The Tale of 3 Xbox 360s
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I had Friday off so I decided it would be a good time to pack up my xbox and say goodbye. Gamestop was offering a $80 trade-in that i couldn’t pass up. So i removed my modchip and installed the original hard drive and off I went to Gamestop to buy a new Xbox 360. When i get to Gamestop I go through my trade-in and some other accessories I had and pick up a new 360 Premium and a used copy of Dead Rising.
I get home that night and unpack everything, hook everything up and start setting up my Xbox. Made a gamertag, linked it to my live.com account, even purchased a 3 month Gold membership. After setting everything up I threw in Dead Rising and played for a good 30 minutes getting past all the intro movies and whatnot. Next I downloaded some game demos and some Xbox Live Demos. I didn’t want to mess around too much because my girlfriend was staying with me so figured it would be a good time to check out the DVD playback. Popped in the classic Better off Dead and watched that with her before going to bed that night.
Get up the next day and I was going to watch a movie through Front Row only to find out that it keeps crashing when I select certain movie files(thats another blog post altogether). So instead of messing around I remembered you can stream xvid/divx using the 360s Media Center extender. I have a copy of Media Center running in parallels so I figured it would only be a matter of setting up some software. I start up my Xbxo 360 and press the Green Button on my Media Center remote(which btw works great with the 360) so I could get the URL to download the software. While I’m downloading the software from Microsoft, i hear my fan in the 360 getting loader then finally die as the 360 turned off. I look over and see a half Red ring of death. Great. I turn it off and try to turn it on. Same thing. Unplugged everything, reseated cables, took the hard drive off. Nothing worked. *sigh* Back to Gamestop.
Packed up everything and back off to Gamestop. Returned it for a new one with no problem. Actually the girl who rung me up started telling me her own horror stories. Since I returned it on my way to work, I had to wait until that night to hook up the new one. After work I started to unpack the new one and I noticed something looks wrong. I take it out of the plastic and see the USB door is pushed in. Then i notice its jut not pushed it but the case is cracked right below it. WTF. Back in the box it goes ready for another trip to Gamestop tomorrow.
Its now Sunday and I’m on my way back to pickup my 3rd Xbox 360 in 3 days. This time I get the guy who rung me up the first time. I tell him about the cracked case and he checks it out and proceeds to get me my 3rd 360 from the back. This time I leave and go directly home to drop it off then i head to work. After work I again start unpacking making sure I go over this baby with it was a fuckin’ CSI investigation. Everything looks good. Hook everything up once again and power up. The splash screen takes alittle longer than normal. Uh oh. Then it happens. SYSTEM ERROR E67. You have GOT to be kidding me.
At this point I’m no longer pissed because its just that funny. I was about to pack it back up but decided to check online first to see what the E76 message was. Found a page on Xbox Scene that listed all know error codes and what they mean. Apparently E67 is a hard drive problem. Unplugged the Hard drive and it booted up fine. Replugged in the hard drive and it booted again.
Its now Tuesday and I haven’t had any other problems yet tho I’m watching this thing like a hawk. I have 3 more days to return it and after that its back to Microsoft. I’ll keep you posted.
[...] The above tale paraphrases my X-Box 360 experience this weekend. Apparently I am not alone — m0thman’s tale is just as woeful. Kotaku documented his tragedy in an operatic video. The8thsign needed three X-Box 360’s to get one that worked. Not only does Microsoft have a Knowledge Base article on the red “Ring of Light”, but they even offer free repairs on 360’s manufactured in 2005 if you call 1-800-4MY-XBOX. Mine happened to be manufactured in February 2006, and would have thus required a $140 repair fee. [...]
still can’t believe that luck kid. as i was playing mine last night, i felt how hot the frickin back really is when it’s running. i think i’m going to be buying a fan soon. i dont wanna have to call 800-myxbox
[...] In the meantime, my only entertainment will be my new Xbox 360, as long as that doesn’t die on me again. My Xbox Live gamer tag is “the8thsign”. Feel free to add me since I’m probably going to be spending more of my time there for the next week or so. [...]
This sux my xbox 360 gave that dam sign but guess wat i tried the poping out hard drive it works without it but when i put it in it gives that error sign Im really getting pissed off can u help with advice?!?!?!?!?!
You should call 1-800-4MY-XBOX
ok thnx they told me that to thx again
hey well no go nothin helped me the only thing to do is return for a new or fix up both options erase my hard drive saved data and I cant let that happen dunno wat to do?????
[...] I lucked out on this one. I just happen to be San Francisco for Macworld the same day that Capcom was throwing its Lost Planet release party. You may remember something about me being on my 5th Xbox 360, well, the only reason I didn’t return it was because of Lost Planet. I played the E3 demo and I was hooked. I couldn’t wait for this game to get released. [...]
same thing is ahppening to me nick and ive put a good 60 hours into my oblivion character and a hell of a lot into halo 2 and xbox live…i dont wanna lose all of that stuff…someone help
I’m on my second XBox as of today. (My first had the disc read error). Sure enough, just like yours, first time I turned it on today, I got the E67 error. Also like you, I did the research and removed/replaced the HDD and it worked fine. I have 29 days left on my return. How is yours doing?
@Justin – I’m on my 5th Xbox360 now. This last one has been great since the day I bought it. Too bad it took 5 to get it right.
that does suck i’ve returned 3 Xbox 360s back to microsoft and it took them 3 times for each system before i got a working one