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For Unlucky 360 Owner Seventh Time's the Charm

Posted by Zonk on Fri Feb 23, 2007 04:56 PM
from the give-him-some-bennies dept.
XBox (Games)
Microsoft has maintained that the problems occasionally reported by Xbox 360 owners are not very prevalent; just a small percentage of 360s are faulty, they say. That may be so, but for one unlucky console owner it's taken seven faulty consoles for him to get customer service satisfaction. The Mercury News discusses the tale of Rob Cassingham, a self professed 'Xbox fanboy'. He and his wife Mindy run a gaming center, and were responsible (via direct purchases and through word of mouth) for more than a dozen 360 purchases. For his business, he had six machines ... and every one of them failed. Even one of the replacements for the original unit failed, and for every replacement he's had to wait two weeks to get a new system. As he puts it, "Why spend money for rims on a car that spends 90 percent of its time in the shop?" After the Merc's Dean Takahashi referred his case to Peter Moore, he finally received a new machine as a replacement for his most recent faulty model. Cassingham is still deciding whether to keep it or not.
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  • Heat & Hard-Drive (Score:5, Insightful)

    by HappySqurriel (1010623) on Friday February 23 2007, @05:04PM (#18128568)
    The combination of the ammount of heat being produced by the XBox 360 (and PS3) is probably the #1 reason these systems fail ...

    Everyone knows how hot a 100w light-bulb gets (because we've all been foolish enough to touch one) and both the XBox 360 and PS3 have the equivilant of 2 of these bulbs running in a very tight space; this heat can not be particularly good for any of the components and (probably) rapidly ages everything.
    • Sure it sounds like a design flaw, but in reality, it was supposed to also double as an Easy-Bake Oven.

      Muffins and Halo, awesome.
    • Google recently found that contrary to conventional wisdom, drives at low temperatures fail more than those at high temperatures [google.com]. (Pdf warning. Summary here [bbc.co.uk]).

      • The drives in my case, which are in a cage right behind the intake fan, are at 39 and 41C right now. Looking at the graph, that's entirely within the safe area. Now, should I turn the fan off, I wouldn't surprised if it climbed past 45 C, which on the graph starts looking dangerous. I've seen temperatures a lot higher than that. A 7200RPM disk in a bad case could reach 55C quite easily, which isn't even on the graph. Of course, Google has a decent datacenter where they don't get temperatures like that, but
        • you have to wonder if it was jsut that they where running cooler.

          if they are running cooler than the dew point then they could have had minor condensation either inside or out side of the drive caseing.. after removing it from the cool enviroment to insepection it would have heated up and the visable water would have been gone and the drive would have just looked like it had failed.

          this is somehting on pary with tin/zinc wiskers.. (google it if you don't know about it - realy neat stuff)
      • I could be wrong, but "temperature" is not the only problem that could be caused by the energy output of these systems. As an example, what happens to a hard-drive if it has a large temperature variation from one side of the hard-drive to the other? Being that a hard-drive is such a precise device I would anticipate that the expansion/contraction caused by a 20 or 30 degree variation could have serious impacts.
      • I used to work at a hardware manufacturer of HPC storage clusters.

        Perhaps Google failed to correct for the fact that most modern drive manufacturers simply turn off write verification at high temperature to save energy output, reduce temperature, and thwart drive failure.

        When we got drives with firmware that did this, we sent them back, rejected them, and told them not to do tricks with the firmware. It also killed performance at low temperature, and the software we wrote already handled media failure.

        Note

    • Re:Heat & Hard-Drive (Score:4, Insightful)

      by Anonymous Coward on Friday February 23 2007, @06:16PM (#18129384)
      Have a link to any examples of PS3s overheating? The PS3 has an amazing piece of cooling tech inside that has been written about in many computer news sites.

      The only hardware problem I've ever seen reported from PS3 owners is one or two people who had drives that weren't ejecting discs properly.

