OK, I know that there are over 10 million faulty 360’s out there, but why 5 of them have to be mine?

Here are 2 links to my past experiences with my other 360’s:
xBox 360 number 4 will be gone soon
To play this game put it into a xBox 360 console

Yesterday evening i started up my 360 - which a few hours before that worked just fine - only to get the 4 rings of death.
If all quadrants are flashing red, then there is a problem with one of the cables, either the power brick one or the AV cable.
And so last night i went through the whole troubleshooting steps: powered down my 360, unplugged the cables, cleaned the metal head on the AV cable….tried again….and some more.
Today, my boyfriend got me a friend’s cables and tried them too but i got the same error.

Hold on now! This ain’t right! I looked again to it, but the up right quadrant didn’t flash. It appeared to be red though. Crap!

At some point my boyfriend said that i should call this one quit and call the support.

Oh dear! Again? To put me do the same steps i’ve done last night?
Right…Dialed the 0800 number, got the bla bla bla robot, press 3, press 3, press 1 and an apology. Huh?!

That’s new!
Since when has Microsoft introduced the apologetic robot and why?

To the person who’s been in charge with the whole 360 building and bringing it on the market process:

It may not be your fault that “someone” skipped the prevention process, and it’s really OK…no need to apologize. I forgive you and i forgive your robot too.
Lots of people do lots of mistakes. Huge ones. You’ve just made about 10 million of them. How cool and huge is that?!
I just want a damn working 360! So skip the whole apology thing and speed up the repair/swap process, will you!

And do you know what else pisses me off to bits about this whole thing? The fact that i have sent in for repairs 3 of them (1of 4was a swap thanks to the Gamemania dudes)  and none of them have been registered in your system as “sent in for repairs”. They have been swapped.
Tricky! Very tricky!

When a 360 gets swapped (on purpose by Microsoft), and then another 2, there goes your chance to get your “So Sorry for the trouble 360″ from Microsoft along with some apologies and a 1 month Gold membership. Hm!

Back to the call…

A very friendly support guy, outside Belgium, took my call and asked me to go through the process i’ve just done last night.

“Done that”, i said. “It’s my 5th one.”

He then suggested to plug the console into another TV and see if the problem goes.
It didn’t! In the light of my bedroom i could actually see on 3 lights and the last one was dead which basically means: General Hardware Failure.

We’ve been on the phone for quite some time - apparently his system froze twice - and all this time he kept apologizing to the point where i really felt bad for him.
I just threw in some humor and made him laugh. One might say that this is typical me, but…these guys are taking lots of abuse from us - no wonder they keep apologizing so often - and they don’t deserve that; i just wanted to make his call a bit more bearable.

He then decided that my 360 qualifies for repairs and so it will be picked up withing a couple of days and i won’t be seeing it for a few good weeks.

Meanwhile i won’t use my PS3. No offense dear Sony, but your online service sucks.

So, till i have my 360 back, or someone else’s, i will just go on and learn how to Photoshop.

Anyway…

If you experience the rings of death, here’s what they mean and a hint to what you should do next:

4 quadrants flashing red : The AV cable is not detected or there is a problem with the power brick. Check the led on the brick and make sure it is green.
If the led is orange, then check: KB906102 .

3 quadrants flashing red: General Hardware Failure.
Check KB907534 or just call the Support.

2 quadrants are flashing red: Overheating.
Just let it cool for a few good hours and do not block the ventilation.
Do not put it in the freezer!
You might laugh or raise your eyebrow but there are people who have done so. Not very wise!

1 quadrant is flashing red: Hardware Failure.
This can be anything from the hard drive, DVD drive player and so on…

Check the error that your 360 shows on your screen and then call the Microsoft Support. Tell them the exact error number you are seeing.

If the error is known, then probably an update just killed your 360.

Here’s what you can do about this unknown one before calling in:
Clear the cache.
Power up and go to the Dashboard ->System -> Storage Devices.
Highlight your hard drive. Now press the following on your controller: Y, X, X, LB, RB, X, X.
The system will then ask you if you want to perform the maintenance.
By pressing the green button you agree to do the maintenance but be aware of the fact that all your patches, updates and game extensions will be deleted.
The best part is that you can download them again at any time.

Note:
It’s important to be prepared with all this before calling the support. It will save time and energy and the the person helping you will be able to quickly diagnose if you can fix your 360 by yourself or if you have to send it in.

Good luck now!

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