Tales from the Red Ring

Feature from Cav - Tuesday, 08 September 2009 @ 1:07pm

Greetings Gamers and welcome to The Tales from the Red Ring, where the Australian Gamer Crew share with you their stories of an event that happens to a reported 54% of Microsoft Xbox360 owners: The machine failure commonly known as the Red Ring of Death. If there is there actually anyone reading this article who doesn’t know what the Red Ring of Death actually is, you can read about it and a series of other problems here on the world’s favourite file of fact and crap: Wikipedia

Now that you now have a general idea of what we’re talking about, let’s get into it. For starters, let’s take a look at the numbers:

There are currently 11 members on the AG team.

In total we have owned 22 different Xbox 360 consoles, through either purchase and/or replacement

Of those:

• 11 got the RROD

• 1 had a motherboard failure

• 1 had freezing issues

• 2 were bought within the last 12 months (possibly yet to fail?)

• 1 has been lost between the Repair Facility and Australia Post!

• 1 was won as a prize and sold before opening

• 1 just makes a hell of a lot more noise than when it did when it was first purchased – it is suspected that it has been swapped while out on loan

This, my friends, is a rather scary figure, but yet the world still insists on buying Microsoft’s product. But why wouldn’t you? Even though I have to pay for it, I find that gaming on XboxLive to be much easier than the PSN and vastly different to the Wii (Nintendo have those awesome Friend Codes to thank for that.)

When I was confronted with those three little red lights, on the first day of a week’s leave from work, no less, I had mixed feelings. Should have I expected this? I mean I was ‘kinda’ warned, because about four months prior to RROD-Day, these same three lights had appeared. I just passed it off, like when my youngest daughter doesn’t want to eat her dinner “She’ll come back when she’s hungry”. On restarting the machine they simply disappeared and I was gaming again. I didn’t think about it again after that.

Going to Xbox Website and checking the date of your first download might help you work out how old your machine is

I was actually pretty impressed with the repair process from Microsoft, but I suppose my RROD was only recent and we all know the ‘Bill’s Mob’ have now had quite a bit of practice at it. It went like this:

8th August: RROD happens and I lodged a service request online

10th August: email arrives with reply paid shipping label

11th August: I pack and post my Xbox360 to a NSW location

14th August: email arrives stating my Xbox360 has been received at the Service Centre

21st August: My Xbox360 (not a refurbished machine) arrives at my doorstep, with the complimentary 1 month XBL Gold subscription.

So I was out of Xbox360 action for about 14 days. Should I be happy? Well I look at it two ways: Pretty good turnaround time, only cost me a box and some bubble wrap and I got my machine back, BUT this should have never happened in the first place. I was telling a friend, who is extremely pro-PC, about how my 360 had the RROD and he said he didn’t understand how Microsoft could let a machine that does that out onto the market. I made the suggestion that I would think that the length of testing wouldn’t stretch past 6 months for one machine in the quality control process, so this major fault would not have been detected. But being Pro-PC, he just continued to bag it out anyway.

Well that’s my Tale from the Red Ring, let’s hear what Jae and Starks from the AG team have to say. I’ll be back to give you my final thoughts, just like Jerry Springer.... but without Steve the Security Guy and a Midget Transvestite, KKK, Brother and Sister couple who want to get married, but their adopted hermaphrodite mother is highly opposed to it.

Jae says:

I'm suprisingly happy with the service I've received with the Microsoft team. Perhaps by the time it got around to my RROD they'd gotten the process right. I was late to the party on the 360, bought the beast in 2007 and it failed on me about a year later. I sent away my Xbox on a Monday and received it on Friday within the same week, good as new. Apparently my motherboard had to be replaced but it was the same Xbox with the same serial number. It has been through a lot with me as I travelled across the country with it quite a fair bit. Perhaps the luggage handlers weren't too kind to my box but it did survive the ultimate test when I took it through a security check point at Perth airport. The hand baggage officer turned by bag upside down and let my Xbox fall straight to the hard surface ground. We filed a damages report and I was ready to write it off but the machine works like a charm, without any hiccups *touch wood*.

Starks says:

Most people know me as ‘that Xbox guy’ who plays too much Halo and tried to earn a living from it at one stage. They’d be right. I did play too much Xbox and tried at some point to pay the bills with Halo. Unfortunately, I worked out that is only an option when you’re good at Halo. Even then, I’d need to move to the States to make the money. So in actuality, I had no hope.

Still, the Xbox was most definitely my favourite console. The big black beast was as reliable as clockwork and gave me some of my most memorable gaming moments. ‘C’mon Drop Bears!’ I would often be heard screaming; All too often by my parents and at about 2am in the morning, but still.

Then the 360 came. And was delayed. Then came again. And I got one. For a good while it was my pride and joy. Then I saw it. On New Year’s Eve 2006, I saw it. After months of the console freezing and screwing around, it finally shat itself and gave me the three red rings of death. Honestly, it reminded me of a partially prolapsed rectum; The colours and shape were honestly alike. The pain I felt would no doubt have been as severe as the aforementioned medical condition.

So I sent it back. It returned in a week; A happy outcome and I noticed it was a new machine. Great outcome, and MS did good in this instance.

Fast forward to early 2009. With the extended MS warranty looking like it might run out, both my 360’s (I had won a special ‘Medal of Honour 2 – Airborne’ console. The game was shit, but the console looked ok) died within two weeks of each other. Too lazy to do anything Heartbroken, I waited a while before sending them back away. Finally, my brother got sick of waiting, so rang up and got the consignment notes done. I packed the consoles away, and dad took them to Australia Post Bexley. We sent them off and in two weeks my original 360 (Not the special one) had come back. Thinking that maybe they might fix the Medal of Honour console so I didn’t lose the paint job, I waited for the second to return. And waited. And waited. And waited. And rang up. And then waited some more. This has been going for nearly 6 months now. I rang Microsoft:

“Sorry mate, it was sent on the wrong consignment note. We sent it back to the original Post Office.”

Then I went up and chatted to Bexley Australia Post:

“Look, it left here and never came back. It hasn’t been returned at all.”

I then rang back Microsoft.

“It was definitely sent back. We can’t help you any further with this.”

So the odds of this are that someone at either Australia Post or Microsoft (Or anyone in between) has let my 360 fall off the back of a truck and it is not being played in a household that is not mine.

As you can imagine, this is not a satisfactory result to my initial problem. In fact, it’s possibly the worst outcome.

GG Microsoft and Australia Post.

The message every RROD effected gamer wants to see

Final Thought:

So there it is. I am sure the rest of the Australian Gamer crew have plenty to say on the subject, but it was probably too heart wrenching for them to re-live. And why shouldn’t it be? We paid hard earned money for these things and they just crap out on us. But with the new Jasper models out, has the problem really been fixed? I guess, just like the original model, only time will tell. It would appear, with the exception of Starks’ Special Ed console, that Microsoft have the repair part of their problem down to a fine art, with turnaround time becoming less and less..... although I did receive an email on the 1st of September saying my console was on its way back. I wonder if I will get another Xbox 360 delivered to me... hell, could it even be a Medal of Honour Special Edition Console?