Xbox 360 reliability
Discussion
We discussed this some time back, but I can't find the thread.
While I love my white brick dearly, it's not the most reliable unit in the world.
My second one has just RROD'd on me, and will be heading back for replacement.
Of the 8 people I know with a 360, we've suffered at least 12 failures between us. One of us has just had his 4th unit go...
At least there's 3 years cover on the device should it have the "general HW failure".
Cue PS3 owners and extreme smugness.
While I love my white brick dearly, it's not the most reliable unit in the world.
My second one has just RROD'd on me, and will be heading back for replacement.
Of the 8 people I know with a 360, we've suffered at least 12 failures between us. One of us has just had his 4th unit go...
At least there's 3 years cover on the device should it have the "general HW failure".
Cue PS3 owners and extreme smugness.
randlemarcus said:
Or cue a 360 owner who has had it sitting perfectly happily on top of the set top box since Launch Day, with ne'er a quibble 
I wonder if you're in the minority, be interesting to know if more have come back for repair than not?Mine went pop last week BTW, 14 months and I'm not a hardcore user, maybe a few hours/week. And it was sat in a cool well vented spot too.
PITA
Edited by dave_s13 on Saturday 29th March 13:19
They're definitely not the most reliable of consoles! I'm still pleased I bought one instead of the PS3 for various reasons, which I will not go into detail here. However after 2 months of ownership my 360 began to freeze every now and again. Seemed strange, but thought nothing of it. A few days later and the freezing became more frequent, usually freezing after a few seconds of usage! Sent back to Microsoft and the motherboard was replaced.
At least the warranty on all 360's have been increased to 3 years, however it is still a pain not being able to use something you bought! What happens after the 3 years are up?
At least the warranty on all 360's have been increased to 3 years, however it is still a pain not being able to use something you bought! What happens after the 3 years are up?
My launch model worked perfectly until last year and then had the RROD. I then went and bought an Elite which has worked perfectly ever since. I gave my old 360 to my brother in NZ and fair play to MS they replaced it free of charge for him (no receipt, bought in another country etc)
Apart from that never had any problems.
My PS3 continually has problems with downloading updates, usually it will fail 2-3 times before downloading successfully. Never have any problems with downloading demos though so it's a bit weird.
Also the PS3 crashes often with both Blu-ray DVDs and games. Usually it will attempt to play a BD and fail to load the menu, have to force the power off and reboot.
Apart from that never had any problems.
My PS3 continually has problems with downloading updates, usually it will fail 2-3 times before downloading successfully. Never have any problems with downloading demos though so it's a bit weird.
Also the PS3 crashes often with both Blu-ray DVDs and games. Usually it will attempt to play a BD and fail to load the menu, have to force the power off and reboot.
They are terrible aye.It's not all heat related either, it had a lot to do with solder cracking over time on the motherboard
due to the pressure it was put under by the heatsink clamps.You may remember i went to extreme lengths to keep my first 360 ultra cool.I took it all apart, removed the heatsinks, added some super duper arctic silver heat transfer compound and replaced them, i then cut a large hole in the case and added a fan to it and another fan underneath.Quite often i ran the machine with no case on at all too!The end result was that the heatsinks went from something that would take your skin off if you touched them, to something that was just warm/hot, yet perfectly touchable and much much cooler.You would not believe how hot it is inside a sealed 360 case and having no fans blowing onto the heatsinks at all results in them almost glowing, so i changed all that..
The end result? It still died and gave me the RROD after 6 months or so haha
I have another 360 here which is currently out of its case and i have tried the x-clamp mod on it to see how it gets on.This is the mod that removes the standard brackets for the heatsinks, the ones often blamed for the motherboard damage.The machine also has fans on the heatsinks at the moment too, so we shall see how long it lasts.
When i modded my first one, there was no 3 year warranty thing, but now there is, i decided to keep an untouched and standard 360 aswell, so i use that quite a lot and if it dies i will just return it.The other stripped unit is more of an experiment/fun little project.I was so shocked after the first one failed even with all that superb cooling that i wanted to have another play around and try something else.
