Xbox 360 Repairs: Day Two

Within two hours of my repair being put into Xbox, I received an e-mail with the UPS shipping label. I didn't receive the e-mail from Xbox explaining the shipping options until this morning. (Although they sent the exact same e-mail again 3 hours later.) There are three different options. I thought I had asked for them to send me a box with prepaid shipping on it, but apparently, I went for the they send me a shipping label and I find my own damn box. Faster, yes. More annoying, also yes.

I used to have lots of boxes around, but I threw them out recently so I created this monstrosity from a larger box I had. Supposedly, they will ship back my repaired or replaced 360 in the same box.

After creating the box(which took a trip to two stores for packing tape), I wrote my Repair Reference Number on a slip of paper and attached it to the 360. I then packaged the 360 with some newspaper in the box and sealed it up. After attaching the shipping label(which also took me a while because my laptop wasn't synched with my printer), I braved a little downpour to get the box into a UPS drop box nearby right before pickup time.

The box barely fit, but it did fit. Now I wait for 2-3 weeks supposedly for a return. I can track my 360's repair status on http://www.xbox.com.

Xbox 360 Repairs: Day One

My second 360 died. I was playing Friday night, and some lines started appearing in the game. I was worried. My 1st Xbox 360 died from a bad video chip, also known as E-74 error. My 1st 360 had been out of warranty and I didn't want to pay and have to wait for repairs so I had gone out and just bought an Xbox 360 Arcade instead. After I finished my mission, I saved and powered down the system. Maybe it was just the game. Hopefully... I had a LAN party at the house the next day.

LAN party! I test the system. No lines at first, but they seem to come back after a bit, though. One friend is earlier than the others. He wants to play some GTA IV. No problem. Except when I put it in, there are tons of lines everywhere. After a few minutes, we eject it. Check Halo 3, the main fare for the day. Definitely some video interference here, but playable.

Another friend arrives. He suggests turning it off and turning it on. When I power it back on, it goes to the E-74 error page. It so far has not stopped going to that page.

Sunday I didn't call it in. I thought they might be closed. I was wrong, but that was my thought.

Monday I did call it in... at 11:40 pm. I was sick all day so I didn't feel like dealing with the Xbox phone support.

With support, I was able to get through quickly and my support guy was fairly painless. Yes, he had an accent, but he was understandable. I told him simply that they needed to send me a box to send in my 360 for repairs. I had to answer a few questions, but he only tried to get me to self-repair a time or two which I've already done all the "self-repairs."

Self-repairs are simply unplugging everything and then plugging everything back in, including harddrive. They also like it if you try to boot the 360 without the harddrive attached.

Anyway, my "coffin" should be here soon. I'll keep you updated.

Guess What EA Sent Me? (Part 2)

Remember the extra guitar that I received from EA last week? Well last night I got around to opening it and as I thought it was another Rock Band guitar, but this one was different. At first I didn't recognize the difference, but then I realized there was no cord. This mama jama was a wireless guitar.

As you can imagine I was pretty excited. I would much rather have the wireless guitar over the wired guitar. But as quickly as I noticed it was a wireless guitar, I noticed something else. The guitar was lacking a certain green color. Something was off just a smidgen. Then I took a closer look at the Xbox 360 jewel (you know the button with the 4 green curves around it that can turn on the console) and to my surprise it didn't have it's signature green X on the button. Instead it said "PS".

At this point my heart broke and all the great moments I imagined having with the wireless guitar disappeared. I'm not sure why EA sent me a PS3 wireless guitar, since I never requested one and I don't own a PS3 yet. Something in their automated system must not have been tested well because they sent me 2 guitars instead of one and one of the guitars is for the wrong console. I started a thread on the Rock Band forums about it. Thanks EA.

My 360 finally died!

I was the last of a dying breed. Those whose original Xbox 360s still worked. Then last night, I was replaying Mass Effect and fighting the boss battle at Peak 15 when the graphics started getting lines through them(like when I updated Half-Life 2). I couldn't see and kept dying. Tried a couple restarts and it would still act up. Powered down and went to bed.

Played some this morning and after a short amount of time the lines came back. But now they were everywhere - Mass Effect, the Dashboard, Beautiful Katamari. Powered it down again.

Went back later and got an E-74 error message. I've gotten the E-74 error from time to time since getting my 360 in January 2006. Usually a quick reset and it's gone. But now my 360 refuses to do anything other than show the E-74 error.

An E-74 error means there is a 90% chance it's a scaler chip problem (the "ANA" or "HANA" chip near the AV cable connection). It can also be caused by a faulty AV cable, but I checked that. In rare cases, it is a problem with the GPU.



I talked to Microsoft, and they made me try a bunch of stuff I already tried on my own(unplugging and plugging back in cables, harddrives, etc). Shockingly, none of it worked this time either. So it needs repairs.

Of course, their system is down right now so they can't take my repair order. I should call back in 2-4 hours. And I asked about costs. Since I'm not under warranty and it's not the 3 Red Rings, it'll cost me around $99. Plus the time away from my 360.

I'm thinking about going out and picking up an Xbox 360 Arcade system and just throwing my harddrive on it.

On a positive note, I like the program who answers the phone for 1-800-4MY-XBOX. I've dealt with a few of these programs recently and Microsoft's seemed the most friendly and realistic. Of course, I still had to repeat most of the information to the real person I eventually talked to.

Guess What EA Sent Me?

Another Rock Band guitar. I'm not sure why, but yesterday when I was tending to the puppies at home I heard a knock at the door. I go outside and I see the UPS man placed another Rock Band guitar box at my door.

I haven't opened it yet, but I have contacted EA asking if the 2nd guitar is a more reliable guitar. Also I didn't accidentally order two because I signed into my EA account and checked the replacement order screen and there's only one order. So if they reply that they only have on record one guitar, then it looks like I gots me a freebie.

Apparently the EA customer support is giving out freebies as well. One thread on the Rock Band forums says that the customer support gave him a free game for his replacement not showing up in time.