Be Excellent To Each Other

I just got a red ring on my 360. I've had it less than a year.

I know Microsoft send back repairs/refurbs, not new consoles, but I want a new one.

Can I just take it back to where I got it from (Argos) and get a replacement? Where does the law stand on this?

You could try Argos, but I suspect you'd get Bobby's Woolies response of "fuck right off, young lad" and would have to ring MS. Registering your details on http://support.xbox.com can help speed up the process once you get through to a telephone gonk.

My mate got a replacement at woolworths, although his mam works there so expect different treatment. Otherwise Microsoft are rather excellent with the whole process, and it seems like the average time is between 1-2weeks, my own experience was exactly 7 days wait which includes all the delivery stuff as well.

The retailer is obliged to deal with it. In practice this means they're entirely within their rights to send it off to MS on your behalf. I've always wondered why a min wage employee would want to argue this when he's got a pile out the back anyway so I always just swapped in warranty consoles, marked the receipt so no-one could take the piss and sent theirs back as a new faulty.

So it's a YMMV thing. The point is they have to deal with it somehow though, they CAN'T tell you to deal with the manufacturer, you have no contract with the manufacturer.

Second point "A red ring"? How many segments?

It's Christmas. Argos will swap your 360 for a bucket of pilchards and a drinking straw, because they change their policies at Christmas.

After reading this thread, the mimi aggro argos thread and the chav thread I'v got images of the H G Wells time machine with a future filled with argos' that are operated behind the scenes by Murloks, although this possibly could be happening now.

Hmm, the problem I now have is that my 360, the argos I bought it from, and myself are very shortly going to be far apart from each other. This may be a blessing in disguise, since it might be easier to do my dissertation without my funbox to distract me


This is it

That is teh fuxx0red. Try your lucky with Aggros or just send it back to MS.

Yeah, was a little worried when you said ring, because a full ring just means your video cable isn't plugged in, is broken.

But no, that's kerjiggered.

Argos might well insist on getting the entire original console back though, hard disk and all. Which means all your saves would vanish, unless you use memory cards or another hard disk or something. I'd return it to Microsoft myself. Yes, you'll get a refurbished one back -- but they actually go through more QA and testing than a normal off-the-assembly line one. Think of it as being hand-finished like a Bentley or Aston Martin.

Or £20 well spent in a back-street massage parlour.

Yes, they could insist on that, again only an idiot would do so but they're in plentiful supply in customer service.

Indeed. Actually, not necessarily an idiot, but perhaps just someone who's cautious and doesn't know about consoles. I bet store policy is a complete swap-out, otherwise you'd get people running scams and nicking accessories and suchlike. Or, idiot customers would come in and insist on keeping the hard disk, and it would turn out to be the hard disk broken (they don't necessarily know anything about RRoDs after all), and then they would have to deal with the idiot customer again the next day.

As for being far away from teh Argos you bought it from very soon, you are permitted to take faulty goods back to any Argos branch, just in case that is of any help.

You may be on to something there. They dwell beneath the street.

The Rrod is used because a law was introduced forcing m$ not to use leaded solder.

On the 360's board it has a cpu and over time the solder dies and connections are lost. Some dude did sit there with a solder iron and redone them all, and hey presto the Rrod went away but it's uber hard and fiddly.

Umm, it's more due to poor thermal design and/or incorrect manufacturing technique.



How does the dude reflow BGA packages with a soldering iron exactly?

I'll ask my mate where he read the article later. We were talking about it last night

Wouldnt do this myself but it could work.

http://www.instructables.com/id/Fix-the ... -of-Death/



http://www.ocmodshop.com/ocmodshop.aspx?a=1424

In reference to the threat title, I'm surprised Dimrill hasn't suggested the use of ointment yet...

If it's ringworm bleach works well. Stings a bit mind.

That's not fixing anything, it's the equivalent of thumping a TV set on the side when it's acting up.
To repair the problem you need to reflow the GPU (and possibly another chip) or more likely remove and reball it - and "some dude" certainly can't do that with a soldering iron, never mind a towel.




