We’ve had our Xbox 360 since December 2006, and we have loved every minute of it. It is a great console, and fun to play on. However after playing FEAR, our 360 just froze for no apparent reason. I turned it off, then back on, and it froze on the booting screen.
So I tried restarting it, and it kept freezing on the boot screen again and again. Eventually, after multiple retries, it didn’t even get to the boot screen – it showed the DREADED RED RINGS OF DEATH! Which basically means your xbox is screwed, and blown something internally.
I know this is a common issue with the 360 since it came out, and it is a pain in the backside. It’s also looks bad on Microsoft – massive hardware failures is not a good thing. But, from my experience in dealing with them, I’m quiet pleased with their customer support.
I talked to an xbox support agent today named Max, and he was really cool. He went through all the trouble shooting steps with me, and eventually determined that my xbox 360 needed a repair call. Microsoft would ship a box to me (free of charge) for pickup, I would receive the box, put my broken xbox 360 in it, then ship it back out to them free of charge. The main word here is FREE. Microsoft extended their warranty on the 360 from 3 months to 3 years (from the date of purchase) because of this common problem.
Pain in the ass – yes. Taking care of their customers – BIG yes.
All I’m concerned about is that I pay NOTHING – which is an A+ in my books. Good on Microsoft for extending their xbox 360 warranty.
I’ll let you know how it goes.