      As to the Xbox 360 there has been yet no one verifiable reason why so many of them fail. Silly products like that intercooler device have give people the erroneous assumption that heat is what is causing 360s to die over and over again. Right now only Microsoft has an idea of what went wrong with the 360 hardware design and manufacturing. Whatever the reason or reasons it can't be something simple if so many people are still talking about and falling victim to those problems.

        • Anonymous Coward Sony Fanboy Troll,

          No one says that you have to hate Sony, in fact if you have rational arguments most people will read your post and respond appropriately. If you actually read my post I never claimed that there were a large number of failures of either the PS3 or XBox 360 and just speculated that any failures were probably due to the heat of these systems; 200 Watts is a lot of energy which is being directly converted to heat and when it is in such a confined space it can do harm to most e

  • I have mine on the way back to MS right now. DVD drive went out completely after 8 months. Just like the Original Xbox. I actually consider myself lucky mine went out in time to be covered by the extended warranty. I think that will always be something Playstaion has up on the 360, hardware quality. Obviously MS learned nothing from the crappy xbox drives the first go round.

    • Yeah, same here. Mine was shipped back last week because of the DVD drive. This is actually the second time I've shipped it back. The first was because of a red circle of light resulting from a firmware upgrade. Fully covered under warranty both times.

      Also, it was stolen and sold for rock cocaine once, but the police got it back for me.
    • Right. Because PS2 drives never failed. I'd like some of whatever you are smoking.
      • "The first stopped playing DVDs after 6 months, strangely enough CDs were just fine(both music and games)."

        The PS2 has two lasers, one for DVDs and one for CDs. This is why when many PS2s "break" they continue to play one type of disc. Where I work we get a lot of people asking "oh, is that game on a blue disc? Because my PS2 doesn't play them for some reason". Blue disc = Playstation CD game, silver disc = Playstation DVD game.
  • Everyone always says that failure statistics on the web are poor because nobody comes around and says their system is working fine. Maybe we can do an informal Slashdot poll of all Xbox 360 owners.

    If your Xbox 360 has failed, reply with the subject "Broken". If your Xbox 360 has not failed reply with the subject "Not broken". This will make it easy to scan responses without opening each post. Use the post comment area if you have something more to say.
    • And how do you tell if someone actually owns an XBox 360?

      I'm certain that many (if not most) of the "Broken" responses would be from PS3 fanboys
        • Wait, 5 months and it's out of warranty? WTF?

          Here a product should be good for an expected lifetime for that product. Most electrical items must have a 1 year waranty, if not more.

          • Wait, 5 months and it's out of warranty? WTF?


            My 360 came with a 1 year warranty. I went ahead and got the 3 year warranty from MS. Someone saying it's out of warranty after 5 months is confused.
    • Had one, started freezing. Took it back to gamestop, got an all new one. That started freezing. Took it back and got a third one.

      Running solid for two weeks so far ::crosses fingers::

      In an open space with good airflow (I have an old switched-AT power supply with two fans hooked up to it...one pushing air in, one sucking it out the back...both laying up against the box, so no I have not opened any of the ones that I have.)
    • Had mine for 5 months. No issues so far...

      Bob
    • Broken, over 1 year old, Microsoft replaced without any hassle. Shipped me back a replacement unit instead of repairing.
    • Running for months, multi-hour sessions, cramped entertainment center: feelin' fine.

      *knocks on his wooden desk*
    • One is 10 months old, the other two are two months old.

      I think the guy in the story's problem is likely his power system in the building. It may be low or have some kind of wiring issue. That's way too much of a coincidence.

    • Also, this poll is stupid.
    • I bought a a launch unit and it wouldn't play games one time out of two. Instead of launching the game, it would read the DVD-movie part of the disk that says "This is a 360 game, put this in a 360" or something to that effect. So I returned my unit, got a complete refund (except for the game, got 40$ of my 70$ back... stupid store policy). Then I waited for GRAW to come out in March, walked into a store and bought one from the shelves. Has been working fine since then, tough I did experience a couple of di
    • Disk drive about 3 months in. MS replaced it for free.
    • Mine's working fine. Well as far as I know. I haven't turned it on in the few months since my old Linux-running computer died and I bought a Mac and discovered that I could play "WoW". But last time I checked it was working fine.

