New study has Xbox 360 failure rate at 16%
by Daniel Nasserian - Feb 22 2008, 10:00
If you liked this story please support TTH and Buzz the site on Yahoo.
Talkback
Add your comment (no registration required)
page: 1
My first Xbox 360 suffered from a defective disc tray mechanism, which got progressively worse until it wouldn't read discs at all. I sent that one back and it was replaced with a refurbished unit. At that time Microsoft's policy was to send the customer a refurbished Xbox 360 which wasn't necessarily the same unit that the customer had sent to them. They have since changed the policy, and now they say that the customer will get their own, refurbished Xbox 360 back.
I bought a second Xbox 360 for use as a media extender in a different room. After a few months the unit failed. During startup it would go to a screen that simply said to contact Microsoft support. So I sent that one back, and received someone else's refurbished unit in return (this was still before the policy change mentioned above).
My neighbor had his Xbox 360 fail within the first few months. I actually happened to be there when it occured (maybe I'm bad luck?). It was the red ring of death, or some portion thereof. Microsoft sent him someone else's refurbished unit (again, before the policy change).
One of the refurbished units I received is beginning to show signs of the disc tray failure I experienced originally. When it becomes unusable I'll be sending that one in, too.
So, of the three brand new Xbox 360's I've had personal experience with, all three failed within six months, and at least one of the replacement units is in its death throes. Note that these units have all been well-ventilated and treated well, yet they still have an abyssmal failure rate.
We have 2 360s in the house. Both of them had to be sent back. Mine works fine now but my roommate's had to be sent back again immediately after he got his replacement.
In my experience, we have had 3 out of 4 units fail. One of them got so hot, the extra fans seized up. Why doesn't someone make a kit that helps to support the mainboard better on these, better yet have Microsoft be forced to do so. The biggest issue is the fact that the units get too hot, the board starts to sag. Most fixes I see on the web has to do with the X-bar support under the heat sinks. Well, that is just me, your average Joe, thinking out loud.
Pablo
Better yet why doesn't Microsoft just replace the units with brand new units with a mfr date within the current year? I just got my replacement back and it has a date of 2006-30-05??? Is this refurbished with new guts, or is it an brand new unit from '06? I would rather have a refurbished unit with new components. I hate Microsoft, I had my original for 2 years before it died and they replace it with a unit only a couple of months newer.
page: 1
Add your comment (no registration required)
LesFeb 22nd, 2008 - 15:20:43
Just yesterday I dropped my 360 off at the UPS store to ship back to Microsoft's repair center. The man at the UPS store recognized the plain white box immediately and said that yesterday alone he sent off five 360's. Between my friends and I 3 out of 5 360's have gone into failure. In my opinion I bet the true failure rate is probably closer to 40 or 50 percent.
A friend of mine worked on the processor at IBM and he told me that they were under tremendous pressure to finish the processor despite numerous bugs. He told me that Microsoft didn't care if there were hardware bugs because they would work around them with software.
It seems that in the rush to be first on the market with the next generation console is going to cost Microsoft much more then they gained for being first.
Report this comment