Category: Technology

The Red Ring of Death

  • New home theater setup: Check
  • Copy of Halo 3: Check
  • Kids asleep: Check
  • Comfortable couch: Check
  • Fire up XBOX 360: Three red lights – the Red Ring of Death!

    Uh, oh. Power-cycled, seems to be working. Start game. Console freezes. Try different game. Console freezes. Rinse, recycle, repeat. Eventually the RRD reappears.

    Call Microsoft. The friendly overseas call-center person actually lets me deviate from the script, accepts my debugging skills are perhaps being adequate, and puts me down for repair. The timeframe of up to a month is a killer, though – guessing there’s a bit of volume at the service center. Nice gesture of a month credit on Live, though.

    This was a launch 360, and while it doesn’t get a ton of use (free time? Ha, ha!), it did take quite a while to die. Credit to Microsoft for owning up to the issue, and especially for extending the warranty without hassle. A $1B charge is nothing to sneeze at.

    Now, if they want to send me an updated unit with HDMI output, I’m OK with that..

    • New acquisitions

  • Magic – Springsteen is back – his best in many years.
  • Halo 3 – other than getting slaughtered by twelve year-olds wired with neurochem, it’s a lot of fun, and now can play it on the
  • 52″ Sharp AQUOS LCD HDTV – possibly the best birthday present ever!

    Also picked up a set of Cambridge Soundworks T300s, and am waiting for the Onkyo TX-NR905.

    The home theater is almost complete.

    Now if I can just find the time to use it.