3 year guarantee against any manufacturing fault, not just the RRoD

the early xboxes did have cooling problems, but they have since been redesigned to run MUCH cooler and this seems to have cured all the problems.

If you are getting a new one, just make sure that it has the 175w power supply and this will guarantee that it has the new "falcon" chipset inside.

If you still have an old one, make sure there is space around it for it to breathe. they don't like being wedged into small spaces with poor air circulation.

jimmyb

12,254 posts

245 months

Monday 31st December 2007
quotequote all
All you need to remember is microsoft are one of the smartest companies out there. The only one who gets there customers to do r+d on their products to save themselves time and money.

Timberwolf

5,374 posts

247 months

Monday 31st December 2007
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It's one of the most badly-built pieces of consumer hardware I've ever owned. Actually, to be fair to it the controller is nice and robust, but I swear you could go into PC World and buy an example of every last ridiculously marked up DVD drive they have in there, and you still wouldn't find one that is as noisy and as prone to read errors as the XBox 360 unit. (The way the unit lets in dust so easily just makes things worse.)

The amount of noise it produces, and overheating problems on the early units, is utterly ridiculous - it's only pulling down just over 200W on full load, and doesn't even have an internal power supply to worry about keeping cool!

stigmundfreud

22,454 posts

239 months

Monday 31st December 2007
quotequote all
jimmyb said:
All you need to remember is microsoft are one of the smartest companies out there. The only one who gets there customers to do r+d on their products to save themselves time and money.
Every software house uses that mentality

Davi

Original Poster:

17,153 posts

249 months

Monday 31st December 2007
quotequote all
just called my brother and advised about the 3 year guarantee - He'd already had similar advice and argued this with MS, only they insisted it was not a covered fault and wouldn't send out the returns slip without payment first!

Suppose only what one would expect from MS really!

Mekon

2,493 posts

245 months

Monday 31st December 2007
quotequote all
If I had one fail for a non-RROD reason, if it still powered up, I'd wrap it up in a blanket, and sit back until it RROD'd. Obviously, with a fire extinguisher in hand. Kinda reverse of the towel trick.

Santa Claws

420 posts

229 months

Monday 31st December 2007
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Had mine for 8 months - no problems. Then again I rarely use it nowadays.

tim2100

6,288 posts

286 months

Monday 31st December 2007
quotequote all
The Ring of death is 3 red lights. It can be for numerous problems. There is a way you can get a code up which tells you the problems.

4 lights is Display plug not in i think.

Mine was great whilst it lasted. I couldn't send mine back as it had been opened and then I tried to fix it just before MS announced they had a 3 year warrenty for the over heating problems.

AFAIK the extra cooling on the elite is just the Graphic Processor heat sink enlarged to sit behind the CPU heatsink.

Tim.

Mr Will

13,719 posts

235 months

Monday 31st December 2007
quotequote all
tim2100 said:
The Ring of death is 3 red lights. It can be for numerous problems. There is a way you can get a code up which tells you the problems.

4 lights is Display plug not in i think.

Mine was great whilst it lasted. I couldn't send mine back as it had been opened and then I tried to fix it just before MS announced they had a 3 year warrenty for the over heating problems.

AFAIK the extra cooling on the elite is just the Graphic Processor heat sink enlarged to sit behind the CPU heatsink.

Tim.
The elite and newer standard xboxes are completely different inside, its not just a case of more cooling, they have a different chipset which generates much less heat in the first place (google for "xbox falcon&quotwink

this makes them much more reliable and apparently pretty much immune from the RRoD

scooby wrx sti

1,180 posts

226 months

Monday 31st December 2007
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i bought a 360 on day of release played it virtually every day no bother, traded it in for an elite playing on that every day still no problems.

spunky-mon

898 posts

238 months

Monday 31st December 2007
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i had the red ring................








......my xbox is working perfetly though.