Massive Failure Rate For Xbox 360 Exposed

[Bosisto]

Bought mine maybe 10 months ago, red ring of death on first boot, took it back to Kmart they replaced the external PSU with one from a demo model. Worked fine. Had a couple of crashes (probably due to software since)

Although to be honest I probably have only played around 50 hours since Ive bought it.

[sevanig]

http://www.micromartltd.co.uk/

"XBOX 360 - Micromart has now withdrawn from offering a Repair Service for the dreaded 3 Red Lights fault.

This problem is endemic on the XBox 360 console and the volume has made this repair non-viable.

Other repairs to the XBox 360 are still being supported."

OUCH!

[Duff Man]

Originally Posted by sevanig

http://www.micromartltd.co.uk/

"XBOX 360 - Micromart has now withdrawn from offering a Repair Service for the dreaded 3 Red Lights fault.

This problem is endemic on the XBox 360 console and the volume has made this repair non-viable.

Other repairs to the XBox 360 are still being supported."

OUCH!

I don't quite understand that. You would think that this would be their bread and butter.

[stuffisgood]

Originally Posted by Duff Man

I don't quite understand that. You would think that this would be their bread and butter.

Yep.."repair place refuses to repair stuff" sounds like a business that wants to...go out of business to me. As long as they charged less than the amount MS charges in the UK they'd make a killing. The X-Clamp replacement only requires a couple of dollars worth of parts.

[caudex]

Originally Posted by Duff Man

I don't quite understand that. You would think that this would be their bread and butter.

Although the repair shop does earn money from doing repairs, when an item with exceptionally high rate of failure due to a fundamental motherboard problem comes in, it actually costs the repairer not only time, but money.
Reason for this is because many repair centres offer a 30-90 day warantee on repairs, and because the issue is caused by a fundamental flaw in the consoles design, it may mean that they either can't repair it, or that it would probably come back repairs after it has been repaired the first time.

Also, its bad for business when a product they repair comes back to them for repair due to the same 3RLOD problem. I can only imagine how i would feel if i brought in something for repair only to get the same problem 1, 2, or 3 months down the track. It looks bad for the business who repaired it. The x-clamp replacement is also not guaranteed to work.

This business practice is not uncommon among 3rd party repair/warantee services for high failure rate items.

as someone once said about the 360, its not "if" it will die, its "when" it will die, and as many people have experienced, alot of times its when the console is just out of warantee.


http://www.shacknews.com/onearticle.x/47671

"This problem is endemic on the Xbox 360 console," reads the company's statement, "and the volume has made this repair non-viable."

When contacted by Shacknews, a Micromart representative reiterated the "exceptionally high volume of this fault," which he claimed "has been identified as a fundamental motherboard problem."

[stuffisgood]

Originally Posted by caudex

Although the repair shop does earn money from doing repairs, when an item with exceptionally high rate of failure due to a fundamental motherboard problem comes in, it actually costs the repairer not only time, but money.

Bullcrap. As I said above, the X-Clamp replacement only uses a couple of dollars worth of parts and can be achieved in under half an hour. It has a ~95% success rate in fixing the problem for good according to a couple of hundred people that have done it on Xbox-Scene. If they can't make money off selling these repairs for $150 then something is wrong. There is even a guy in Australia that runs a shop that is offering X-Clamp replacement for $120 or so and giving a 12 month warranty on his repairs...

It's not a motherboard problem. It's the mounting mechanism.

[Elyzion]

Originally Posted by caudex

*snip*

You don't even own a Xbox360, you don't even know what your on about newbie.

[caudex]

Originally Posted by stuffisgood

It's not a motherboard problem.

it is a motherboard problem., or more specifically a solder/PCB problem.

Originally Posted by Elyzion

You don't even own a Xbox360, you don't even know what your on about newbie.

oh really? thats a great argument there mate. lol. people don't need to own a product to know stuff about it. how about stop with the personal attacks?

[Elyzion]

Originally Posted by caudex

oh really? people don't need to own a product to know stuff about it. how about stop with the personal attacks, have i attacked you?

I'm just bored at work

No ones posting in the Programming forum so no one to help today.

[tfroggydawg]

someone needs to sue MS real quick so they fix the hardware problems.

[stuffisgood]

Originally Posted by caudex

it is a motherboard problem., or more specifically a solder/PCB problem.

It's not a motherboard problem. It's a dodgy mounting mechanism that allows too much give when the board heats and contracts/expands. If it were a motherboard problem the X-Clamp replacement simply wouldn't work, yet 100's of people have had success.

[caudex]

Originally Posted by stuffisgood

It's not a motherboard problem. It's a dodgy mounting mechanism that allows too much give when the board heats and contracts/expands. If it were a motherboard problem the X-Clamp replacement simply wouldn't work, yet 100's of people have had success.

the 3rlod issue is due to heat generation which causes the 360 mainboard to flex and thus lose contact with the cpu/gpu. THIS is the "underlying" issue.

Now, from many reports, replacing the x-clamp "may" fix the 3rlod problem, but again, this is not 100% effective, nor does it actually fix the underlying issue. Using better quality PCB and materials on the otherhand should.

Also note that when you do have the 3rlod problem, and the 360 is still under warantee, MS do not replace the x-clamp to fix the problem which may mean having to send in the 360 back at a later date because afaik, MS has yet to change the PCB. so really you have the following options:
1). if under warantee get it fixed by MS, with a very possible prospect of having it break down again in the near future.
2). if under warantee try to replace the x-clamp yourself (which doesn't guarantee success and also invalidates your warantee).
3). if out of warantee attempt to replace the x-clamp (which doesn't guarantee sucess) and thus leaving yourself with a brick.
4). get it repair out of warantee by MS for ~$200.

i would love to think that many if not all people here in these forums would agree that a console bought for $600+ should atleast last a few years before breaking down/freeze, and not 2-12 months down the track (with many having problems even in the first few weeks of purchase), with possibility of repeated break downs even with the replacement unit.

[Elyzion]

Originally Posted by caudex

the 3rlod issue is due to heat generation which causes the 360 mainboard to flex and thus lose contact with the cpu/gpu. THIS is the "underlying" issue.

Now, from many reports, replacing the x-clamp "may" fix the 3rlod problem, but again, this is not 100% effective, nor does it actually fix the underlying issue. Using better quality PCB and materials on the otherhand should.

Ok,

The heat in the Xbox causes the motherboard to flex. When the motherboard flex's, the weaker Solder bond between the GPU and motherboard breaks. This causes the 3RLOD.

The X-Clamp makes a, i guess you could call it a forced bond between the GPU and Motherboard. When the motherboard heats up and flex's again, the area the X-Clamp is on does not flex anywhere near as much so the bond is not broken.

This is not a motherboard fault. It's a poor design fault.

[caudex]

Originally Posted by Elyzion

snip

thats a nice way of spinning it.

[GTX]

Originally Posted by tfroggydawg

someone needs to sue MS real quick so they fix the hardware problems.

I came so close to buying one, now I feel like a dodged a bullet


NFI what microsoft must be thinking at this point