If you owned a 360 (non-slim), did you experience the RRoD?

  • Yes, once

    Votes: 258 39.4%
  • Yes, multiple times

    Votes: 288 44.0%
  • No

    Votes: 108 16.5%
  • I had a slim and I still got it at least once

    Votes: 1 0.2%

  • Total voters
    655

Durden

Avenger
Oct 25, 2017
12,528
I think the 360 was a pretty special console at the time. And because of that, it got away with some bullshit. The upmost of which was the ridiculous "Red Ring of Death" hardware malfunction that, from what I remember from some statistics, effected upwards of 35%-40% of 360's for quite a long time (basically until the slim's release, although I heard some of those were effected too). To the point to where Microsoft extended all warranties for all 360's for 3 more years I believe.

I absolutely believe that rate myself if not a higher one, as I had THREE instances of this happening. The first time I actually ended up having to buy a new 360. The other two times Microsoft fixed it. It always seemed as though it hit right when I brought home a massively hyped game as well. I remember specifically it happening with Street Fighter 4, Banjo Kazooie N&B (I'm a huge Banjo fan), and Gears 3.

Sometimes it would go away temporarily, but eventually it typically always came back and stuck. There were also some fucking batshit ways to try and bypass it for a little longer as well. Primary of those I remember was purposely overheating the console to melt some of the gel inside of it that could help cause the issue. This became widely enough known as the "towel trick".

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Basically you would unplug all cords except for the power, wrap the 360 in a thick layer of towels to clog it's vent ports, and turn it on. You let it cook for around 20 mins, until the 360 starts getting legit hot. Turn it off, let it cool for a while, and if you haven't done it too much before and with a little luck, you may actually have a working 360 again for a while. This is probably still the craziest home console fix I've ever seen. It actually worked half the tries too. I did it myself a few times to keep me going in desperate times. Especially at Street Fighter's release when I had friends over wanting to play. I'm sure it wasn't healthy for the rest of the innards of the console but who cared at that point.

Anyway, whats yours experiences/memories with the 3 red lights of fuck you sorry?

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Roxsus

Member
Dec 8, 2017
233
Mine died 4 times. 3 times after sending it in for repairs.

didn't bother on the 4th.
 
Oct 28, 2017
5,800
Got it once, sent it off for repair, never experienced it again. Had an original model of Xbox 360 (the one that got it), then an Elite one, then a Slim.

Still one of the best consoles of all time just because of the greatness of XBLA.
 

hydruxo

▲ Legend ▲
Member
Oct 25, 2017
20,627
I had this happen once but it just kind of resolved itself after not touching it for a while. Had a friend who went through multiple 360's though.
 

sweetmini

Member
Jun 12, 2019
3,921
Got it twice.
First one i was given a refurb by MS as return, second time i got a new revision (whatever the revision name was).
No way i would lose precious warranty time by trying diy solutions. I RMAd the things.
My japanese slim has been a faithful companion for Cave shmuping.
 

Evolved1

Member
Oct 27, 2017
2,619
I replaced my 360 3-4 times. Can't really remember, it's been so long. Only console I've ever had to replace, and it was multiple times. Primary reason I skipped Xbox this gen. I'll buy the Series X but only because they went a whole gen and proved they aren't shipping garbage any more.
 

Deleted member 17210

User-requested account closure
Banned
Oct 27, 2017
11,569
360 RROD was the biggest hardware issue ever for a major console. Microsoft didn't get punished enough for that defect.
 

Kuro

Member
Oct 25, 2017
21,188
I remember when I was in high school nearly every kid I knew with a 360 had to send it in for repairs and they would always talk about using the towel trick. MS lost at least a billion on repairing and replacing during this period didn't they?
 

antitrop

Member
Oct 25, 2017
12,806
I consider myself pretty lucky, my launch 360 from 2005 didn't red ring until 2009. I replaced it with a 360 Elite and that lasted me until the end of the generation.
 

