My XBOX 'red ring of Death' experience

I got my XBOX360 the first day it hit the stores in Belgium. I love my XBOX and my XBOX apparently loves me since it waited to break until 4 days after Microsoft annouced it would extend the warranty.

I'm really glad and proud to see that the company I work for takes the right decision and goes a long way to offer the best possible experience. Here's my experience:

  1. On the 10th of July, I called support. Waiting to get an operator on the phone was the hardest part. It took quite a while. But hang in there you are going to get through and everything smooth from there on. (Also I've been assured internally that we are staffing up the call centers.)
    I told them my XBOX suffered from the Ring Of Death failure which they claimed they never heard about :-). They prefer calling it 'Xbox 360: Three red lights flash on the Ring of Light'.
    I gave them the serial number of my Xbox 360 and that was basically all needed.
  2. I received an email saying the process started and then an email with a shipping label to print and a phone number to call UPS (all free). I called them and two hours later they picked up my XBOX.
  3. The support team told me it could take up to 25 days but I received a refurbished XBOX again on the 27th of July.  17 days later.

The good thing was that included in the box were two cards to extend my Xbox Live Gold subscription with a month. I really apreciate this gift as Xbox Live makes more than half of the Xbox gaming experience.

Of course I prefer if my console didn't break but with a process like this I'm still left with a good feeling about the experience.

Comments

  • Anonymous
    July 29, 2007
    Well I'm glad someone is having a good experience, here at my house, we've been waiting almost a month for our broken console to come back - and we're not alone.  In my circle of friends I know of /three/ others with a 'red ring of death' problem - all of whom had to wait / are still waiting - allot more than seven days.

  • Anonymous
    July 30, 2007
    I waited 17 days. And yes, they were long. Especially because they are in the holiday season and my daughter is home... I hope you all will get yours back soon!

  • Anonymous
    July 30, 2007
    The comment has been removed

  • Anonymous
    July 30, 2007
    Looks like process are modified to offer a better experience then or maybe they depend on where you're actually located. I'm not in the XBOX team at Microsoft so I'm guessing as much as you would. I hope you're having a fun time with your fixed XBOX. Hans

  • Anonymous
    July 30, 2007
    The comment has been removed

  • Anonymous
    July 30, 2007
    Release date is 25th of September. You should have it back by then if things don't go completely wrong, don't you think? http://www.xbox.com/en-US/community/news/2007/0515-halo3releasedate.htm

  • Anonymous
    July 31, 2007
    Hey Hans, what's your XBox nick?

  • Anonymous
    July 31, 2007
    It's hansvb.

  • Anonymous
    August 01, 2007
    Yeah, I know. Sweet!

  • Anonymous
    August 02, 2007
    I too have my xbox away for repairs with no updates for a week now. It does however seem consoles are getting new heatsyncs to deal with the issue. However if this is helping consoles at all is still not confirmed. I am just hoping when i get my console back it doesnt break and i have to send THAT one back.

  • Anonymous
    August 23, 2007
    This will be my 3rd Xbox 360, I just sent the last one in for repair, for the same ring of death problem on Friday. Im definately bummed since Bioshock came out this week and my birthday is on Monday. Im just hoping its fixed before Halo 3 launches.

  • Anonymous
    August 23, 2007
    Your 3rd. That's bad. I hope you'll get your new one soon. So you are going to go for Bioshock. I was looking into that yesterday too. Looks awesome. But not XBOX Live play unfortunately. That made me doubt. I'll probably still get BioShock and after that Halo3 and PG4 are definately on my list. It's going to be a busy busy fall!