Put it vertically into a sealed box. Play it. That should do it.

Cover the ventilation holes too. Wrap it in a thick blanket or duct tape the holes...

sigh, it sucks to read RROD posts... i really want a X360... Hurry up with the new Falcon chip already MS.

Personally, I think you've got a better chance of getting one now, enjoying it until it dies and getting it fixed (for free) to the new motherboard revisions then you have of finding the "new" ones in the wild. At least until after Christmas. If you actually want one (and aren't just trolling), get one after the price drop next week.

This morning I fired up the 360 to try and move up the Pac-Man CE leaderboards, and in the middle of a game, I got a lockup with the checkerboard video artifacts that others have mentioned. I rebooted it a few times and it kept locking up during the startup animation with the same checkerboard effect. At one point it gave me the RROD, but after another restart, I was able to play through two games of Pac-Man without a problem. It must just be a matter of time before it croaks. I just hope I have a working 360 when Bioshock comes out.

I'd call and get the coffin now. It's only a matter of time before your 360 is totally locked up.

That's probably not a bad idea. I'll have to call tonight.

Does anyone know if I can keep my faceplate when I send in the system? I have a skin applied to the faceplate, and I'd rather not have to remove and reapply it.

I think you have to ship it, in case someone else gets your refurb.

just ask them when you call about getting the coffin

Yeah, I'll ask when I call. It's their fault that these things are breaking, so the least they can do is let me keep my faceplate and spend the few bucks to supply a new one if they refurb my system.

...or just take off the faceplate they would have sent you anyway

No, i really want one, but like i said, i'm no supporter for defective hardwares (under normal usages). If this happens to the Wii or PS3, i would say the same thing. I guess i can avoid RROD threads in the future. However, part of me just want to know how people are dealing with this problem.

Again, i know it's free to get it fixed and all, kudos to MS for that. BUT still, i don't want to do that (unless you pay me to ship it back and have it fixed, the way i see it, it costs me times...).

awwww..... then you missed his oh so cool flipping off the 360 pic....

it wasn't as cool as my flipping off Sam Fischer pic last year.

Well, my 360 had a good run, but it croaked this morning. I made the call and the coffin should be here next week.

I got a 360 back, refurbed of course, just recently. I don't mind a refurb and all but this one had somebody's skin decal glued to it. Those things are a pain to remove. Especially when what you're dying to do is try it out and make sure it works after not having it for weeks...

Mine died this morning. Told me 2-4 weeks but my email said 4-6 weeks.
Funny how I was talking about it this week saying it needs to die this week in order to have it back in time for Halo 3.
Guess I should not have said anything.
Oh well it was a nice run. See you in a month.

Call them back and tell them it's unacceptable. Get a different one.

Damn you for beating my cool pic . I think I saw that pic before, can you repost?

It's not as funny without the setup which was the mic would not record this meeting you are supposed to hear which leads to your death by chopper gunner.

LOL. Good stuff.

...and another one. 360 #3 is now on awaiting the coffin. As long as they keep fixing them for free, I will keep doing it until they get it right. Instead of the RROD, this one decided to have like 5-6 different smaller things go wrong, with each problem lasting maybe a day or two then correcting itself for awhile, until the last one today makes playing a game impossible. Most of them drive related:

1. Failed to recognize wireless adapter or HD-DVD. Unplug the USB, plug it back in, works fine
2. Says "close tray" - even though disc drive is closed. open tray and closing it fixes the problem
3. dirty disc errors on brand new games
4. (my favorite) Put in game. message pops up "this disc must be played only in an XBox 360 console"
5. Put game in. Message reads "open tray" as if drive is empty.
6. Now finally, no games will play in the drive. 9 times out of ten, get "open tray" message - but even when it does try to read the game, it will try for 5 minutes, then say "disc can't be read"

so I guess it's only XBLA games until the coffin arrives in the mail. This is exactly when my first 360 died last year, right when Madden was coming out

Has anybody recently received a repaired/refurbed 360? I just sent my system out today and I'm wondering how long it should take to get one back. I did some searches on various forums and it sound like the average turnaround is a week or two, but some people reported 4 weeks or so. I think the longer waiting times were reported just after the warranty extension was announced, so maybe MS was just swamped at that point? It'll be a tough wait with Bioshock and Stranglehold in hand and no 360 to play them on.

I sent mine in and it hit their place in Texas on 6/24 and I got my "fuckin' Refurb" back on 7/19. I had been checking and checking and they kept saying "oh no, you'll get your same unit back". But I think they were/are getting so many it was either try to repair mine and take longer than a month, or send a refurb out. Hell, when I went to the UPS place to send mine in there was a guy in line in front of me with the same coffin. The UPS clerk said they get 360's headed out for repairs all day long.

A friend of mine recently told me his 360 red-ringed on him. He had his for about 6 months before I got mine, so I'm holding out hope that I'll last a little while longer.

So of the three people I know who have 360s (including myself), the oldest unit has died. That means I'm next