Whenever I had a console fail or break in some way, it was always quick. One minute it's fine, the next it's RROD. So I decide to chronicle the very slow and painful death of my son's 20gb Xbox 360.
Here's how it went down:
Back in March we got Operation Raccoon City. I played a bit of it on my 360. He popped it into his and it froze three times in 30 minutes. We thought maybe the disc was defective. But, he tried it on mine and it works perfectly.
A little while later, it wouldn't download the Trials Evolution demo. Then it stopped playing any game that was downloaded. This made me think it's the HDD, but nothing looks corrupted and all the saved game data works fine. I think it went back to playing downloaded games a few days later.
Everything was okay for a few weeks, but then the two red rings on the left side started appearing. According to the Xbox support website, this means it's overheating, but it would happen even if it was on for a few minutes. My husband took it to get it cleaned, thinking that it's old and probably very dusty inside.
After the cleaning, the two rings stopped, but now if you try to play a game, one red ring on the right side lights up. So I looked this up and might be the dreaded E74. But, we're not getting the screen for it. The screen is just black. So I tried everything it told me to do. Including unplugging it, taking out the HDD, etc.
At the same time, we got Ninja Gaiden 3 and it's freezing constantly.
He can watch Netflix on the 360, but I think that's about it for now. It seems everything that can go wrong with it, will. I'll admit that I'm somewhat fascinated by this process. It's like the 360 is having one last swan song and we're forced to deal with it. It's an old system that's gotten fixed by Microsoft. It's not under warranty anymore, of course.
While I'm a bit upset to see the sad state of this 360, I'm looking forward to getting my son a newer model, like mine. Then I will be able to actually play my 360 in peace again, which will be awesome.
Sorry to hear about your son's 360. Myself, I currently own a 360 Elite with a 120GB HDD. It's been more than 4 years now, and the closest it has come to a "red ring" is when it overheats or when there's a surge in its power supply. Then again I only have a handful of games and I'd gone over a year without playing any of them, which might be responsible for its comparatively healthier lifespan. I really hope Microsoft are able to eliminate all technical issues with the next-generation Xbox. *crosses fingers*
ReplyDeleteSorry its in its last stages of meltdown but yay for new systems and yay for being able to play your system again. Hopefully I can find a way to start buying 360 games and we can play together in the future.
ReplyDeleteCool!
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