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| Microsoft Compensates Xbox 360 Owners | |||
| "Higher than usual repair rate" prompts an official free-of-charge repair. | |||
| by Douglass C. Perry | |||
| September 21, 2006 - After months of system crashes, red lights of death, and screaming owners who just want to play their $60 games, Microsoft today told IGN it's compensating Xbox 360 owners with broken consoles if they were purchased before January 1, 2006. | |||
| Microsoft said it isolated a pattern of broken systems purchased prior to January 1, 2006. As part of their "ongoing process of analyzing repair data," the company will compensate all owners with an "out of warrantee repair," free of charge if the system was bought before January 1, 2006. Gamers who bought broken consoles after January 1, 2006 will not receive free compensation for broken consoles. | |||
| "As part of our standard and ongoing process of analyzing repair data, we recently noticed a higher than usual number of units coming in for repair," Microsoft told IGN in a prepared statement today. "Upon further investigation, it was further discovered that the bulk of the units were isolated to a group that was part of the initial manufacturing run of the console. Returns for repair are coming in for a variety reasons and it's a higher rate than we are satisfied with." | |||
| Microsoft would not explain the exact issues causing the problems. IGN spoke with a Microsoft customer service person named Sandy. She explained that Microsoft will either repair the system or, if the problems cannot be fixed within two days, Microsoft will replace the old system with a new one. Anyone with a broken system can call 1-800-4MY-XBOX to speak with a customer service person. | |||
| This is an about-face tactic for the console manufacturer. Microsoft repeatedly has said that its return rate was within the 3%-5% window, which is standard with consumer electronics of this type. The company has claimed that any broken systems are flukes or isolated incidents. However, the company believes that launch systems bought before January 2006 are the biggest issue. | |||
| "We've made the decision to comp repairs for consoles manufactured before January 1, and provide refunds to the small group of customers who have already paid for repairs," Microsoft said. | |||
| The first gamer to publicly realize this revised policy posted on the Xbox.com forums this morning, claiming that his warranty had been expanded. | |||
| "If you've got the three red lights of death call Xbox support now. As of tomorrow they are extending the warrantee of all Xboxes manufactured before January 1st to a one year warrantee. I just got off the phone with an agent and set up my repair. Happy birthday this is my present to you!" reads the post." | |||
| ==External links== | ==External links== | ||
Revision as of 17:21, 23 September 2006
Technical difficulties
Diagnosing errors and troubleshooting
The Xbox 360 will display a "Screen of Death" if the system experiences a serious error. In such instances the user is prompted to contact Xbox customer support.
In the case of certain specific errors the Xbox 360 system will display a diagnostic pattern of red lighting in place of the standard green "Ring of Light" around the power button. These patterns indicate the following:
| Quadrants lit in red | Indicated error | Troubleshooting |
|---|---|---|
| 4 | The A/V cable is either not properly connected to the Xbox 360 system, or is not being detected. | Check cable and connector. |
| 3 | Console is experiencing a hardware failure | Contact Xbox customer support |
| 2, left | Console is overheating | Turn console off, unplug power supply |
| 1, bottom left | General hardware failure | Contact Xbox customer support |
Overheating
Because of its high power consumption, the Xbox 360 console poses a moderate risk of overheating if users do not follow the guidelines prescribed by the user manual. Users are advised not to obstruct air flow to the enclosure vents or power supply. Problems associated with overheating include reduced system performance and instability that may result in crashing or hardware failure. Some Xbox 360 owners have even installed custom cooling solutions in their consoles to prevent this from happening. It has been reported by IGN Games that if the heating vents are blocked for a prolonged period of time black smoke may disperse from the rear of the Xbox unit and it could possibly catch fire.
Microsoft has been working with a Singapore-based company, Chartered Semiconductor, to create new 65-nanometer chips. These new chips will have reduced power consumption and in turn, will run cooler. They will also be cheaper to manufacture than the current 90-nanometer chips. Because the logic design and clock speed will remain unchanged, performance will not be affected.
Disc scratching
When a user moves the Xbox 360 from a vertical position to a horizontal position, or vice-versa, the inserted disc may brush against the drive's pickup-assembly and incur scratches to its reflective coating. The Xbox 360 owner's manual specifically warns against moving the system while a disc is inserted. However, some users also reported that their disc got scratched without moving their consoles, until questioned about moving it with a disc inside the DVD ROM drive. Microsoft does not replace scratched game discs, by simply replacing the media, because they do not own the rights to some games. Until recently, they offered a free copy of a Microsoft Game Studios Xbox 360 title as a replacement for scratched disks. Microsoft conducted its own research into this topic, and concluded that without moving the console, discs cannot be scratched, and therefore no longer issues replacements. Note: Consoles equipped with the Toshiba-Samsung manufactured drive may experience dislodging of the disc when the console is tilted with a game inserted. This could damage the disc as well as the drive. Users with drives manufactured by Hitachi-LG have only reported damaged discs. The most sensible advice is to not risk it and simply not move the console while it is in a powered-up state, or with a disc inserted. Also, on an interesting note, turning a general computer on its side while the CD-ROM drive is running, can cause disc scratching.
Game Recognition Issues
On rare occasions when a User inserts a Game Disc the Game will not load and a prompt will appear on screen saying "This game can only be played on an Xbox 360" despite the fact that the console is in fact an Xbox 360. The best way to fix this is to either restart your console or eject the disc and re-insert it.
This could, however, be the initial symptoms of a hardware failure. (Note: This problem sometimes arises when no Xbox 360 controller either wired or wireless is connected to the console when loading a disc.)
References
- "Xbox 360: Four lights flash red on the Ring of Light", Microsoft, 24 November 2005
- "Microsoft Xbox 360 refuses to replace scratched discs", gameshout.com, 1 December 2005
External links
- Possible cache clearing workaround for games that have lock-up errors such as NCAA Football '07 and Oblivion
- "How do I clear the cache on the Xbox 360?"