CrinkzPipe Posted:

STORY TIME:

My aunt and uncles xbox 360 got RROD and had to send it back for repairs. Costed them around 70 bucks. Guess what happend when it was sent back to them? IT was STILL RRODing. They had to send it back paying ANOTHER 70 bucks. Did Microsoft just give up and send a new one? Noo, they tried to repair it again. Guess what’s wrong now? The motor on it is broken! They havn’t been able to play it for more than a week before it breaks.

/STORYTIME

Yeah, this is common. It’s common for people who have one RROD to get another, since what Microsoft does is “when someone sends in a RROD’d Xbox for repairs, they send them back an identical model”. So if the particular build of the Xbox is prone to destroying itself (as the first several iterations of the console were), when it destroys itself and you return it for repairs, the one you get returned to you will also be prone to destroying itself.

In subsequent builds of the console, they reduced the size of some components, moved other components around, doubled the number of heatsinks, and did some other things effect of “making the console more reliable.” If you buy one that was manufactured in the last year or so, you have a lot less to worry about than if you bought one three years ago. Regardless, Microsoft was forced into adopting a fairly generous warranty due to the reliability concerns, as if you get RROD’d or E74’d at any point in the first three years from purchase, the repairs will just cost you shipping.

I bought mine last fall with a freshly minted SKU, and provided I keep it well-ventilated, I can leave it on all night and the fan doesn’t even get loud. The new ones are a lot better than the old ones.