Repair specialist refuses to take further Xbox 360 consoles Options

[Xbox-Scene]

Repair specialist refuses to take further Xbox 360 consoles Posted by XanTium | June 28 23:01 EST | News Category: Xbox360

From gamesindustry.biz: [QUOTE] UK-based repairs specialist Micromart has told GamesIndustry.biz that it has had to refuse to service Xbox 360 consoles that display three red lights, dubbed the Red Ring of Death. "We were seeing about 30 a week before we pulled the plug on the service," said Jeff Croft of Micromart. "We saw it over a period of several months and it was just getting worse. It began towards the end of last year. Once the twelve month warranty finished then we started to see more and more machines being sent in to be looked at. Micromart acts for individual retailers who send customer's goods to the specialist. Croft says his company pulled the service after discovering problems with the motherboard, and that that repairing the console wasn't financially feasible. Even after working on a number of machines, the company didn't feel comfortable with the end result. Croft said the company had written to Microsoft to inform it of the problems encountered but had received no reply. [/QUOTE] Full Story: gamesindustry.biz

[fierygt]

Croft said the company had written to Microsoft to inform it of the problems encountered but had received no reply

MS's response...

"We at M$ stand behind the quality of our products, offer generous warranties, and believe that because of the below average 2-3% failure rate of XBOX 360, this company was unable to aquire enough clients to stay in business."

Ok, so maybe they won't respond, but the point is, even "if" they do, it will just be a generic, pointless, corporate dodge to avoid the question, and sway only the already ignorant.

[JayDee]

MS's response...

"We at M$ stand behind the quality of our products, offer generous warranties, and believe that because of the below average 2-3% failure rate of XBOX 360, this company was unable to aquire enough clients to stay in business."

Ok, so maybe they won't respond, but the point is, even "if" they do, it will just be a generic, pointless, corporate dodge to avoid the question, and sway only the already ignorant.

That could have come right from the spin department...

Out of the 15 launch units we had in store @ release we have had 8 come in with problems. We had to stop to carry them in stock, and only take them in on customer order. A funny? thing is that people ask if they can buy some form of extra insurance for it, to quote, "as a friend told me many breaks".

Never had one original xbox to die on me, but sold of two with the classic rrod last week, as i do not have time to fiddle around with them as much as i would like.

[ConteZero76]

The only reply a customer would accept is getting all the "old" XBox360 back and substitute them with improved (where "improved" means "not dying") ones.
Microsoft cannot do that (exchanging 10 mln consoles is a bit too expensive, even for Microsoft) so the only reply is just keep on dodging.
The only viable solution would be some sort of class action that forces Microsoft to retire the old defective product, something like this already happened in the USA for defective cars, so it shouldn't be impossible.

1Up came with a story (with proofs!) of someone who had his XBox360 serviced eleven times! ( http://www.1up.com/do/newsStory?cId=3160603 )

This post has been edited by ConteZero76: Jun 29 2007, 05:59 AM

[echto]

MS's response...

"We at M$ stand behind the quality of our products, offer generous warranties, and believe that because of the below average 2-3% failure rate of XBOX 360, this company was unable to aquire enough clients to stay in business."

Ok, so maybe they won't respond, but the point is, even "if" they do, it will just be a generic, pointless, corporate dodge to avoid the question, and sway only the already ignorant.

Actually, I believe MS response is....

"The vast majority of people are really excited about their product, and that we are targeting profitability for next year. We continue to say the vast majority of the people are really happy with it. The overriding thing is that people have the product, they love the product, it continues to sell well. The stuff we talked about with Live has been very successful. The game attach has been very successful."

HAHAHAHAHAHAHA


...Ask them about Apples, they talk about Oranges. lol

[miggidy]

It's sad to see how widespread this problem is starting to get.
I'm a huge Xbox brand supporter who never had any problems with my original Xbox.

3 of 4 friends I know who bought an Xbox 360 have had to get there's repaired or replaced.
One came home with a bad one. Another's died within a week. And the 3rd needed repairs after a month or two. It's only a matter of time before the 4th guy's machine dies on him. He's had it for about four months and rarely plays it though.
Man this doesn't even count me.
My first Xbox 360 died 2 weeks shy of its first birthday
So from the people I know including myself, 4 out of 5 X360's have taken a $hit....

For the life of me I don't understand why M$ has been so slow to address this issue.
You know it's costing them big bucks to repair these things....

[[MF]Acid]

This is what I don't understand my friend has had his for a year now never has don't ne thing works fine to this day..

