Broken 360, what to do?

[Octopod]

My wifes fathers girlfriends son...

...had a broken 360 and he saved up his monies and bought him self a new one. Pretty good for a ten year old kid. Well, his mom gave me the old one minus the controller. So I have a red ringed 360, 20GB HDD, power supply and component cables. What should I do with this thing? Try to fix it? Can they be region modded yet? Should I sell it? Whole? As parts?

And no, if I sell it I am not giving the money to the kid.

[alex_dragon]

My wifes fathers girlfriends son...

...had a broken 360 and he saved up his monies and bought him self a new one. Pretty good for a ten year old kid. Well, his mom gave me the old one minus the controller. So I have a red ringed 360, 20GB HDD, power supply and component cables. What should I do with this thing? Try to fix it? Can they be region modded yet? Should I sell it? Whole? As parts?

And no, if I sell it I am not giving the money to the kid.

find out the error code and see if it can be xclamped....if you sell it, sell it as a whole just in case it can be fixed(but just in case you didnt know the drive and motherboard need to go together)

to find out the error code you wait till it red rings and press the sync button and eject button at the same time, the lights will blink(example 3) then press the sync button and eject button again(example 0) and again and you will have you error code(if i remember correctly that is)


or you could pay 50 bucks or so on ebay and get it reflowed, or if its in warranty you could get the kid to send it in for warranty

[benderx]

I hear Microsoft has sold many 360 consoles most parts of the world except for Japan, but wouldn't it be nice if all those consoles would work instead of fail thousands of times . I see Mircosoft un-environmental because of those faulty consoles. Microsoft either fixes your console, don't buy another one, buy another after another. I hate how microsoft hasn't resolved these issues. I remember my nintendo wii didn't work on day one reason was the wii didn't want to accept wii game at all. I had to send it to Nintendo to get it fix and the issue was resolved.

Check if your friend still has warranty for the 360.

[Bikeage]

All you have to do is go to Xbox.com and check the serial # to see if the EXTENDED warranty is still valid, NOT the standard warranty, which is what initally shows up. You can't see the extended warranty status until you begin the console repair process and provide more info. If its RROD and still under the extended (3 years) Microsoft will fix it for free. Otherwise its $99.

[Octopod]

I do not think I want to pay to get it fixed. That sounds like too much money and it might just break again. The guy at a local store today told me he would give me $40 for the HDD and power supply. And it looks like I could sell the console on ebay for $30ish and another $5-7 for the component cables. That is more than what it looks like complete red ringed systems are selling for on ebay. I'll think about it for a bit before I decide.

[emwearz]

Bang a towel around it, see if you can boot it up that way, if you can, you should be able to fix it.

[Octopod]

I've heard about the towel thing but I am not sure what you are suppose to do.

[aw93053]

lay down the system flat and wrap it in a few large bath towles so that all of the airvents are blocked on purpose. The idea here is to make it overheat on purpose. Turn on the system and let it run for about 25 minutes. At this point it should be pretty hot and loud as the fans will try to cool the system but be unable to due to the towel. Remove said towel and make the system stand vertically. Turn the xbox360 off for a few minutes and then put in a game to test if it will boot / red ring goes away.

This method works most of the time but it is not a permanent solution.

[Niode]

lay down the system flat and wrap it in a few large bath towles so that all of the airvents are blocked on purpose. The idea here is to make it overheat on purpose so that the solder will melt into the contacts. Turn on the system and let it run for about 25 minutes. At this point it should be pretty hot and loud as the fans will try to cool the system but be unable to due to the towel. Remove said towel and make the system stand vertically. Turn the xbox360 off for a few minutes and then put in a game to test if it will boot / red ring goes away.

Due to the lead-free solder required by some environmental policy, the solder joints break more easily.

This method works most of the time but it is not a permanent solution.

You don't melt the god-damn solder. I'm sick of people spreading this bullshit around. You do realise it takes around 350-500c to flow solder right? The system case would be well on its way to melting at that point. The towel trick merely makes the motherboard expand causing the broken contact (if that's the reason the 360 is broken) to meet. The problem is, as soon as the system cools down again you'll have the same problem, over and over again.

First port of call for the OP is to find if it's covered by extended warranty. This has already been discussed in the thread. If you can get MS to fix it for free, why the hell wouldn't you?

Failing that you should find out what E code you have by holding the sync button for a few seconds then press the eject button, it will show you the first code in the sequence. All 4 lights = 0, 1 light = 1, 2 lights = 2, 3 lights = 3. Press the eject button to keep receiving the digits of your secondary E code.

http://forums.xbox-scene.com/index.php?showtopic=484726

That website will tell you what the problem is. If you find out what the problem is we can tell you if it can be temporarily fixed.

[Octopod]

So it does not matter that I do not have a receipt then? If not then I'll try to get it fixed if it is still covered.

Is there a region mod available for 360s yet?