Is my 360 dying? Or just the hard drive?

metalangel · **Posted:** Thu Jan 14, 2010 0:21

My 360 is not proving very reliable as of late. The following has happened:

-Viva Pinata (original) froze with a 'disc unreadable' error, once, and never again.
-During a long session of Forza 3 the scenery started disappearing until I had the horizon, a few trackside objects and some distant trees on Sebring. Menus won't pop up when pressed, but the game had continued fine up until I tried pausing (except I couldn't see where I was going)
-Most worrying, several games have frozen solid. I can push the Guide button to hear (but not see) the Guide open but that's it, no further actions or sounds or signs of life are forthcoming. This has happened in Viva Pinata, Viva Pinata TIP, Forza 3, Halo 3, MW2 and Borderlands. This came to a head last night when Halo froze about four times in one evening.

Now, both MS' own troubleshooting guide for freezes and this article suggest that the hard drive failing could be the culprit. However, I'm not so sure - Halo, after all, isn't installed on the hard drive so I don't know if it has any interaction with the drive that could cause it to freeze as a result. I also don't see how the drive failing would cause graphical issues like I had in Forza. All the games bar Halo and Viva Pinata are installed on the hard drive so I've disconnected the hard drive and am playing Viva Pinata TIP from my memory unit waiting to see if it'll fail.

It's worth noting I've had the hard drive a year - it's a 60Gb one bought on the cheap from TheGameTrain.com so it arrived as literally just a hard drive - no transfer kit or packaging. (which could mean I'm fucked in terms of warranty repair)

That article's statement that sending the drive into MS and not getting all your data back worries me. My options seem thus:
-try and get the 360 repaired by MS, citing the graphical glitches.
-try and get the hard drive repaired by MS, citing the freezes but at the apparent loss of anything I can't back up.
-buy a new hard drive (will have to be a 120Gb one) and either find this solves the problem or that it's the console at fault after all and I've just wasted £80 and now have a SECOND redundant hard drive sitting around.

Anyone have any experience of this sort of problem? It's driving me crazy, but so far I haven't been able to have as long a session on the 360 trying to coax it to freeze up without the hard drive attached, to prove it is or isn't the drive.

EDIT: I've done the reset cache thing on it too, if anyone wonders.

Mr Russell · **Joined:** 6th Apr, 2008 **Posts:** 12334

Can you borrow a hard drive off someone first as a tester?

metalangel · **Posted:** Thu Jan 14, 2010 0:24

I have my old 20Gb one still, but what am I testing exactly?

LewieP · **Joined:** 29th Apr, 2008 **Posts:** 7600

Get a 360

GovernmentYard · **Joined:** 30th Mar, 2008 **Posts:** 5318

I'd imagine Halo caches something to the HD so it could well be that.

Aren't you only rocking a 20 gigger anyway? Maybe now's the time to upgrade and order the transfer kit. If the main unit fails thereafter, get a Jasper arcade for 109 quid from Gamestation if you need to, which nets you an extra wireless controller, a lower power consumption unit which is quieter, the HDMI output if you've not one already, and some onboard ram which seems to handle NXE much more smoothly. Plus less theoretical chance of RROD. Smaller brick.

Not nice to have to spend on sort of what you've already got but it's bloody horrible to be without a 360 or run out of storage. Looking at how long the machine is likely to be around for, getting a 250 drive now should last you all the good DLC to come and many of your favourite games conveniently on HD.

JohnCoffey · **Posted:** Thu Jan 14, 2010 0:31

LewieP wrote:

Get a 360

POTW.

LewieP · **Joined:** 29th Apr, 2008 **Posts:** 7600

JohnCoffey wrote:

LewieP wrote:

Get a 360

POTW.

If that doesn't work, try flashing the firmware.

metalangel · **Posted:** Thu Jan 14, 2010 0:48

GovernmentYard wrote:

I'd imagine Halo caches something to the HD so it could well be that.

Aren't you only rocking a 20 gigger anyway? Maybe now's the time to upgrade and order the transfer kit. If the main unit fails thereafter, get a Jasper arcade for 109 quid from Gamestation if you need to, which nets you an extra wireless controller, a lower power consumption unit which is quieter, the HDMI output if you've not one already, and some onboard ram which seems to handle NXE much more smoothly. Plus less theoretical chance of RROD. Smaller brick.

Not nice to have to spend on sort of what you've already got but it's bloody horrible to be without a 360 or run out of storage. Looking at how long the machine is likely to be around for, getting a 250 drive now should last you all the good DLC to come and many of your favourite games conveniently on HD.

