R.I.P. Xbox 360 :-(

Well, today, after having told my wife that my Xbox 360 had been working perfectly and was the only one out of all of my friends and family that had one to not experience any technical difficulties it died (I just bought Virtua Fighter 5 and had only played about 10 minutes before this happened!) Well, not died per say, but one of the cooling fans in the intake vent on the back of the console stopped working. This causes the GPU to overheat and thus freeze up after only a few minutes of the system being on regardless of whether or not it's playing a game, watching a DVD/HD DVD or just sitting in the dashboard. So now I need to send it back to Microsoft for repairs. That also means I need to buy a stand alone HD DVD player because my current device was the Xbox 360 add on player. I'm looking at some HD-A35's on eBay and they are still going for over $250 it looks like. Are the A35's the best way to go? They were the last ones released by Toshiba weren't they?

Depends on how much HD DVD player you need. The A35 was Toshiba's final top-of-the-line HD DVD player. I own two of them, and I find they work beautifully. They output a great HD picture, a fine upscaled SD picture, and all the higher audio codecs. However, since Toshiba no longer makes them, the players are becoming more and more scarce. Thus, the price on them is going up. I see some being sold for $450 and more. (I bought my two for $187 and $205.)

If you don't need DTS-HD Master Audio or 1080p, the little A3 is a great deal at well under $200 (I think it retails for $149). It will output 1080i and do Dolby TrueHD 5.1, which ain't too shabby and is all most people need.

John

The A3 and A30 will suffice most of your needs. The A30 has the identical video hardware that the A35 has. The bonus with the A35, Just like John said, It has the all the on-board audio decoders. If you need 1080P you need the A30 or A35. The A3 does a good job at playback. It is a bit slow but, the picture quality is pretty damn good at $99 or less on eBay.

I was able tp get the A35 at Tiger Direct for $169 several weeks ago. I do not know if that price is still available or not. The other thing I have found interesting is that the HD-DVD's remaining in stores have not been really put on clearance. Best Buy is 30% off reg price, but it is still more expensive then online places, and the Target stores seemed to have removed all the older titles and are only selling the newer titles, at some discount but not really a good deal. It looks like online is the best place to buy the discs.....

The discs themselves are easy enough to find still, it's the players that are getting so hard to find, even after such a short time after production has stopped.

was it one of the early consoles?

like not elite and not the premium with hdmi?

It was an Xbox 360 Elite. But it wasn't one of the newer "Falcon" models. Those are the Xbox 360's manufactured after August 2007 I believe. They have cooler CPU's, but that's not the problem, it's the GPU that over heats due to insufficient cooling. Also a major problem is the PSU not regulating the current correctly to your Xbox 360 from the wall outlet. So even if you have a "Falcon" model Xbox 360, you will still likely encounter some sort of RRoD (Red Ring of Death). The GPU over heating and the PSU not regulating power correctly are the main reasons for the RRoD. I didn't experience the RRoD though, but my 360 was still under it's initial year warrenty. So I just have to wait it out until I get it back. I just hate the waiting... No HD movies, not even SD movies till I move one of the other SD DVD players from another room in the house to the living room. Now I really wish they did include DVD playback on the Wii.

Go buy the A2, they are going for 74.00 at some Wal Marts.

i promised myself i would not flame today.

Good. Keep your flames to yourself.

i know you are hurting right now, so i will. I'm just gunna say that two of my best friends just had to send their boxes out after 2 years of working fine. Both are very upset, and are not happy about a near two month wait.
Meanwhile they come over my house to play games, and are actually quite impressed by the ps3

Dear god no! Anyways, I was checking out eBay and you can buy stock (not refurbs) just the consoles for $100! No power supply, not cords, no HDD, no controllers. I bought one today as a back-up for my 360 if it ever crashes!

theprof00

I have two people I know that come over to play, one sent his ps3 to Sony, cause it doesent read due to him playing a bunch of scratched SD dvds, and they other has no console.

Both are impressed of all the Live! options, playback and arcade games on the 360.

nobody is saying that the 360 doesn't have great games and online service.... Why are you being defensive. I'm merely stating that 360 owners have a tremendous dislike for the ps3 until they play one.
reaggie where did you see that? Is it the arcade version or the core version?

[Post edited by theprof00 on Mar 26, 2008]

Well it really seems that hearing the problems you having with the x-box,,you might as well go ahead and buy a SONY. There are several people at the job that have already dumped there box for a ps3. I should know,,I saw the writing on the wall when blue ray won. So I went ahead and made that change. Now I see what the SONY heads are talking about,,it is a bad ass system. The halo will be missed but we all know that halo is the only thing that kept the box going. hell,,everyones gonna get it anyway.

With the Xnox currently out of commision, and my HD DVD viewing being curbed by that fact, I found an HD-A35 on Amazon.com for $230 so I went ahead and grabbed it up before anyone else saw it. I think there were only two left! At any rate i'll have a stand alone player now that is fully capable of outputting mre than two audio modes! Yay me!! Now, someone lend me $600 for the Onkyo surround sound system I want!!

I don't get this having to send it out BS. Don't you guys have EB Games or Game Stop where you live? Anytime I've had a problem with any of my game consoles, I take it to Game Stop and they swap me a referbished unit (basically a console that has been sent in for repairs, is fixed and ready to go). I never have to wait and I'm back in business that day . . . that second for that matter.

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don't get this having to send it out BS. Don't you guys have EB Games or Game Stop where you live?

You have to have bought your console from Gamestop for them to do that I'm pretty sure, and number two Gamestop/EB doesn't swap out 360's anymore. They haven't since October of 2007.

http://www.engadget.com/2007/10/28/gamestop-stops-selling-product-replacement-plans-on-xbox-360s/

According to the employee at Gamestop when I bought my 360...