Anyway, yes, they are unreliable and if you search forum archives around the world for people who told you that their launch console was still perfect etc etc, you can quite often go back a few months later and find that the same RROD has happened to them.None of the machines are truly safe, they can pop after a month or well over a year later and it doesn't seem to matter how well you look after them.If they are going to die they are going to die..
due to the pressure it was put under by the heatsink clamps.You may remember i went to extreme lengths to keep my first 360 ultra cool.I took it all apart, removed the heatsinks, added some super duper arctic silver heat transfer compound and replaced them, i then cut a large hole in the case and added a fan to it and another fan underneath.Quite often i ran the machine with no case on at all too!The end result was that the heatsinks went from something that would take your skin off if you touched them, to something that was just warm/hot, yet perfectly touchable and much much cooler.You would not believe how hot it is inside a sealed 360 case and having no fans blowing onto the heatsinks at all results in them almost glowing, so i changed all that..
The end result? It still died and gave me the RROD after 6 months or so haha
I have another 360 here which is currently out of its case and i have tried the x-clamp mod on it to see how it gets on.This is the mod that removes the standard brackets for the heatsinks, the ones often blamed for the motherboard damage.The machine also has fans on the heatsinks at the moment too, so we shall see how long it lasts.
When i modded my first one, there was no 3 year warranty thing, but now there is, i decided to keep an untouched and standard 360 aswell, so i use that quite a lot and if it dies i will just return it.The other stripped unit is more of an experiment/fun little project.I was so shocked after the first one failed even with all that superb cooling that i wanted to have another play around and try something else.
Anyway, yes, they are unreliable and if you search forum archives around the world for people who told you that their launch console was still perfect etc etc, you can quite often go back a few months later and find that the same RROD has happened to them.None of the machines are truly safe, they can pop after a month or well over a year later and it doesn't seem to matter how well you look after them.If they are going to die they are going to die..
randlemarcus said:
Or cue a 360 owner who has had it sitting perfectly happily on top of the set top box since Launch Day, with ne'er a quibble
Indeed, what problems?
No problems with it from new and its only recently that i've found out that other people suffer with reliability issues.
The thing is, people often don't tend to have problems leading up to a RROD.I never had a single lock up on my machine, not one.It performed perfectly for months and months and months - then BOOM, it was my turn.You just have no idea when it may happen and owning a machine for a long time with no issues is no guarantee at all that this won't happen to you.
I would like to think a few gem 360's are out there though, ones which had the good quality control team in on the day of manufacture, but as time goes on and the death list keeps growing, it looks like they may be few and far between.
If you missed the whole xbox 360 reliability thing btw, i shall give you a run down of what happened..
1)People start to report consoles dying
2)Fanboys across the globe say that's rubbish
3)M.S deny how many are dying
4)More people start to lose consoles and the word spreads
5)The sensible people realise that this is actually a big problem and try to figure out what is failing
6)M.S say it still isn't a problem and is an expected failure rate
7)Fanboys across the globe, even ones who's consoles have died, still suggest it isn't a problem and that most of the problems are user error or even based apon the fact you should use the xbox pad to turn the console on and off rather than touch it (haha - yes i really did read someone suggesting that)
8)Word spreads among the sensible people about solder points breaking on the motherboards etc etc and proof of this came by the way of certain temporary fix methods (heating up the consoles motherboard in the oven or towel wrapping etc etc)
9)M.S and fanboys still say it's all ok
10)Way too many peoples machines have died now, including many a - "mine is still perfect!" fan boys and launch day owners, and M.S is starting to look a bit silly, as are all the people who buried their heads and said it wasn't a problem.
11)Under mounting pressure from consumers and due to the embarrassment caused by so many swamped repair centres, M.S extends the warranty to 3 years and begins to alter the internal design of the machines.
12)The vast majority of fanboys all go amazingly quiet and never speak of 360 reliability again.Some, however, still suggest that just because they are on their 5th xbox 360 and M.S recognised the problem, there still isn't a problem.
13)The PS3 arrives and within 5 minutes of it being out of the box and hooked up, fanboys are telling us how ultra reliable it is.
14)A few people start to report PS3's dying.....
