I just had some really weird freezing on my 360. It started freezing during a loading screen at first (the kind of freezing that I needed to turn in off to recover). And after that, I couldn't go more than 5 minutes without it freezing and locking up on me.

It didn't matter what game was in it or even if it was the dashboard - after turning it back on, it'd freeze right up - about 5 minutes after boot would be the longest it would take to freeze, but sometimes it would freeze even during the 360 logo screen on boot up.

So I kept trying over and over again, kind of hoping to GET the 3 red lights and send it back. But then, after almost 20 tries and freezes, it stopped freezing on me. I played a bunch of games for hours with no freezing instances whatsoever. It was like the console got over a hump or something.

My best guess is that since I didn't try clearing the cache, going back and forth from game to game did that for me, which is what may have stopped the freezing. But who knows...

How long does it usually take to receive your shipping box? I submitted my claim on the 18th. According to Xbox.com, the status is "Waiting for Device at Service Center". I called on Friday and asked if a box was being sent to me and they said it was. Except for me calling them, I've had zero communication from them about this issue.

Should I keep bugging them? I was expecting some sort of heads up about what was going on.

It took 3 weeks to get my shipping box. I had to call them about 5 times, and finally talk to a supervisor. Every time I called, they had trouble figuring out why I didn't have one, and gave me a new reference number. After I talked to the supervisor I got the shipping box 2 days later.

They recieved my 360 at the repair center on the 12th. I called the other day, and they said it usually takes 3-4 weeks to repair, and that I should call back on the 31st to get a tracking number. It is ridiculous the amount of time it's taking to fix this. I still haven't been able to play Halo 3 yet, and my GH3 pre-order will probably be showing up before I have my 360 back.

*sigh* That's what I was afraid of.

What really pisses me off is that my console is still under warranty. I would rather they just send me a new one than make me wait a month while they repair this one.

It took me about a week to get my box.

You know, I'm considering getting a 2nd 360, just for backup. As in, I'll snap on my old hard-drive onto the new machine, and play that while the old one is getting repaired. And when I get the repaired one back I won't hook it up until the new one needs to be sent it, and so on...

My 'coffin' took just under a week (ordered late Friday, arrived the next Thursday) and 3 weeks exactly for the whole process.

Well, I just got the 3 red lights - woo-hoo?

I'm definitely doing what I said in my post above - I'll just get a new core 360, snap my hard-drive onto that and wait for the broken one to get fixed, by which time, I'll probably have to send the core unit in for repair...

I really would love to have a 360, but this thread is making me glad I sold off the one I had over the summer. It was less than 8 months old and barely used at the time. The guy who bought it already got the RROD.

I'm not buying one again until I can look at a box and know without question it has the new design.

FWIW, mine went for almost a full year before it died.

Mine RROD xbox360 has been at their repair center for 2 months now and there is no signs of knowing when I'll be getting it back. Shame on Microsoft for their crappy console and poor customer service. I'm done with Microsoft. When I do finally get my console back, I'll be selling it to someone ASAP.

Draven, I didn't read the whole thread, so forgive me if I'm talking about stuff you've already covered, but I was in the same boat as you a few weeks ago.

I solved my problem by buying a new elite system, so I was less concerned with the time that was required to get my old system serviced.

Anyway, I did the towel trick on my RROD system. It seems to me that the towel trick actually fixed the system. I'm not sure how long the towel trick typically saves a system, but it worked for me. I had the RROD, did the towel trick, and the RROD went away. It actually worked too well in my situation. It took a couple weeks to get my coffin from M$. My system worked fine the whole time. I then tried to get my system to RROD, so that I was not sending a working system to M$, but I couldn't do it. I didn't do anything drastic like drop the system to make it break, but in the end I sent in a working system. I'm hoping they will crack it open and see that the system is faulty rather than just send me back my system. M$ has a 30 day policy, so I had to send in the system, otherwise I would probably be using it with no problems. The towel trick may give you a few days of use on your system until you have to send it in. I can't hurt. It's broken already, right?

Cheapy D on CAG did the towel trick for a couple of months. It worked about a week each time before he had to do it again.

A friend of mine also suggested the towel trick. My problem right now is that my game time has been very limited the last few weeks so I never had the time to devote to getting it to work just to play a few games of Halo and call it a night. I thought about doing it for GH3 this weekend but hadn't decided.

However, my coffin showed up last night anyway, so the system is packed up and sitting in my car right now. Here's hoping I have a reasonably quick turnaround.

Somehow i don't think he was trying to make a stand against MSoft. He just wanted to game.

Yup.
As if MS would even know/care what I do. Though I take small consolation in the fact that they make very little money (if any) from the sales of consoles alone.

Plus you plummet the ever-important "attach rate" statistic.

Actually, purchasing a console makes them lose money. Unless he rebuys all of his games too, that actually is a way to get back at them.

Back to my console, I dropped it off at UPS today - bye Xbox 360! I hope you come back and feel better!

Looks like I'm going to have to call for a coffin. My disc drive has been making all sorts of noise lately, and stopped reading the disc in the middle of a PGR4 race. This is the same problem it had back in April. They told me at the time they would extend the warranty for another year, but the warranty status online says it expired November of last year.
I'll call them after my pizza is delivered here in a bit. Should be fun.

I thought i read somewhere that's no longer the case. Not that it generates a large profit or anything.

My coffin has been ordered. It took me an hour to get them to waive the $99 repair fee.

It loses him more money than it loses Microsoft.

(And IIRC they are now making a small profit on the hardware).

Really? I'm surprised. I figured it would take longer than this to get the components down far enough to turn a profit.

Well good for them - maybe they will send me a decent console.

MS no longer makes profits on the hardware. They were starting too but the warranty announcement far, far offset that.

Well, i suppose it depends on where you put that 1.1 billion dollar expense.