      I figure I might actually turn it on again whenever Blue Dragon gets released...

      • And it wasn't an Xbox 360; it was a Wii. Once its fan failed, even 20 watts was too much for the heat sink alone to dissipate, and it turned itself off after 30 minutes.

        My Gamecube died the same way after 5 years. It didn't shut itself off, it just started crashing. Didn't take long to figure out why. I think it suffered some damage (partly because I tried using a box fan next to the intake opening as a low-rent replacement so that I could finish a boss fight in Baten Kaitos... too bad it didn't last lo

  • Hardware sucks. (Score:5, Insightful)

    by TeraCo (410407) on Friday February 23 2007, @05:05PM (#18128588) Homepage
    If all of them failed (and he bought them all at the same time for his xbox emporium), perhaps he just got a bad batch? We bought a bunch of Dell Poweredges and now 2 years later, they're all flaking out with CPU errors - 3 in the last week.

    • If all of them failed (and he bought them all at the same time for his xbox emporium), perhaps he just got a bad batch?

      It *was* a bad batch, it just so happened that batch was the complete launch batch :)

      • *boom tish* Well, based on what I've read I can't really argue with that. There's apparently a new model of xbox360 coming out soon in Australia. Same price, etc, just a newer hardware revision.

        I only recently bought a PS2 and a bunch of old JRPG's, but since my yearly bonus comes down from 'on high' soon, I'm considering buying 1) An Xbox360, 2) A PS3, or 3) A giant stack of ham, which I'll then cover with petrol and burn in some kind of weird effigy.

        I wish one of the consoles would hurry up and win so I c
    • More likely the building has dirty power. Even the best power supply can't cope with the wiring in some buildings... I have a buddy who can't run a PC for more than a month, no matter how beefy the PSU is, because the wiring in his house is crap. He plugged in a UPS at my suggestion, and the wiring killed the UPS too! (It was a cheapish UPS, but still, you reach a point where you can't blame anything but the wall power.)

  • Ain't Coincidence a Bitch? (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Bones3D_mac (324952) on Friday February 23 2007, @05:11PM (#18128670)
    Seriously... you'd think everyone has issues with the things. My release date 360 still runs just as well as it did since it arrived.

    Get over the anti-Microsoft high-horse, guys. The console is perfectly stable for those of us who take the time to clean up around the thing an don't stuff it into an air-tight hole somewhere.
    • Your sole experience with a 360 is no more useful for making a conclusion than this fellow's experience with 7 360's. It's a logical fallacy for people with either experience to make a judgement on the 360's reliability based on their personal experiences, though I'm not going to bother going to look up which one it is in specific.

      It's completely unfair for you to pigeon-hole anyone who's had a dead 360 as a slob who failed to give the unit proper ventilation.
    • Firstly, I do kinda agree with your point. I work in a games store and even though we tell people when we sell them a 360, "keep it well ventilated, don't move it around while it's turned on, etc", they still do it and act all indignant when their machine breaks down. However, we get a lot of faulties that can't be explained by simple idiot gamers, for example from regulars to the store who we know full well treat their games and consoles better than their friends and family. Personally my 360 is functionin
    • Seriously... you'd think everyone has issues with the things. My release date 360 still runs just as well as it did since it arrived.

      Get over the anti-Microsoft high-horse, guys. The console is perfectly stable for those of us who take the time to clean up around the thing an don't stuff it into an air-tight hole somewhere.