No, it's a 60Gb I bought cheap online, I do sometimes wish I'd gotten a 120Gb one anyway and see this as a possibly chance to do that (with stuff like Forza 3 taking up almost 10Gb installed, I can fit maybe five installed games on - currently Forza, MW2, VP:TIP, Fallout and Dragon Arse) but I intend to send the main console in AGAIN if it fails again - yes, it's an ancient 2006 model but the noise doesn't bother me (the noise is all DVD drive anyway) and I don't need HDMI.

GovernmentYard · **Joined:** 30th Mar, 2008 **Posts:** 5318

You will one day. Even if we have to force you.

metalangel · **Posted:** Thu Jan 14, 2010 1:02

I doubt it. When I went to visit my parents, I used the included HD composite cable to hook it up to their TV and it was fine. My dad was surprised, he didn't realize you could do HD without HDMI.

Mr Dave · **Posted:** Thu Jan 14, 2010 1:09

Yeah, Halo puts a lot of stuff in a cache on the hard drive. (Which is why installing to the drive makes load times slower)

So crashing could easily be the hard drive. I'd suggest backing up any data you don't want to lose if at all possible.

metalangel · **Posted:** Thu Jan 14, 2010 1:15

Hard drive is currently detached and we're stress-testing (with Viva Pinata TIP) running off the DVD drive to see if any freezes occur.

None as yet, which is further supporting the 'duff hard drive' theory.

metalangel · **Posted:** Thu Jan 14, 2010 2:17

This post is interesting, it sounds similar to my problem, though the fact he had to swap the DVD drive and board out confuses me - it doesn't sound like my problem because if the game's on the hard drive then it reads the DVD ONCE at startup and then that's it:

ZOMG Spoiler! Click here to view!

A few months ago my launch-era 360 started doing the EXACT same thing. When playing Tony Hawk Project 8 I could stay in one neighborhood all day long, but 2 out of 3 times I tried to go to a new part of the map it would freeze while loading. In Halo 3, I played through the entire first level three separate times only to get a freeze at the next level cinematic. The freeze always happened during a loading sequence. Even Guitar Hero III would lock up, but only at the loading screen.

I could open and close the DVD drive, turn the 360 off with a remote, but the controller wouldn't respond and I couldn't get back to the dashboard. If I took out the hard drive, freezes disappeared. I tried clearing the cache, but that didn't help. I was once able to play THP8 without freezes by hooking my hard drive up to a friend's console, clearing the cache, loading up the game then swapping the hard drive back. Since this game caches a ton of data right at the beginning, the cache was good and I could play fine until I put a different game in my 360.

I had also been getting disc read errors occasionally, so first I tried tweaking the POT down to 3.2, then I ordered a laser. It was defective, so I got another one. Games still froze with the hard drive connected, but the disc read errors were gone.

Finally I bought a complete new DVD drive and swapped boards. Cleared the cache and problem solved! I can now play with the hard drive connected and no longer get disc read errors or load freezes. I have no idea WTF is wrong, I'll let the gurus debate. All I know is that replacing the DVD drive (swap controller boards) fixed it.

Unfortunately last week I started getting GPU freezes. >:(

They are much different than loading freezes . they occur in the dashboard, in game menus, at any damn random time they want .. time for Xclamp fix.

Best of luck on your attempts to fix the greatest and worst console of all time.

A lot of people have said this, that freezes are a sign of imminent RROD:

ZOMG Spoiler! Click here to view!

The system freezing usually means you are the proud owner of a console on the edge of going RROD. It's been my experience, systems freezing is usually caused by a cold solder joint under one of the ram Tsop. Totally random though, you'll pretty much have no way of knowing for sure until it does go RROD and you do a secondary error code check or you x-ray the arrays.

I assume what this guy doesn't say is 'if it doesn't your HDD is knackered'?

ZOMG Spoiler! Click here to view!

try removing the harddrive, see if it still freezes. if it does, just sit back a wait a week or two. the system will start to RRoD on you, and at this point the extended warranty will cover your system. just be glad you haven't pulled the sticker off.

How to determine what exactly has broken when you RROD:

ZOMG Spoiler! Click here to view!

The specific type of hardware failure can be determined by a "hidden" error code
• Turn the xbox 360 on, and wait till the 3 red lights are flashing.
• Press and hold the sync up button (the small white one), while holding that button press the eject button.
• The LEDs will now blink the first number in the code (as described below).
• Release the eject button and press it again.
• The LEDs will now blink the second number of the code.
• Release the eject button and press it again.
• The LEDs will now blink the third number of the code.
• Release the eject button and press it again.
• The LEDs will now blink the forth number of the code.
• Release the eject button and press it again.
• The LEDs will go back to the 3 red flashing lights.
You should be able to determine the difference between the 3 flashing lights and the error code lights by the rate in which they flash.

