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Our Xbox 360 Has Died

RRoD-smallAt approximately 22:15 this evening, our Xbox 360 froze whilst browsing the Xbox Marketplace. Upon reboot the dreaded red ring of death (RRod) appeared, with a message on the screen to contact Xbox Support. Great.

I suppose should be reasonably happy as our 360 has lasted since March 2006. Wow, that’s nearly 2 years. Hang on a minute, our 360 sits next to a working Gamecube and that’s 6 years old! Not forgetting my working PS2 (7 years old), PSOne (12 years old) and BBC Model B (22 years old).

Thoughts that crossed my mind when I saw the RRod:

  • Arse, arse, arse.
  • Wait, rebooting the console should sort out the problem, it is Microsoft after all.
  • (After reboot) Arse.
  • Eeek, what about my Xbox Live profile and my achievements/saved games?
  • Phew, they are on the HDD, should be safe.
  • But what if the HDD has died?
  • Oh hell, Xbox Support. Weeks, maybe months without a 360, aggghhhh.
  • Wait, my PS3 and Wii will do instead. Yay.

After further investigation using the Xbox-scene.com forums error code guide our secondary error code is 0102 which means:

Error in the “Digital Backbone” (CPU/GPU/RAM), this is usually caused by a cold solder joint between the GPU and the mainboard

Looks like I’ll have to get Microsoft to fix our console. Problem is that to date my experiences with Xbox Support have been awful. I’m still waiting for the saga of removing credit card details from my Xbox Live account to end.

Has anyone else had a 360 fail as it could involve up to 30% of consoles according to this RRoD article?

Update 21st Feb 08: 8.30am – Reports of our Xbox 360s death have been greatly exaggerated. Lazarus-like, it’s ALIVE! Woke up this morning, poked the power button and the 360 booted up fine. No RRoD, just the green ring of life. However, I’ve placed the 360 on death watch as I think it may fail again pretty soon. But for now, the 360’s back baby.

Update 21st Feb 08: 9am – Its died again. Sniff. I quickly downloaded some XNA creators club demos, turned off the 360 and then when I turned it back on the evil RRoD was back. Boo.

Update 26th Mar 08: It’s back from it’s trip to the Xbox repair centre and it’s ALIVE!!!! It took 2 weeks from sending it off to getting it back. Pretty speedy. The problem was the motherboard, as I suspected, so it has been replaced. Although the Xbox does sound different now, and emits a sound like a slightly asthmatic duck sleeping when you turn it off. Oh, and Microsoft included a free 1 months Xbox LIVE gold membership to sort of say sorry for the crappy 360 build quality.