After the accident on Friday all I wanted to do this weekend was play BioShock, NHL08 and possibly start Assassin’s Creed on the XBOX 360. There would be some wedding planning to take care of but with Jenna working, the TV, couch and XBOX would be free for me.
Over the last few days I have been reading about hardware problems with the XBOX 360, how to recognize the signs and what to do when it happens. Most of the issues were with machines that were released within the first year of launch. Mine was a newer build, only four month old and the warranty is good until December so if anything happened I was covered.
XBOX 360 Red Ring of DeathThe earlier 360’s were plagued with a high percentage of failures. Microsoft countered this with a warranty extension on all serviced machines and were adjusting the hardware with releases. Still people were sending their machines in, even after they received a newer build.
I became a little paranoid but I would enjoy the machine while I had it and if I was greeted with three red rings I would accept it. I made sure to extend its life as long as possible by ensuring it would not over heat, the games would not be scratched and that I treated it right.
Perhaps this was karma coming back around, but on Saturday morning the disc tray would not close. I power cycled, manually closed the tray, held the eject/open button on the console and none of them would do the trick. A surprisingly fast call to XBOX support and it was determined that the console be returned to the Resurrection Ship for repairs.
Maybe they will replace the drive and I will get back the same unit, or perhaps I will get back a new console and one with a later manufacturer date than September 2007. From what I have read the turn around time for receiving the repaired console could be several weeks.
This will get me back to playing NHL07, Splinter Cell and Burnout Revenge on the original XBOX in the meantime. I had finally caught up to the Canucks in their regular season with my Dynasty Mode and will have some catching up to do when the 360 returns. Maybe by then Vancouver will have gone on a winning streak and improved their place in the standings.
