Xbox 360 Faults. Full Report

MS claims the norm, offers rapid service.

Posted by Staff
Xbox 360 Faults. Full Report
Reports of an Xbox 360 glitch epidemic have hit the web in the past 24 hours, with Microsoft’s new console coming under fire from users angry that it has crashed or overheated.

Reports mainly centering around Project Gotham Racing 3 (a crash video of which you can see here) have complained of lock-outs and other errors, seemingly stemming from a faulty memory unit within the machine.

Other faults have included error numbers E79, E67, E74, E35 appearing on the screen, again thought to be related to RAM problems, have also been reported.

So, is there a widespread problem with the Xbox 360, or is this a mixture of expected hardware fail-rates and post-purchase regret, empowered by the global megaphone that is the Internet?

From what SPOnG has been able to gather, the amount of faulty Xbox 360 hardware shipped to the public is negligible, with much of the evidence anecdotal. Polls cropping up on the subject, which appear to show a 25% fail-rate at time of press, are quickly debunked by the originating sources as being unreliable due to people registering faulty hardware when none exists.

Microsoft reacted to the claims of faulty goods this morning. “It's a few reports of consoles here and there not working properly," said Molly O'Donnell, a spokeswoman for Microsoft's Xbox division. "It's what you would expect with a consumer electronics instrument of this complexity...par for the course.” And is she right? Well in short, yes she is.

Launch Xboxes were plagued with problems, resulting in the nickname FiXBox being awarded after it chewed up disks and suffered repeated hard disk failures. So it’s a Microsoft issue? No, of course not. The Dreamcast suffered hard reset problems at launch, the PlayStation 2 saw massive returns with a plethora of issues including disc read errors, blown circuit boards and power supply issues. Early PlayStation consoles were also unreliable, resulting in many having to stand on their side to read game discs. Sega’s Saturn also suffered crash faults in its early phase, with the recently released PSP seeing widespread pixel, disc and general manufacture quality-related returns.

Outside of gaming, look at the uproar Apple manages to cause with the portable music player fashionista up in arms every six months or so.

Microsoft outlined its returns policy for defective 360 hardware, explaining that US consumers need only to call 1-800-4myXbox or go to www.xbox.com If the problem can't be resolved via telephone right away, Microsoft will pay to ship the console overnight to a repair centre and ship it overnight back to the consumer once it's fixed, or ship a replacement. This, compared to the customer service support offered by almost every other manufacturer of cutting edge technology, is pretty impressive.

Which leads us onto the question – if you’re about to buy an Xbox 360, will it break? The simple answer is it might do, because it’s new and some do. If you want to wait six months, the problems that caused the first ones to break will likely have been sorted out. And if you do buy one in the coming days and it does break? Simply call Microsoft and they’ll sort it out. And if they don’t, scream bloody blue murder!

We’ll update you on the situation with all Xbox 360 build issues as the weeks speed by.

For a full report on the US media's reaction to the Xbox 360 launch, the good and the bad, click here. And click here. for a photo feature direct from the Xbox 360 launch event Zero Hour, a 24 hour spectacular held in the desert.

Companies:

Comments

Showing the 20 most recent comments. Read all 34.
vault 13 15 Oct 2007 05:31
15/34
......__--__--__--........ wrote:
the 360 sucks ass


ps3 beats it so easily


They're on the same level at worst definitely not an advantage to either side if you want to be unbiased.
Ian 27 Oct 2007 22:06
16/34
hello,
im about to go and buy an Xbox 360 elite, for my 8 year old brother and my biggest fear is will it break? Truth is, i have friends in england who have had problems with the Xbox 360 with the so called "ring of death" and disks getting stuck and scratched. so far all problems have been solved, i was wondering if microsoft had let slip a plan of some sort as to how they are going to prevent these problems and when are they gonna haul ass!
more comments below our sponsor's message
vault 13 29 Oct 2007 04:08
17/34
Get the Halo version. It has a smaller processor die so it uses less power and thus less prone to overheats. ;>
vbhdgfhdfhdfgh 5 Nov 2007 16:35
18/34
my xbox 360 broke and has these weard orange ligths on it and it wont turn on when you swithc it on
Lyle Naidoo 20 Nov 2007 08:57
19/34
my xbox 360 pro has a fault, when ever i switch it on, three red lights flash, and it doesnt display anything on the tv.
could anyone help me out to tell me what this fault is and what i should do.
thanks
vault 13 20 Nov 2007 20:19
20/34
Lyle Naidoo wrote:
my xbox 360 pro has a fault, when ever i switch it on, three red lights flash, and it doesnt display anything on the tv.
could anyone help me out to tell me what this fault is and what i should do.
thanks