      You anecdote is not indicitive of all 360's just as my launch PS2 is not indicative of other PS2's fromt hat time. My PS2 has been running with heavy use for almost 6 years. It's only now

  • I got a new unit 1st time around (Score:3, Interesting)

    by 0kComputer (872064) on Friday February 23 2007, @05:12PM (#18128674)
    This was around mid December, I called cust support and went through all the troubleshooting procedures. Long story short, they wanted me to pay 140 for the repairs. After asking for her supervisor etc... they finally agreed to send me a new one for free. They sent a box and i put my old unit in and fed ex'd it back about a week later i got a brand new unit. The total turnaround time was about 10 days. Haven't had any problems since. Since then i've learned that they extended the warranty to one year (from 3 months). So I have to say that my experience was generally good given the situation. Not sure why they would keep sending refurbs. All I can say is that i just followed their instructions to a tea. Maybe this guy was doing something wrong.
    • For electronics, fixing them can be more expensive then fabing a new one depending ont he problem. Also once fixed electronics tend to fail more often after. So a machine that has been fixed once tends ot break more often then a machine that has never been fixed at all of the same age. So for them given these two facts they'd rather just send you a new one.

      Anecdote: My Sony cybershot retailed for $250 when I bought it. Last year it broke and it cost me $100 ot fix it. I debated if I wanted to fix it or not
    • So I have to say that my experience was generally good given the situation.

      Your definition of "good" differs from mine. My idea of "good" would to have not had it fail in the first place.

  • Oh noes! (Score:4, Interesting)

    by Cervantes (612861) on Friday February 23 2007, @05:53PM (#18129122) Journal
    While it does sound from TFA that he had a hard time of it, the article also has him complaining about all the time it took with tech support for each machine. A whole 20 minutes? They made him turn it off and back on? They actually did troubleshooting? ZOMG!

    I'd rather have a competent tech on the other end of the phone who makes me walk through the basic steps to make sure it really is broken, rather than a tech who goes "Thanks for calling MS... it doesn't work?... ok, we'll send you a new one. Bye!". The former is a sign of a company that hires decent people to do their job well, the latter is a sign of a company that hires any schmuck off the street and then rewards him for having a 2 minute call length average.

    And, speaking as someone who had to argue with 3 different techs at Telus to convince them that there was actually something called a "Default Gateway", and no, it wasn't a proprietary setting for the device I was connecting, and no, it wasn't 192.168.0.1 ... I'll take competent techs who make me check the basics any day.

    All that said, he does sound like he got a bad batch. TFA mentions he bought the majority at one time, which could be a reason, but it also mentions that at least 4 of the machines were used in a gaming cafe. Machines take a lot of abuse there, whether you're keeping an eye on them or not, so again, I'm not surprised. Really, a different spin on the article should be "360 owner sends 7 defective units back to MS, MS replaces them and doesn't accuse him of breaking them himself". Really, many hardware vendors I've had to deal with get a little suspicious after you return items for the 3rd or 4th time. I actually had to threaten legal action against a graphic card remanufacturer in order to get them to replace my card after the 4th time their cheap fan died and fried the GPU, out of a batch of 5 I'd purchased.

  • For his business, he had six machines ... and every one of them failed.
    So, uh, where does this guy work, because I'd like to fill out an application.
  • The article states the guy bought at least 4 of the units at launch, Microsoft has already made it clear there was a problem with a lot of launch units so is it really any suprise that this has happened? One replacement failed again but it doesn't state if this was one that was replaced earlier on and hence could be prone to the same fault.

    Don't get me wrong it does indeed suck for the guy and it is a bit silly of MS to release with these problems (surely they must have known?) but the article sounds like i

    • Re: (Score:2, Interesting)

      by Brigade (974884)
      Exactly what I was thinking. It's almost statistically impossible for him to have purchased, and replaced, THAT many machines, and EVERY one failed on him, all due to faulty machines.

      When I was working at Gamestop, people would call ALL the time for tech support for different things. A lot of calls were about overheating 360s .. and most of them had the damn things in a media cabinet. Non-techies don't understand the concept of INTAKE/EXHAUST when it comes to consumer electronics. OR they stick the po

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