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Xbox 360 tests = FAILUPDATED: A consumer group has found that the XBox 360 has five times the normal use failure rate as its competitors in the home videogame market. SquareTrade, an independent warranty provider, ran a test of more than 1,000 units and found a failure rate of 16.4 percent. By contrast, the PlayStation 3 is at around the three percent range. The 360 has been plagued with a lot of problems, the most widely reported being the "Red Ring of Death" or "Three Red Lights" error. If three of the four lights surrounding the power button turned red, it was game over, literally. SquareTrade said the three flashing red lights represented 60 percent of all service calls. "This further confirms what many long suspected, giving tangible evidence to the Xbox 360 reliability issues. The "red ring of death" failure rates we are seeing are also significantly greater than what Microsoft reported (3-5%) last year," said SquareTrade CEO Steve Abernethy in a statement to InternetNews.com. Microsoft last year allocated up to $1 billion for XBox 360 replacements and extended all warrantees from the traditional 90 days to three years. The other 40 percent of errors included disk read errors, about half of all non-red light claims, fried video cards, hardware freezes, on/off failures and, disc tray malfunctions that also caused damage to game discs. The XBox 360 was introduced in 2005 and has been plagued
with hardware problems almost from the start. One of the theories was that
there was inadequate cooling of the internals and that the solder used on the
GPU fan was coming loose. AnandTech dug around inside one and found the cooling
was indeed lacking. Abernathy found that almost all failures involved systems with the original motherboards. The company has since redesigned the internals, using a 65nm CPU instead of a 90nm and added a second fan. Reportedly the latest generation runs cooler and quieter, which would be a relief. Older ones are as loud as a blade server. Here's a little anecdote for you: my 360 died last year, and
after a brief chat with Microsoft, they sent me the shipping box to send it in
for repair. It came with a prepaid, prestamped UPS label. While coming into
work one morning I stopped at the local UPS Store and left it on the counter,
saying not to worry, it was prepaid and pre-stamped. Without even looking at the box, the counter worker said 'Sorry about your XBox.' How'd you know, I asked. He informed me he sees five to ten daily, with the same box and prepaid label, and that was a relatively small store. I can't imagine what a busy UPS store was getting. (Update clarifies that the failure rate was among first-generation motherboards.)0 TrackBacksListed below are links to blogs that reference this entry: Xbox 360 tests = FAIL. TrackBack URL for this entry: https://swarm.jupitermedia.com/mt-tb.cgi/930 8 CommentsLeave a comment |
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The bit of this story you left out was
"This has been backed up by SquareTrade CEO Steve Abernethy who "would estimate most if not all" the failed consoles featured "the original motherboard."
and since there has been two newer motherboards since then it's not fair to suggest that the failure rate is still an issue to new buyers.
Mine died 4 days ago, still waiting for the return coffin with UPS label.
My hope is to get my own machine back,, as i got it on launch day.
It died while watching Ghost in the Shell... mine gave up the Ghost...
:-(
What is the real issue behind this failures? Is it a design problem or could it be due to manufacturing issues? I believe it is manufactured in China, Mexico by a a giant name in contract manufacturing. Why put the blame on Microsoft alone? Microsoft had given us softwares for you and me to work on our everyday lives.
I have to agree with the above article, as my sons x-box 360 has been in for repairs three times to date. Once for the three ring of death, second for total freeze ups, and the third and final was the disc tray malfunction which ruined three of his games before he realized what was happening.
Even though they have extended the three year warranty imagine a kid going without his x-box, not to mention the up to three months he had to wait to get it back, each time! What does Microsoft offer for all this misery but an outdated game that's worthless. You would think if someone had that many problems that they would give you a whole new generation unit, the one with the assumed to be fixed problems.
Another note worthy of mention is that Microsoft has no real complaints office, at least not that I am aware of.
We also have Playstation 3 and never had a problem and presently have a Game Cube, had 3 with only one fail.... so far.
Stephen W.W.
Here's one for you: my brother got the Three Red Rings back in November. Sent his 360 in, got a replacement 'refurbished' one a week later. Less than a month after that, the replacement succumbed to a Disc Read Error.
If somebody gave me a free 360, I'd still ask for my money back.
Heh, I had the exact same thing happen to me. I walking in the door this past Thursday and the guy said "Just dropping off the Xbox?"
He told me they get 10-15 a week here.
My xbox 360 broke last year after about 8 hours of total play, i only played it a couple hours a day. 4 days then i was on the phone trying to send it back. The phone call took 2 hours sorting it out then waited a month for my replacement. That has now died from the 3 red lights too. NOT HAPPY. I have a ps3 now and like the post above have had no problems with it. I even leave it on 2-3 days/nights at a time downloading, playing games or folding@home and never seem to worry about it. I worried about my 360 even when it was off! I decided i'm not sending the 360 back again, can't handle the lengthy phone call and hassle. The next one would most likely brake anyway. I use mine as a book end at the mo and i have to say its working really well at that job. Ps3 is fine for me now. MS have ripped us all off a treat, warranty or not.
Wow! I never heard of that one problem is Xbox 360. Many people don�t need buy Xbox 360 console. Just buy Disc of games and you can running game on new latest Xbox 360 Emulator compatible with Windows XP and Vista to running non-error free. Stop worry about Xbox 360 console in the future. PS3, Wii, and Xbox 360 Emulators will come soon to be release out sometimes. But we can pay about 20 to 100 dollars for Emulator to allow run all of games and previous games. Sensor USB will come for PC to add on and play Nintendo Wii without problems. Easy way to do! You can play USB joystick look like PS2 will work on PS3 and Xbox 360. Wii is more hard to get. Let us think bright new things in the future without need buy consoles. But we need powerful gaming computer machine to running all any Emulator by 100% percent. We want perfect emulator like Super Nintendo, Sega, Nintendo 64, NES, Gameboy Advance, and much more.
Peace!! :-)