360 2 rings of death not enough

[SrBiscuit]

just looking for some advice from people experienced with the xbox plague.

so saturday i got 2 red lights on the left hand side. looked it up online...looks like overheating. so i did the quick obvious things without opening it up (i dont want to void the warranty).
cooled off for 24hrs...happened again.

so i read that 2 lights is not covered, but 3 lights is (RRoD).

just got off the phone with M$ (i told them that i went from 2 red lights to 3, and back to 2...normally i am an honest person, but i want it covered under the extended RRoD warranty).

he said that if they get 2 rings, it will be $120 to repair, or free if they get the 3 rings.
i argued a bit to no avail.

so what should i do? my one year warranty ended in march.
do i take it home and run it hoping to get the 3 RRoD?
do i send it in and hope for the best? (they said i have the option to just have it shipped back if i dont want to pay for the repair)
do i suck it up and spend the $120 if they get the 2 rings?
or do i take it apart and try all the online suggestions?

i think its dumb to spend $120 for a repair, so im debating just getting a new one...or is that even dumber?

guess im just another statistic. i didnt relize how much we rely on this dumb thing...it;s our DVD player...it's our netflix streamer...and it;s my gaming console.

anyone had to deal with this and care to offer any advice?

thanks!

 

[AtlPikMan]

I got the RROD and M$ took care of it no problem. Id try for the RROD and send it to them. If you send it in as is, my guess is that they will not want to fix it without being paid.

 

[Jaszek]

OK I don't have a 360 but from what I heard it's almost like a regular computer. Take compressed air (air compressor or canned air) And blow out the dust from the fan in the back. Since your warranty is finished you can open it and blow out the dust from the inside. You would be amazed how many computers come into the store I work at that don't turn on and all it takes is to open it and blow out the dust. Some people have over and inch of dust in the computer lol. Sometimes it gets so nasty I have to put my shirt over my mouth and nose when blowing out the dust.

 

[AtlPikMan]

^Very True, I blow my 360 out more that i do my computer...

 

[SrBiscuit]

good call...i did read that too...
i vacuumed all the holes and vent spots from the outside out of fear of opening.

if i do open it, that just ruins the warranty thats already up?
if i open it, fix it, and then in a month i get 3 rings, they will know i opened it...will i then be screwed?

from what im reading, the heat gets so hot, that it warps the MB, and the solders come loose. another thing ive read is that the heatsink compound they use is crap, dries out and stops working, and then the GPU isnt seated securly to the CPU.

argh.

thanks for the advice guys.

 

[clarinetJWD]

There's always the towel trick... a bit iffy as I'm concerned, but IIRC, people would wrap it with a towel and leave it on for an extended time, to seriously overheat it, and force the RRoD...

Read a bit more on it first, because I could be wrong on the details, but it seems to be pretty popular these days!

 

[JamieR]

I tried the towel trick, it's supposed to melt the circuit board back into place or something? But it only seems to work for a couple of days, and then i would get the RRoD again. We just sold it as spares/repairs and bought PS3 as all my mates have had the RRoD as well.

 

[harrison]

My original xbox 360 rrod on me 5 minutes after taking it out of the box on launch day..... Made me feel like I wasted my life waiting in line for that brick. Since then I have had 2 fail additionally, as well as countless of my friends. We have done the unethical thing a few times and bought a new one at Wal-Mart, switched the innards, and returned it :/ Its evil, but it also passes the buck pretty effectively

 

[Jaszek]

We have done the unethical thing a few times and bought a new one at Wal-Mart, switched the innards, and returned it :/ Its evil, but it also passes the buck pretty effectively

nice lol