JustinH

Member
Oct 27, 2017
10,478
I had... 3 (oh wait 2) "launch style" 360s, but no Red Ring. I gave the first one away to a friend because I wanted to buy another one with an HDMI port (2006 to 2009ish?).
Then that was stolen among a lot of other shit in a break-in at my apartment (2009ish to 2010ish?) and I bought an S to replace that.

I bought an E model most recently because I thought my S was starting to break because Ninja Gaiden II was freezing a lot, but that's just the busted ass patch. Stopped freezing after I cleared my hard drive cache.

I play games a lot, and never had a red-ring. I was just lucky.

My Dad had like... 4 replacements sent to him from Microsoft because of red-rings I think though, lol.
 

nachum00

Member
Oct 26, 2017
8,514
Happened to me and my friend. We tried to repair them ourselves but fucked them up even worse lol

But I also had two PS3s have disc drive failures. So I think both consoles were built like shit last gen.

A shame because I loved the look of my Elite and miss being able to play PS1, PS2 and PS3 games on one console.
 

RowdyReverb

Member
Oct 25, 2017
5,949
Austin, TX
I held off on buying until I found one with the 65 nm Falcon chipset. It lasted about 5 years with heavy, regular play before giving up the ghost. By then the Slim was out and I switched to that
 

evilalien

Teyvat Traveler
Member
Oct 27, 2017
1,534
I got it with the first console I bought, and the refurb they sent me got it within 3 months (as did every replacement thereafter). I repeated the RROD refurb cycle 6 times before I sold that piece of shit and bought a new one to replace it. That one still works fine, but screw MS for failing to provide a working replacement.
 

Deleted member 9584

User requested account closure
Banned
Oct 26, 2017
7,132
Mine red ringed three times. On the third time (back in 2009) I decided to just buy a PS3 Slim when it launched. I ended up buying another 360 when their revision came out.
 

Terror-Billy

Chicken Chaser
Banned
Oct 25, 2017
2,460
I had 3 of those motherfuckers, but one of them died on me because I was a stupid kid. The rest of them nust died out of nowhere. Awesome console but the hardware was more than questionable.
 

Martin

One Winged Slayer
Member
Oct 25, 2017
2,432
I had the falcon model and didn't get it.
But I got a bad laser and my console stopped reading discs
 

Cruxist

Avenger
Oct 27, 2017
3,892
I red-ringed a week before Dragon Age 2 came out. Had to switch my pre-order to the PS3 version and lost out on a bunch of DLC from GameStop. At the time, I was furious, but ultimately ended up not mattering since I didn't even finish the game.
 

jroc74

Member
Oct 27, 2017
29,548
My experience was I didnt really believe it until it happened to me.

The NXE update. Killed my 360. Immediately after that update, RRoD. I dont know what type of wear n tear before attributed to it. But the damn update causing it was hilarious.

Because of RRoD, it taught me to research my devices more. I wonder how many on this forum remember the Jasper mobo hunt. I learned some things about revisions, 90nm, 65nm, 45nm. I applied that knowledge to smartphones.
 

bounchfx

Member
Oct 25, 2017
6,732
Muricas
im still pretty stunned they made it through this whole thing. it was really bad for a while. I had it happen to me once and I think my cousin went through something like 5-6?

helped that the 360 was dope and had a great games library, but still, holy cow what a kerfuffle
 

Hilbert

Member
Oct 27, 2017
2,000
Pacific Northwest!
I think I had one go bad.

My sister had about 3 go bad on her, one she overheated on purpose because she wanted a replacement.

She always got bum consoles, she had multiple psx machines that she had to run upsidedown.
 

Sulik2

Banned
Oct 27, 2017
8,168
My first one red ringed less then a week after launch, way before anyone had any idea what was going on. Thankfully I was able to return it. Next one died playing Mass Effect and I used the towel trick to make it last. Sent that one in for repairs and then sold it and bought a falcon revision eventually. That one is still going strong, the one that was repaired red ringed on the guy I sold it to a few months later. It was so damn widespread, its crazy. Lead free solder is certainly a good thing, but factories definietly weren't ready to use it in the 2004-2008 era.
 

rainz

Member
Nov 1, 2017
396
Feels like I have PTSD looking at that image lol... had it happen to four different boxes over the years. Happened to all my friends too.