Hope that helps
I would like to think a few gem 360's are out there though, ones which had the good quality control team in on the day of manufacture, but as time goes on and the death list keeps growing, it looks like they may be few and far between.
If you missed the whole xbox 360 reliability thing btw, i shall give you a run down of what happened..
1)People start to report consoles dying
2)Fanboys across the globe say that's rubbish
3)M.S deny how many are dying
4)More people start to lose consoles and the word spreads
5)The sensible people realise that this is actually a big problem and try to figure out what is failing
6)M.S say it still isn't a problem and is an expected failure rate
7)Fanboys across the globe, even ones who's consoles have died, still suggest it isn't a problem and that most of the problems are user error or even based apon the fact you should use the xbox pad to turn the console on and off rather than touch it (haha - yes i really did read someone suggesting that)
8)Word spreads among the sensible people about solder points breaking on the motherboards etc etc and proof of this came by the way of certain temporary fix methods (heating up the consoles motherboard in the oven or towel wrapping etc etc)
9)M.S and fanboys still say it's all ok
10)Way too many peoples machines have died now, including many a - "mine is still perfect!" fan boys and launch day owners, and M.S is starting to look a bit silly, as are all the people who buried their heads and said it wasn't a problem.
11)Under mounting pressure from consumers and due to the embarrassment caused by so many swamped repair centres, M.S extends the warranty to 3 years and begins to alter the internal design of the machines.
12)The vast majority of fanboys all go amazingly quiet and never speak of 360 reliability again.Some, however, still suggest that just because they are on their 5th xbox 360 and M.S recognised the problem, there still isn't a problem.
13)The PS3 arrives and within 5 minutes of it being out of the box and hooked up, fanboys are telling us how ultra reliable it is.
14)A few people start to report PS3's dying.....
Hope that helps
Digby said:
The thing is, people often don't tend to have problems leading up to a RROD.I never had a single lock up on my machine, not one.It performed perfectly for months and months and months - then BOOM, it was my turn.You just have no idea when it may happen and owning a machine for a long time with no issues is no guarantee at all that this won't happen to you.
Mine was unusual in that regard - it had been sporadically freezing for a couple of months, and I'd seen the RROD a couple of times before it finally failed terminally...My cronies don't have enough PS3s yet to comment on reliability yet - so the black box is 0 for 2 right now...
Had mine from Launch, never had any problems with it at all. It has sat on for 24hours soldi, on the floor, not alot of ventilation, with socks on top of it, ciggarette ash over it and some beer.
Never faultered once (touching Wood) (not that wood you filthy buggers, i am in work, although...)
Never faultered once (touching Wood) (not that wood you filthy buggers, i am in work, although...)
Well I got my replacement 360 at roughly the same time I bought my PS3 so my review of the reliability of both consoles is as follows. The PS3 has been virtually faultless, only crashed twice and that was whilst playing the same game, Assassins Creed, so I might just have a dodgy disk. My replacement 360 has constantly crashed since it arrived, I can't pause a game for more than a few second otherwise I get that "the disk you are using is either dirty or damaged" message and it's recently started making a strange grinding noise as well when the disk driver spins up so I might be on my third in the not too distant future 
. Oh and I'm not a fanboy, in fact I still think the 360 is the better platform at the moment even with all the problems people are having.
. Oh and I'm not a fanboy, in fact I still think the 360 is the better platform at the moment even with all the problems people are having.When we're talking about the Red Ring of Death do we actually mean the three red lights? Sorry just getting confused as i think a full red ring on the 360 only means your video cable isnt connected properly. Id hate to think peeps were returning consoles cause they didnt plug the lead in lol.
No RRODs for mine, a Christmas present in 2006. However, first the eject button jammed meaning the cd tray wouldn't open or close, so I got a replacement for that, then after a while the replacement would no longer read the disks, so I got another replacement. Had the current one for about eight months or so now with no problems whatsoever **touches wood**.
Course, the real git is I lost all me saves which were on the hard drive when it went back to the shop. Grr!
Course, the real git is I lost all me saves which were on the hard drive when it went back to the shop. Grr!
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