xbox 360 suddenly having issues

[BuzzKillington]

It's 70* in my room right now. Haven't played the 360 all day. Turned on the fans immediately rev up, the HDD powers down and two flashing red lights indicating overheating issues.

I'm ****ing pissed.:banghead:

[LiTHiUM0XiD3]

... do you know what revision 360 u have?
this could be an improper contact issue due to heat warping..

[BuzzKillington]

It's the elite, that's all I know. lol

After assuring them 20 times there was NOTHING physically blocking the 360 to cause an overheating issue AND that it was revving up after being on 5 seconds at 3am with the room being under 70 friggin degrees the geniuses at microsoft decided it was in fact a hardware issue.

120 dollars later I have a printing label and will be shipping it out today or tomorrow. At least it extends the warranty an extra year. POS 360... it literally went about 2 years in the box in my closet... a total of 6 months of play time and even then 2 months of that was rarely playing because I couldn't stand gaming on 480i when I had my PC to game on in high res.

EDIT: Anyone know if I opened the 360 myself since it's outta warranty, if they'd still repair it and cover me for the year? I know opening it would void it but... if the warranty's already out, why not right? I'm thinking if possible I'd like to open it up and maybe re-grease the hoe and upgrade the fans/put some rubber rings on the drive to help quiet it up.

[slaveofconvention]

I'm not speaking from personal experience, but I've heard that, if the console shows signs of "tampering" as MS likes to put it, they ship it back to you, without repairing it, with a partial refund (less a handling fee and shipping)

[BuzzKillington]

I actually called to see and you are correct. I also asked if they'd install a silent fan for me and of course they said no. It was worth a shot though right?

[Luke122]

I've found that even the newer boxes have some heat issues if operating horizontally. Have you tried standing it up and seeing if it works that way?

I have one right now that runs fine standing up, but lay it flat, and it overheats in 5-10 mins.

[BuzzKillington]

It was standing up and nothing was near it with 6". Also, It was overheating after 5 seconds. Literally. It didn't even get to the menu before the fan was revved up. Sometimes the hdd would spin down and the red lights would come on within 20 seconds and sometimes I could leave it on and it'd run fine aside from the fan whining.

So even if it was 120* in my room, there's no reason it would overheat within 5-20 seconds. lol

[Luke122]

OK, well in that case there's definitely some issues. :D Get the replacement, then swap the fans yourself. ;)

[diluzio91]

lol... as to the horizontal thing, i put my 360 on top of a DVD case or some kind of stand so it has airflow all around.

[billygoat333]

I have mine horizontal as I have a 2 yr old who would love nothing better than to knock it over and cause lovely ring scratches all over my games. no heat issues for me.

[Zephik]

It sounds like you were getting improper contact between the heatsink and the chip. Just a guess, though.

You should modify it. Prevent overheating from happening again.

[BuzzKillington]

I decided to get my money back from microsoft. I opened up the 360 and cleaned off everything. It looked like some of the gel was baked (crispy instead of rubbery) so I'm almost positive that was it. My whisper Legacy fans came in today and I just ordered a kit to mount the heatsinks with screws instead of the xclamps since they're pretty impossible to put back on.

Once that get's here I'll update and see how she sounds with the fan and rubber donuts to dampen the vibration noise from the cd drive. Hopefully it fixes my problems and the 120 dollar disaster turns out to cost a mere 7 dollars + another 25 for the fan. :)

[Zephik]

A good thermal paste and new fan solution almost always fixes the case with these damn things. I can't believe MS has a 20% failure rate. That's ridiculous.

[Luke122]

I'm on my third. The first one was given to me with a RRoD... removed the xclamps for screws, proper paste, and it was good. Sold.

Second was also given as RRoD. This one needed a couple attempts at the xclamp trick, but ran good for over a year. New general hardware error, I suspect I need to do a reflow.

Third one came to me as a red ring, but worked as soon as I powered it up. Ran for 10 mins, and red ringed. Cooled off, tried again, rrod after 5 mins. Stood it up on its end, and it's been running fine for months.

Weird, I know.

Every single person I know with a 360 has had at least one failure. That would be 100% failure rate. :)
And I'd still rather have a 360 than a PS3.