Well, a while ago, maybe two weeks or so ago, I posted here asking whether I should get a refurbished XBOX since I was planning on modding it. People answered almost unanimously that I should, and so I did. It sat under my bed for 2 weeks as I waited for my XBIT, which I ordered from divineo.com (mistake number 1). Also, I bought a 160gb 8mb cache Maxtor for 80 bucks from compusa (possibly mistake number 2 if this problem continues).

After fighting and harrassing divineo to get my chip shipped and not even getting confirmation to this day, 2 weeks after the fact, I just harshly ordered them to cancel my order. I don't know if they will, since they were "apparently" planning on shipping soon.

Having realized my chip wasnt coming soon (enough), I opened my xbox today and had rented two games: Spiderman 2, and Chronicles of Riddick. I was excited to play both of course, but since Riddick was a 7-day rental, I decided I would finish spiderman first. I pop it in, start it up, get in game, and 10 seconds later, it FREEZES.

Hmm.

Open drive. Close drive. Try again. 20 seconds in. It freezes. The light is not blinking, and cd is not spinning, and guess what, the sound is looping like a mo-fo. Hmm. Is it the disc, or the system. I look at the disc for a long while, and there appears to be nothing wrong. Heck, its a new game and frankly, no one complained about it to blockbuster, so it must be the system.

So I race to Gamestop before they close, and return the system. It was a 1.4 with a phillips (I determined this from looking at the drive and comparing serial/mfg numbers on the internet), so I was regretting letting it go. I had the guy try the game there and he recreated the problem. He then tried a scratched up copy of brute force but it didnt freeze. Still, I told him I was giving the game the benefit of the doubt and not the system. They were completely out of used, refurb, or new systems, so I had them call another store, and they put a refurbished one on hold for me. Now, I will go tomorrow and see if its a 1.5 or older, but first will try the rented Spiderman 2 on a system if they have it there so I can see what the problem really was.

Here is my dilemma: if I can get my chip cancelled, should I just go ahead and get a new system now that 1.6 chips are available? I dont want to go there and see that the game doesn't freeze, because that would mean that a MS refurb was totally defective (meaning their testing doesnt count for shizzle). I also dont want to go and find out the game hangs, because I still couldnt go back and get the old system, and I would be nervous about getting another refurb. In the end, I'm just not sure I want to mod the damn thing anymore, if it means I have to get a second-hand system just to get a moddable version.

Frankly, I highly doubt the system was 95 percent new, as some people claimed refurbs usually are...I might have just gotten unlucky.

Anyways...should I get a new system (20 bucks more), or should I plow on with another refurb and hope for the best? What would you recommend. I honestly no longer care for modding if it means such a headache, but also understand that this could easily be an isolated incident. Ultimately, I have a chip that might still come and it might have been too late to cancel, and I have a hd still here. I ordered an XBIT, so a new 1.6 wont work with it. I'm so confused and frustrated right now. I have the two games I rented sitting on my desk...6 bucks I'll have to eat...but I'm worrying if maybe this is only the start of it...

(ps...is the xenium ice a good chip? because if I got a new system, I could always get one of those...)

Please! Give me some advice before tomorrow when I have to go and make the decison on getting another refurb or getting a new xbox. I just want to be able to play ESPN NFL 2k5 when it comes out! (its practically why I even considered going through all of this to begin with)...

try i few pown shops
I just got a halo SE 1.4 for 110$ US

I don't think I would consider that...I want a place with good customer support...a pawn shop is not that place.

find some open box sale from some store and buy extened warranty

Did you set the clock in the MS dashboard before playing the game? Some games need the clock to be set to work.

I sure did...it was the first thing my xbox wanted to do upon startup.

My perosnal opinion would be is to get a brand new xbox and use it everyday if possible. When your satisfied that it's not freezing or doing any funny stuff then chip it. That's what i did when I got a new xbox because I had to wait for the chip anyway.

re: your mod chip order. If you paid with credit card just go ahead and buy it someplace else, refuse the shipment if UPS tries to deliver the original one. If 100% of your money doesn't get refunded call the credit card company.

I would think the chances of getting a 1.6 box are still fairly slim, I have bought 2 over the last couple of weeks (in the UK) and they are still 1.4 boxes.

Did you try it with both games? I was using KOTOR and it did the same thing t me, turned out that it had created a corrupted savefile on bootup and kept trying to load it, I just had to delete it and it worked

I didnt try both games, but that's because it wasn't hanging on a load spot...it was hanging during the bruce campbell audio tutorial.

But it could have been the game. I have to try the game else where.

Also, I don't think Spiderman ever got a chance to save...I had to make a new profile everytime.