White Dots of Death

[christianscott27]

Ugh,

 

My 360 went dark yesterday while playing a DVD. Afterwards it had no video or audio output, yet no red rings. I checked the cables and then tried another TV set, then another cable to a VGA monitor. It did come back for a bit but then the colors shifted out to purple and black and then nothing. I tried the "reset", where you hold down Y and RT at boot, still nothing. All I get now are rolling horizontal lines of small white dots on a black screen. Sometimes there are white blocks for a split second on boot but thats it, I can hear it read disks and the fans run.

 

Researching this problem I've found that other consoles have done the same thing and the only sure fix is to send it to MS. It seems like it could be anything from a bad solder to a fried GPU. In any case my console isnt covered by warranty so I'm trying to figure out what to do with it. I'm not against opening it up and repairing it, I did that with my first gen-xbox but I cant get a straight opinion on what might work.

 

Anybody got any thoughts?

[rsiddall]

Ugh,

 

My 360 went dark yesterday while playing a DVD. Afterwards it had no video or audio output, yet no red rings. I checked the cables and then tried another TV set, then another cable to a VGA monitor. It did come back for a bit but then the colors shifted out to purple and black and then nothing. I tried the "reset", where you hold down Y and RT at boot, still nothing. All I get now are rolling horizontal lines of small white dots on a black screen. Sometimes there are white blocks for a split second on boot but thats it, I can hear it read disks and the fans run.

 

Researching this problem I've found that other consoles have done the same thing and the only sure fix is to send it to MS. It seems like it could be anything from a bad solder to a fried GPU. In any case my console isnt covered by warranty so I'm trying to figure out what to do with it. I'm not against opening it up and repairing it, I did that with my first gen-xbox but I cant get a straight opinion on what might work.

 

Anybody got any thoughts?

 

Worst comes to worst, I think they charge $99 to repair/swap out. Still less than buying a new one. I'd call and speak to an actual support person before opening the box up and voiding everything.

[NE146]

In any case my console isnt covered by warranty

 

Why's that? I'd just send it in anyway.

[christianscott27]

I bought it 2nd hand its been opened before so I have my doubts MS would work on it.

[bones]

If MS won't touch it you could try www.oldschoolgamer.com. I've never done repairs there but have gotten a few consoles mods that came out nicely. Could also send a pm to user "omne" here, he's the owner.

[Atariboy]

Not very ethical and I'm not sure I'd be willing to do it, but if it will still run and just not display anything, you could block the vents until the red warning lights appear so it would be covered under the 3 year warranty.

Edited February 4, 2008 by Atariboy

[christianscott27]

If MS won't touch it you could try www.oldschoolgamer.com. I've never done repairs there but have gotten a few consoles mods that came out nicely. Could also send a pm to user "omne" here, he's the owner.

 

thanks!

 

I sent them an email, hopefully its something they're familiar with. If anyone is interested in what this sort of system failure looks like I found a guy on Youtube with the same effect, although I've never tried the "towel trick"

 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vBRml-WbEbQ

[FastRobPlus]

If MS won't touch it you could try www.oldschoolgamer.com. I've never done repairs there but have gotten a few consoles mods that came out nicely. Could also send a pm to user "omne" here, he's the owner.

 

thanks!

 

I sent them an email, hopefully its something they're familiar with. If anyone is interested in what this sort of system failure looks like I found a guy on Youtube with the same effect, although I've never tried the "towel trick"

 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vBRml-WbEbQ

 

They will reject a repair on an opened console even if it's under warranty. I understand that it's a liability thing with facilities that repair consumer electronics, not just an Xbox thing.

[+remowilliams]

I sent them an email, hopefully its something they're familiar with. If anyone is interested in what this sort of system failure looks like I found a guy on Youtube with the same effect, although I've never tried the "towel trick"

My original 360 suffered a garbled screen failure with 'lots o dots' everywhere and was flaky for some time before finally showing the RRoD. Even after that I could sometimes get it to operate properly if it stayed on long enough without crashing to enforce the GPU/mobo bond through heat. I have little doubt that had I taken the console apart, replaced the stupid cooling xbrace that causes the board to flex and 'reheated' the components it would have been just fine afterwards. However it was under warranty, so back to MS it went.

[christianscott27]

Well I heard back from OldSchoolGamers, he said it wasn't a good candidate for repair, 360 mobos being as they are. Feeling at wits end I called 18004MYXBOX and a chipper dude walked me thru the idiot steps before suggesting I send it in. Now bear in mind MS has a complex warranty policy, they would have covered this under the one year but only RRoD failures are covered under the three year extension. Figure that one out, a Xbox with no A/V output doesn't count as a total failure unless some LEDs come with it. So as it works out they would charge me $100 to fix it, round trip shipping included. As for the matter of it being opened I'm not so worried, it seems that for paid repairs they're not so picky - at least thats the experience people are having over at xboxscene. At the end of the day I hate to pay MS $100 but I got the console for babysitting my son's best friend afterschool for a few months, it would sting more if I had wage-slaved for it.

 

I'm gonna give it a few more days of thought and research but if I do go the MS repair route I'll post about how it went.

[bones]

Best of luck, hopefully they don't give you a hard time, dead consoles are no fun.

[MrAtari2600]

Ugh,

 

My 360 went dark yesterday while playing a DVD. Afterwards it had no video or audio output, yet no red rings. I checked the cables and then tried another TV set, then another cable to a VGA monitor. It did come back for a bit but then the colors shifted out to purple and black and then nothing. I tried the "reset", where you hold down Y and RT at boot, still nothing. All I get now are rolling horizontal lines of small white dots on a black screen. Sometimes there are white blocks for a split second on boot but thats it, I can hear it read disks and the fans run.

 

Researching this problem I've found that other consoles have done the same thing and the only sure fix is to send it to MS. It seems like it could be anything from a bad solder to a fried GPU. In any case my console isnt covered by warranty so I'm trying to figure out what to do with it. I'm not against opening it up and repairing it, I did that with my first gen-xbox but I cant get a straight opinion on what might work.

 

Anybody got any thoughts?

 

 

force a red ring of death and send it in for free

lol

[christianscott27]

That did cross my mind, for some reason I havent done that. Now my case is logged into the MS database anyways so its too late. Talk about frustrating, I was missing my xbox fix so I decided to play some Star Wars Battlefront on the first gen xbox. I moved it from downstairs where I'd had it serving as a media center to my upstairs gameroom. For reasons unclear the replacement power cord MS sent me years ago suddenly stopped working, the red button on GFI wouldnt stop popping out. So there I sat with hundreds of dollars of totally useless MS consoles... So I called up 18004MYXBOX yet again and they're sending me yet another GFI cord, in 2-3 weeks. I'm not one to bash one company over the other but I gotta say MS blows on hardware.

[NE146]

They will reject a repair on an opened console even if it's under warranty. I understand that it's a liability thing with facilities that repair consumer electronics, not just an Xbox thing.

 

It's hit and miss apparently. But I know a good number (4 people personally) who've sent in 360's with broken & or missing stickers. Yes they totally took their 360's apart and yes all modded theirs, and you know what.. they all got theirs back repaired.

[KrispyKenobi]

I got the WDOD and sent it in under the RROD free repair option. Sent it last monday and it arrived back today fully repaired and ready to rock. Total-8 days with shipping back and forth. Lets see how long this one lasts. (Seems to be the same unit as I marked in a couple different place and all the marks are on the unit that came back along with matching numbers)