Are people putting there consoles are all that hot air can't escape..

putting your console in a cabinet is pretty much like putting in a oven smell that...burning processor

[miggidy]

^^^^
My 360 has always been out in the open for fear of overheating.
Either way, all of my other consoles are in a cabinet. From my Sega Saturn to my PS2.
And none of them overheat.

I don't know where my friends keep their 360's but I doubt the first guy's 360 overheated on his trip home when he bought it. I doubt the second guy's machine died within a couple of weeks because he may or may not have had it in a cabinet. Same goes for the 3rd guy who his 360 died in less than two months.
Consoles just shouldn't die so early.

M$ did a wonderful job spec'ing out this thing in terms of graphics horse power, just like they did with the original Xbox. But too bad overheating some how was overlooked.
All I know is that someone or some people in M$'s hardware group has gotten fired.
At least I hope so. But pretty soon that won't be enough.
Pissed off Xbox fans might want to skin the bastard(s) alive, and I don't blame them....

[FCTE]

For the life of me I don't understand why M$ has been so slow to address this issue.You know it's costing them big bucks to repair these things....

Not really, they are just recirculating refurbs, a lot cheaper then scrapping the current design and paying to redesign the whole 360. I doubt they will ever really address the problem, the new processors are just a smaller die, and I doubt they will have a signifigant impact on the cooling issues.

It's much cheaper to deny, cover up the facts, and just keep recirculating the same hunks of crap vs. fixing the problem.

[cory1492]

the new processors are just a smaller die, and I doubt they will have a signifigant impact on the cooling issues.

OK, they could well make another mistake and build the cooling badly agian but...

A smaller die footprint isn't the only benefit of moving to 65nm based CPUs (and a smaller die footprint isn't necessarily guaranteed when moving to smaller scale pathways). Generally speaking the smaller they go, the less current is consumed to perform the same functions - and the less current passing through any circuit equals less energy to be converted into heat (last I checked, some ~49% of energy in any circuit is wasted and must be converted to waste energy such as heat, unless you are dealing with supercooled stuff). It could well solve cooling issues even on existing system design, though it is likely that the mainboard would undergo some major changes to adapt to a different voltage level on a "smaller" cpu die.

This post has been edited by cory1492: Jun 29 2007, 08:37 AM

[belke]

wouldn't the problem be simple to fix? Get rid of the x-clamp and remelt the solder joints on the cpu,gpu and ram? You would think m$ would have plenty of people sitting around to do such a thing, or better a designer who never would have thought of the idea in the first place.

[fahrenheit]

This repair company has turned down what surely must be a lucrative contract because they are inundated with more units than they can cope with and feel they cannot do a sufficient job of fixing them...? Says it all really.

Its good to see sources other than online forums/blogs and dubious media sites backing up what we've known all along. Someone from an authorised repair center (or their spouse) needs to spill the beans. I can't wait for the day when that makes the news on the front page.

[irnchriz]

It annoys me that Microsoft keep quoting this 2-3% figure making it look like a low amount. In reality this translates to over 300,000 dodgy consoles. Thats a whole lot of people to piss off don't you think?

As they have had obvious issues with heat dispersal in the console they should hold their hands up and offer an extended warranty which covers these failures way beyond the original 12 month warranty.

For example, you have a 360 which is 14 months old> you get the ring of death> you call Microsoft, they pick it up and check it out> the CPU has made the motherboard warp or whatever due to insufficient cooling or some other manufacturing fault > Microsoft send you a new console.

How simple is that, if they accept that there was a design flaw or more likely that the tolerances were not strict enough in manufacture they could even pass some of this cost off against the manufacturing plants.

The bottom line is, if you buy a 360 you would know that you are covered past the 12 months and know that you are getting a new box if yours goes pop.

I still think that they need to get a better dvd drive, my console is pretty quiet until the drive starts then its like a turboprop chopper just few into my livingroom.

[dvsone]

This repair company has turned down what surely must be a lucrative contract because they are inundated with more units than they can cope with and feel they cannot do a sufficient job of fixing them...? Says it all really.

"We were seeing about 30 a week before we pulled the plug on the service," said Jeff Croft of Micromart.

Yes 30 units a week was too much for them to cope with! Get the fuck outta here. This must be the laziest repair center in the world.

[jimbobjim]

The amount of consoles they were receiving was not the issue. In the full article they basically say it's because the consoles are so poorly made, they felt any repairs would come undone in a short time. I thought this was quite clear.

Microshaft have really f****d up this time. I really hope this class action lawsuit materialises.

This post has been edited by jimbobjim: Jun 29 2007, 01:20 PM