The Red Ring of Death

Wayne you are right about the xbox360 arcade units. It's because they included a newer chipset named Jasper and lower power consumption. I specifically bought an arcade unit and then a HDD and wireless controller pack separately to ensure I got a Jasper chipset over the older Falcon chipset that was in the mid range 360 setup at the time. That was at least a year ago so I am sure by now any new consoles have the most current chipset and are not as prone to failure as previous gen 360s. Anything refurbished or used should be avoided if you can. AnandTech did a review and tear down of the Jasper arcade unit back in late 2008 if you want to know more. Link

Yeah Rob, I've been through hell with 360s. I've learnt everything about this whole heat sync crap, been through many wanna be technicians and many tubes of thermal paste, arctic silver I believe was the one mostly recommended. I have three units, only one is an arcade box, but I only use the other two for LAN games or in my car and that's not too often, one is refurbished by Microsoft(if that's what they do)I hope they hold up. I don't ever want to see those red lights again.

When I think back I can do nothing else but laugh, some of the crap people tell you are solutions, like that hot air gun garbage or wrapping the box in a towel for 15 mins LOfuckingL!!!!

Personally, to this day I can't believe Microsoft did that to consumers, this is Microsoft, not a backyard operation(although Mac users would disagree), how can a company that huge fuck up like that?!!!

My brother in law is a computer technician (isn't that every broinlaw?) and for awhile he started to fix consoles. I told him it was a horrible idea. The consoles would break again and he ended up with more upset customers. None of the "fixes" are anything but a temporary solution as you well know.

I'd be frustrated with Microsoft as well if it wasn't for the 3year coverage. That's owning up to the situation the right way. They can build the next xbox out of pixie sticks and napkins if they include a good warranty.

lol, i get ya. by the way If you see a friends request on PSN from The Lab Game TV that's me

I have been buried in Borderlands and Battlefield BC2 but sometime this week I will hop onto the PS3 for Uncharted2 and accept your invite. Do you have Uncharted2 or Modern Warfare 2? That's all I have right now except LittleBigPlanet which is at my friends.

I only have MWF2 on the 360, I'll send you a request on XBL later today. No Uncharted 2 yet, that and Heavy Rain will be my next purchases, oh yeah, and RE5, long overdue.....

I had it once over 6 months ago ... I freaked out but I unplugged it, replugged it and it started up again no problem.
So I'm hoping it was just random ...
I always wonder why it happens. Why haven't they fixed it yet etc.

They did, it's called an Arcade model. Should have gotten it right the first time though

Arcade model?
I'mma have to google that haha.

I think over here it's the Xbox 360 Arcade as opposed to the Elite - Apparently, there's been a much lower failure rate in the Arcades than the Elites historically - as Rob's excellent post pointed out, it's due to a different chipset used inside.

Feeling pretty sheepish about asking this, but how do you tell you've bought the Arcade version?

Don't feel bad, it says so on the box. Some say Elite, core & then there are the arcade models

There's a few differences between Arcade and Elite - here's the breakdown.

That's right Brett, but don't know how accurate I am when saying this, but I believe the elite was around before the arcade, at least I heard about it first, so anything around before the arcade versions is shit in my book. Unless of course they upgraded the Elite systems to be basically an Elite arcade model, an Arcade model with extra bells and whistles like a larger hard drive and games, if not then those extras don't mean squat if the GPU is going to over heat and rise up off the board in a few months. Just be very careful that's what I'm saying, the whole RROD shit really pissed me off, went through a lot of crap and don't want anybody else to go through it.

My first xbox died because of the RRoD, so I ended up getting the Halo Limited Edition Box- since then I had 1 RRoD a few weeks back (after 2 years), but I restarted it and it's been fine since.

hmmm, well good luck with that, but I've gone through three so far, and from my experiences that shit never goes away, it pops up when you least expect it and gets worse, like I said in earlier posts, the Arcade version is the only one I haven't heard complaints about, and my friend operates an arcade, so it's the ultimate tried and proven stress test for any console or gaming rig.

But like I said, not being cynical either, good luck with that Halo box.

Originally Posted by Wayne

ahhhh, the red ring of death..nobody knows it like I do. It's happened to me twice, forget all the fixes you've read about on the internet, even if some of the more technical ones work, it's too much stress, trial and error bullshit. Just send it back like I did. But most important, when buying an XBox 360, get an Arcade machine. I have yet to hear about any of them dying. And I have a friend who actually has an arcade, and he's lost many 360s, but the arcade machines are basically microsoft's way of saying "we finally grew a brain".
Wouldn't surprise me to hear someone's arcade machine brokedown though, but I have faith in them, since they have been thoroughly tested by someone I know, plus I have one. You can imagine the stress one would have to go through in an arcade, the ultimate stress test.

A friend has an Arcade that actually got the Ring a couple weeks ago.

Then again, he installed a chip so he could play pirated games...
Now a new 360's gonna cost him more than all those games. But no one ever listens to me until that sort of stuff happens.

One of my 360s are modded, not for piracy, just so I can play system link without buying the game twice, although it wouldn't surprise me to hear in some twisted way that copying your own game for that purpose is still piracy, but yeah, I have three and one is modded for that reason. There is no way I'm even going to allow air to enter my arcade machine, much less a mod chip. Don't know if that's what reached your friends 360, but sorry to hear anyway, guess nothing is a 100% guarantee.

I just got the ring ...
I was noob-tubing people on MW2 'cause they were pissin' me off and BAM switched off and those three lights were flashing.
Noooo.
(I was enjoyinng noob-tubing - I'd never done it before - such easy kills)

Seems to be working again now though ...

I've had it before aswell ... like six months ago.

I take it it's starting to wear down?
=(

A few days ago I quit a game to get back to the dashboard and the screen got scrambled and I was forced to restart the xbox to fix the problem. It hasn't happend since, but now I'm worried. Has anyone else had that problem before experiencing a total system melt down?