MS wants people to send in their 360s and not have Gamestop replace it, so that they may find out what is the still ongoing problem with hardware issues on the 360. How ridiculous. I have the Falcon model and I know that they are working on a different GPU like they did with the CPU.

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and number two Gamestop/EB doesn't swap out 360's anymore. They haven't since October of 2007.

Wow, sucks to be you!

Actually, you don't have to worry about if you purchased your unit there. I purchased my GameCube at a Hollywood Video years ago, and when I had a problem I had no issues swaping it out at Game Stop. I guess they figure they're just going to fix the one you bring in and sell it as a referb anyway. Bummer about the 360, though.

HAHA tim,
not to be offensive to anyone, just stating the fact......
your gamecube, of course, was instantly replaceable.
The reason Gamestop decided to stop taking back 360's is because even with the warranty purchase, and reselling the refurb, and the buying of the new one in the first place.... they were losing tremendous amounts of money because 360 owners would replace 2-3 systems during ownership. That 40%(realistically 25-30) failure rate did quite the job on gamestop.
all other systems are covered though. Gamestop specifically stated they wouldn't take 360's.

The one I bought was a elite console with HDMI output. You can get the arcade and the core system. But I think they are the same? There is like three of four different auctions on there now. All have a different console. A console is a console to me. As long as it plays my games, that's all I care about. I just happen to luck out on the elite.

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they were losing tremendous amounts of money because 360 owners would replace 2-3 systems during ownership. That 40%(realistically 25-30) failure rate did quite the job on gamestop.
all other systems are covered though. Gamestop specifically stated they wouldn't take 360's.

Wow, that's terrible. I knew nothing about this, but how would I since I don't own a 360? I hope you're not BS-ing us on this because that's a very drastic return rate. What a sad, sad world we live in.

Just mind your business and continue playing your FlopStation, Tim. Nothing to see here. Xbox 360's are perfectly fine. No failures to report. Move along please. <--- My progression of faces right before, during, and after my Xbox blew up.

[Post edited by spoonard on Mar 28, 2008]

Hey all. Just saw this post on here and to reply for anyone who has an older 360. If you want to spend an extra 20-30 bucks, an Antec Notebook Cooler works wonders for keeping the 360 very cool. The unit itself fits almost perfectly under the 360 and is usb powered. The usb power cable is also a usb pass-through so you don't lose a usb port. Just a tip for anyone who is worried.

Interesting. I have heard this about notebook coolers before. COuld you point me towards one I could order?

Both Buy.com and NewEgg have them for sale, just look up Antec Notebook Cooler as Antec is the brand name. Buy has it for 27.99 atm. You will find some sketchy reviews otu there about this thing, but I have had mine since the 360 launch and have never had a problem with it. Now that Intercooler on the other hand...yikes! QC dropped the ball on that thing.

so i was being defensive a page back?? hmmm ok Im te evil one.then a bunc of dude came in here slamming everything. yes im the evil one.

360 yay!!!!!!!!!!

My XBox still works... been workign for years

[Post edited by streaky on Mar 31, 2008]

cmon kuco of course you are being defensive. I said the ps3 is a good unit and that when my friends lost their 360's they came over and were very excited to play it and thought it was great.
Then to paraphrase, you said "Yeah, we'll my friends have ps3 and they came over my house and thought my 360 was wicked awesome"
c'mon man, like i said. Nobody is disputing that the 360 is a great system. I'm simply stating that 360 users tend to hate the ps3 until they play one. I'm sure the reverse is true, but i know that a lot of you own 360's and maybe you could soften your hearts a little bit.

PS streaky: your original xbox? or the 360?... never you worry, all 360's come full circle back to ashes. Again, not to talk smack, but i've had friends recently lose launch 360's after a long period of heaven.

I'm guessing "most" 360 owners are the few people you know that own one or the small percentage of owners you have met with on forums? So, let's ammend your statement to "The small percentage of the 20+ MILLION Xbox 360 owners that I have encountered thus far..."

shut ur fanboy mouth spoon

edit: i don't mean to be rude, but seriously, stop the spin. It is in writing everywhere on the internets. don't try to demonize me because i said 360's will die sooner or later. It's a flaw, the achilles heel of an otherwise great system, one that has come a long way from the original xbox. So keep your snide comments to yourself, accept the facts, and be proud to own it. Don't flail your arms at me like a fish out of water because i said the truth.

underneath the news post listen to the conference call
"we have identified several (things that make the 360 die)"
think about it, at the time 11million consoles were sold. If it takes 100 dollars to repair them, (which i doubt) it would cost them 1.1 billion dollars, the exact amount they put aside as a loss for the extended warranty. I think it costs them more like 40-70 dollars to repair. So they would have put enough aside enough for all consoles to be returned twice, or more possibly, all the consoles that have been produced.
In the call robbie bach says, the warranty is for all 360's ever produced. Quite confident to say that "nothing is wrong" (as they said before) when they will be covering *every* console they ever made.

"Q:How many consoles were affected"
"A: (paraphrasing) Never or will we ever discuss numbers relating to the actual number, but with a number of 1.15 billion dollars, it is a number with quite a hefty value and we take it very seriously"

Q: whose fault is it the assmbly line of manufacturers?
A: Those people do good jobs think of it as uh, a uh, microsoft's own design, uhhhh detail.

Q: Will revenue recognition be affected by this measure?
A: No, we will still market the same way and work by the terms of agreement that we have followed by until now.

spoon just because you and your four friends havent red-ringed, or maybe you have, doesn't mean that everywhere from news editors, to forum admins, to tech testing sites, to posters, these failures aren't happening. It is happening on a global scale my friend, whether you would like to believe it or not.

[Post edited by theprof00 on Mar 31, 2008]