The fault is you bought an Xbox 360!!! Hahahahahahahahahahahahahaha!!! Buy a PS2 or a Wii, well made machines. Hey I got this old Super Nintendo for sale, 16 years old and still works like a charm.
Ryan 30 Dec 2007 02:36
21/34
to Lyle Naidoo,

You are experiencing the Red Ring of Death fault!! This is a major fault of the Xbox 360. You should visit www.xboxredringofdeath.com to find out how more about the problem and ways of fixing it! You should look into it before it's too late. Hope it all works out!
Ryan
jack newton 5 Feb 2008 16:31
22/34
hi
a red light has occured on my xbox 360
what shall i do?
bob 6 Feb 2008 14:40
23/34
vault 13 wrote:
Lyle Naidoo wrote:
my xbox 360 pro has a fault, when ever i switch it on, three red lights flash, and it doesnt display anything on the tv.
could anyone help me out to tell me what this fault is and what i should do.
thanks


try sending your xbox 2 microsoft and tell them the problem and they might send you a new 1
rob 29 Feb 2008 13:59
24/34
i have sent my xbox back 4 times then they gave me a new one and that broke in less than 2 days i got that fixed it lasted about 2 months before it fried the wireing in my house... i am exstreemly pissed off with xbox
john dyer 15 Jan 2009 21:31
25/34
my x box lost video but not sound 2 months after the garrentee ran out but it had been showing signs of funny colours across the screen
headcasephil 19 Jan 2009 09:10
26/34

as most of the regular people of spong no i like my gaming to a excess so i feel that i no a thing or to
every console has a fault
looking back i have had something go wrong with a lot of my console some not bad some f**king anoying like
nes not reading my games comon fault with nes
snes my dist one that i got on launch overheated stooped working but after many yaers it lasted me till 1995
my psx stopped reading disks unless i have it upside down
the analog stick in the n64 pad was cheaply made nothing wrong with that until you start playing mario party iv killed 9 pads with that game
dreamcast the controller ports on two of them that i have owned stopped working
ps2 i have owned f**k loads and the disc drive stopped working on all of em
xbox disk drive only opens when it wants to
gamecube open button gets stuck
psp bricked when i was upgrading the firmware and had a powercut
360 iv had many diffrent problems comon rrod then would not sink with controllers would not read discs video problems
ps3 would turn it self on after i set up remote play with my psp
wii had problems with playing mario kart
vault 13 19 Jan 2009 17:39
27/34
You sir, are an idiot.
vault 14 29 Mar 2009 21:40
28/34
Yes,he is... a t**t.
melting face 29 Mar 2009 22:04
29/34
hi my x box worked fine for 3 months,then one night i was playing call of duty 4,and just as i was about to kill another person,a shower of sparks flew out of the console and set fire to our cat. this console was returned,and a new one came 2 weeks later. i was busy being a hero in my own mind in fallout 3 when this console exploded and set my face on fire.they sent me another and my mum only let me play it in the shed at the bottom of the garden.not because she's scared of the console.Becauseshe does not want to see my burnt face.thanks microsoft.My best friend is a cat.
ben bethell 9 May 2009 09:57
30/34
my new x box has packed up its 4 months old and i bought it from woolworths (who have now closed every shop in the country) WHAT DO I DO I STILL HAVE THE RECEIPT
czxc 17 Jun 2009 19:19
31/34
prik
smokin frenzy 15 Jul 2009 20:44
32/34
wen i turn my xbox on i dnt see anything at all just a blank screen but i can hear the sound from it. i thought it might of been the cables so i went out and boughta new cable for it but it still wasnt working i dnt no wats going on it might be the xbox
robert 20 Sep 2009 17:56
33/34
@ben_bethell GET A PS3
joyce 4 Feb 2011 19:09
34/34
i got my son an xbox 360 with 250gb in september and its freezin and dissconectin from xbox live wot should he do?
Posting of new comments is now locked for this page.