Lead-free solder typically requires higher temperatures to soften and melt than tin-lead. This is at best a poor excuse, as is blaming a regulatory requirement for a manufacturing failing.

Kalmar/JohnCoffey: My understanding is that the RRoD problems are mostly caused by the thermal delta of the GPU being so high -- from room temperature up to 80-ish degC in a few minutes -- that the more brittle lead-free solder eventually cracks from repeated expansion/contraction. This is why it typically takes 6-18 months to see RRoD on a given unit.

It's still very much Microsoft's fault for either not testing it to find this fault, or not stopping the GPU getting up to such high temperatures anyway. There is evidence that this was down to a conscious corner-cutting decision on Microsoft's part, rather than general incompetence.

Also, I know someone who repairs mobile phones, which requires some pretty mean solder skills to reflow the teeny tiny PCBs (and a very expensive solder station), so I have some insight into the techniques and troubles. I think the so-called towel trick is a dubious and temporary fix at best, and whenever the subject comes up, I've never seen anyone with any EE qualifications think it's a good idea.

In the Sunderland trading estate branch some of them work the counter.

Agreed. It is a difficult issue with such high dissipation small footprint chips in a cost-conscious design, but it's not like it's impossible to avoid. And lead-free does tend to make manufacturability problems worse but I'll say it again, it's a poor excuse.



Just to add to that list, as stated above, I don't either

Well the high heat of the 360 (you can literally feel it pulsating out of the rear) coupled with solder seems to be the issue then.

So really it's a simple fix (but not cheap.. depends how much you love the 360 I suppose) and that's to stick it in one of these and introduce some proper cooling.

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Lian-Li-PC-XB01 ... 152&sr=8-2

Like the doc says, it's more the rapid expanding and contracting due to the speed at which it gets up to that temperature. After all, my media center PC runs hotter than a 360, but it gets there gradually.

No!

OK then so 360's are just shit and are built like shit.

Error.

Correct.

How can it be an error? Some of my friends have been though about ten of them !

Sure, it's the best gaming console out there, but surely the fact that they have a higher return rate than any console in history (well OK, I suppose you could compare them to the MK1 PS1 with the melty plastic lazer housing)

Infact I don't know a single person that has not had to return one at one point in time or another. And, that's the reason why I haven't got one because I would want to flash the drive and that invalidates the warranty, at which point you end up with a costly door stop.

Answered your own question.

Returning it to MS is easier than taking it back to the shop, (especially since I bought mine online).

Just make sure you don't believe their claptop about them sending you a box, because they won't.

Mine was back with me very quickly, and I got the same machine back with a new mobo/dvd drive. So just the same casing then, really.

It's testament to how good the 360 is that it's the first console I've EVER OWNED (and I have a collection of them) to pack up and I still love it.

*waves*

Well, that's cursed me, hasn't it?

I'm not waving.

I had a red ring once. Well, it didn't start out red. Etc.

"We have a policy of never confirming or denying whether we have signed authorisations for any buggering activities"
/

She can neither confirm nor deny that.

My brother got a 360 on Christmas Day.

Set it up on Boxing Day.

Got the red ring of death today.

Fantastic.

And his GTA IV disc is stuff in the machine and won't come out.

Hoorah!

Surely every DVD drive in the universe has a manual release catch?

You might have to take the case off I suppose, mind. But actually, the RROD shouldn't affect the DVD drive anyway. How strange.

I've repaired an RRoD! It's what them lot said above, poor heat-proofing that seems to be a result of simple, miserly cost cutting (like, a couple of screws and washers per unit). Don't know how long it'll last of course, they don't seem like the kind of machine that'll still be around much in twenty years. Sad really, as they're fun.

Aye, the manual release catch is inside. On most drives I've seen you can get to it from underneath the faceplate.

Seems a bit odd to get the three red segments quite that quickly, mind. Have you tried it in a different plug socket? Power fluctuations can cause it, too.

Only works if you sing the jingle as you do it, obviously.

As long as you don't get crushed by heavy electricity.

Great, I've just got 1 red ring and the error message E74.

BAH!