Well, I finally got around to having repairs done on my FOURTH Xbox 360… so this will put me on my 5th console. This new unit died only 2 months after receiving a new unit from Microsoft repair.
When I got the red ring of death this last time I hadn’t been playing games on it for a while, just using it as a Media Center extender.
MS blamed the problem on plugging the unit into a surge protector, and stated that “most problems with the console were because a surge protector robs the console of electrity it needs to run”. The guy also kept telling me that “If you know anything about electricity then this will make sense.”… I probably know a little more about how electricy and computers work than some guy on a helpdesk making $10 an hour…
Even if this were even remotely true, there’s no way that there would be anywhere close to a 30W decrease like this tech said. He did say that most problems are caused by the console overheating and the solder points coming undone… but again he blamed this on a surge protector.
So anyway, I’ll be on my 5th console in about a month (about the time it takes for MS to get the new console to me).
When I was at WCG07 I ran into a MS employee who mentioned that new Xbox 360s are going to start shipping with a lower chip fab by the end of the year, which should eliminate the problem. MS isn’t going to “admit there’s a problem” and advertise the new console… so you’ll have to check serial numbers to see which consoles use the new motherboards.
If I can find any info at all about the new motherboards and which serial numbers they use, then I’ll certainly let everyone know.
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Except for the black you have a great blog.