Here is how you interpret the LEDs to get the code number:
• All four lights flashing - 0
• One light flashing - 1
• Two Lights flashing - 2
• Three lights flashing - 3
0001 power supply problem
0002 power supply problem
0003 (not yet known)
...
0010 over heating
0011 over heating - If you are recieving this error after dissassembling your console make sure to all 8 of the heatsync screws are tightened securely to the board/heatsink holes.
0012 over heating
0013 over heating
...
0020 (Not yet known, possibly overheating)
0021 DVD Drive Time out - Can be caused by problems with a firmware flash. This is also speculated to sometime be caused by a problem with the southbridge chipset on the motherboard.
0022 GPU Error / GPU Overheating
...
0101 (not yet known)
0102 unknown error - literally means the console does not know what is wrong. possibly a short or cold solder joint somewhere. So far there is 1 major theory for what causes most of these errors is that the Ram, CPU, or GPU are not soldered properly to the mother board This can be solved by re-Heating the chips DO NOT attempt this if your console is still under warranty. If your console is still under warranty return it to the store where it was purchased or call MS to have it replaced.
...
0110 Memory Error / Memory Overheating - see solution for error 0102
...
1003 Hard Drive Error... It could be a problem with the Hard Drive itself or a problem with the internal connection to the hard drive, Try removing the hard drive and playing without it
...
1010 Hard Drive Error, Can be caused buy a currupt or missing Eprom.
...
1013 (not yet known)
...
1020 (not yet known)
...
1022 AV cable error... There is a problem with the AV cable, try using a different AV cable. (could also be a problem with the encoder chip)
...
1030 (not yet known)

metalangel · **Posted:** Thu Jan 14, 2010 3:10

And now it's frozen up without the hard drive attached.

Looks like it's going in for repair again. Interesting thing is, the serial number suggests the warranty expired in July 2008 (when it RROD'd) but if you previously sent your console in for an RROD didn't they then extend the warranty for it on the understanding that they should have fixed the problem the first time? I can't find any of the paperwork that came back with it...

Have read that the out-of-warranty repair charge is between £60 and £78... while a new Arcade is £120 from Gamestation. On the one hand it's tempting, on the other isn't it a pain to migrate one's registration info across to ensure all your XBLA and Indie stuff still works? I've heard on the one hand you need to get Xbox Support to do it, on the other I've heard recovering your gamertag to the new console will do it (not moving with MU, actually recovering it via Live).

Mr Dave · **Posted:** Thu Jan 14, 2010 4:03

MetalAngel wrote:

on the other isn't it a pain to migrate one's registration info across to ensure all your XBLA and Indie stuff still works? I've heard on the one hand you need to get Xbox Support to do it, on the other I've heard recovering your gamertag to the new console will do it (not moving with MU, actually recovering it via Live).

It's no problem at all, although you may need to redownload stuff. I just did it on the website. Can't remember what site, but I remember it looking like billing.microsoft.com rather than the xbox.com site.

metalangel · **Posted:** Thu Jan 14, 2010 13:45

Oh well, sending it in again, out of warranty, still cheaper than buying a new one.

Now to find a box to send it in...

TheVision · **Posted:** Thu Jan 14, 2010 13:48

Call me cautious but I've kept the box that they sent mine back in when I had it repaired.

metalangel · **Posted:** Thu Jan 14, 2010 15:36

Alas, I doubt I still have that box from 18 months ago.

nickachu · **Posted:** Thu Jan 14, 2010 15:38

I used a shoebox that my flatmate had and padded it with lots of newspaper. Came back fine when it red ringed.
Maybe the mrs has a shoebox that'll fit it?

metalangel · **Posted:** Thu Jan 14, 2010 15:40

She's offered me the box from her sheepskin boots, which so far is the best we've got.

No worries. I'm just angrily refreshing Hotmail every 30 seconds waiting for my damned label to arrive so I can arrange a collection from UPS. No doubt it'll come at 15:03 and UPS will only arrange collections up until 3pm the previous day.

kalmar · **Posted:** Thu Jan 14, 2010 16:17

My 360 froze up playing Fallout 3 last night. The viewpoint fell slowly through the floor leaving me with an entirely brown screen with just the sniper rifle rendered.

Hadn't saved the game either

Hopefully just a bug though.

DavPaz · **Joined:** 27th Jun, 2008 **Posts:** 38656

Looks like you found an exit to.... BROWN HELL!

It's probably just a glitch in the matrix game map

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Is my 360 dying? Or just the hard drive?
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