This is incredibly frustrating! I bought my XBox 360 on launch day in November of 2005. It was working fine for me… until December of 2006, when I saw the dreaded 3 red lights of death around the power button. After a bit of research, I found out that this means a general hardware failure, and that I would have to contact customer support.

So, I called 800-4MY-XBOX, and they told me that since my console was an earlier model, that they would cover the repair for free even though it was out of warranty. I did have to pay to ship it over there, though.

I sent my XBox 360 to McAllen, TX, and within a couple of weeks or so, they send me a brand new XBox 360 with a new serial number. Worked fine for me… until I saw the three red lights again! This time in April, only 4 months later.

I figured that I would be covered by the warranty, since they sent me a new machine. Unfortunately, this was not the case. When I called customer support, they told me that the new machine didn’t have a new warranty, that it was only covered for 30 days from when I received it since I hadn’t paid for the repairs. If I had paid for the repairs, it would have been 90 days (which would still have been expired when I saw the lights).

So, the repair costs would be $129. Very unhappy, I asked to speak with a supervisor. All she could do was drop the repair costs to half (about $70), an send a box for free shipping of the console. She did assure me that this time, the console would have a 1-year extended warranty. I just don’t know why this didn’t apply to the replacement 360 I got ONLY 4 MONTHS AGO!

So, I’m now out $70, and I get to go for 3 weeks or so with no 360. This has been very annoying, especially since the three lights are the fault of the console, and not of my own. In my almost two decades of playing video games, I’ve never experienced a console that had this many problems.

I love my 360, and I use it all the time. I just wish that all of these shenanigans weren’t necessary.

Update: As I’m sure many of you who’ve gone through the same process that I did know, Microsoft extended their warranty to 3 years for the red ring of death (RRoD). So, I got a nice rebate check in the mail a few months ago.
It’s not all roses… the warranty only applies to RRoD problems, and nothing else on the console they send you. The latest console Microsoft sent me has trouble opening the disk drive. It jams halfway, and I have to manually pull it out the rest of the way. Not cool, and not covered under warranty.
Oh well, at least I can play games again.

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