If it wasnt such a great system we would have given up but the 360 was a beast the whole gen.

So stoked ms got their shit together in that area for xbx1 as mine has never missed a beat.
 

ghostcrew

The Shrouded Ghost
Administrator
Oct 27, 2017
30,490
There's a reason I have three 360s and only one of them is still functional. First 360 had the disc drive fail (after a good few years to be fair). Replacement 360 red ringed. Got another replacement and that's still trucking. All OG 360s, didn't ever get a new model (other than the one with the HDMI port).
 

Stopdoor

Member
Oct 25, 2017
5,786
Toronto
I eventually started using a 360 E model but I have an original model that worked fine through like 2015 at least. I bought mine when Banjo-Kazooie released late 2008 and it seems the internal fix they made to the model right around that time actually was effective.
 
Feb 10, 2018
17,534
It happend once or twice to me.
I wasn't that bothered by the time I got my rrod it was a known thing and getting it fixed was a smooth process.
 

hikarutilmitt

"This guy are sick"
Member
Dec 16, 2017
11,562
Had it one time on my Elite despite the Zephyr units supposedly being fixed from RRoD. The Falcon chipset was the first to almost fully fix it, though, since that was when they were on 65nm chips. The night it died wife and I were playing EDF 2017, then went to BB, picked up an S model with the 250GB drive, grabbed the transfer cable and then went back to playing as soon as the transfer was done.

I sold the 120GB drive and transfer cable that had been in my Elite to a friend at work to somewhat offset the cost of buying the new model. Never had any problems with that one until I sold it to pay for an Xbox One a few years ago (ironically also an Elite, since I wanted the Elite controller and SSHD)..
 

WaveBird

Member
Oct 29, 2017
1,801
My launch 360 only red ringed once "luckily". By the time NXE came out I really wasn't playing much of the Xbox anymore so it lasted me the rest of the console generation thankfully.
 

DoubleTake

Member
Oct 25, 2017
6,630
Man the towel trick...lol takes me back.

I had Rrod twice on two 360s, until I got the slim which was fine. Man MS were lucky that fiasco didnt completely screw them over and that Sony were struggling with Ps3/Psn as well.
 

Deleted member 60582

User requested account closure
Banned
Oct 12, 2019
2,152
Happened to me the day Bioshock released. Got home from work, booted it up, system crashed when the elevator doors opened up into Rapture. Tried to reboot, RROD. Spent the next two hours at Fry's going through their nightmare of an exchange process.
 
OP
OP
Durden

Durden

Avenger
Oct 25, 2017
12,528
Mine died 4 times. 3 times after sending it in for repairs.

didn't bother on the 4th.

Now that I think about it this jogged my memory...I'm pretty sure I got a 4th too and I did the same thing. I either had already gotten a PS4 or knew I was going to be migrating to it and just said fuck it on the last time. It may have been even out of the extended warranty too.

It happened so much to me it was hard to keep track really. I adored the 360 when it was working. Magical times. But man this shit was crazy.
 

jroc74

Member
Oct 27, 2017
29,548
Happened to me and my friend. We tried to repair them ourselves but fucked them up even worse lol

But I also had two PS3s have disc drive failures. So I think both consoles were built like shit last gen.
Well my anecdotal evidence says the PS3 was built like a tank. lol. I had the fat MGS 4 model. It survived numerous drops. I never had the YLoD either.

Flip side...I had to fix my 360 disc drive getting knocked off track more times than I can remember.

I think I had three or four 360s. 2 RRoD, one lost to stupidity (modded console) and one final one. No modding, latest revision.
 

SikSlayer

Member
Oct 27, 2017
196
Mine died 4 times. 3 times after sending it in for repairs.

didn't bother on the 4th.

Well, the forth didn't get to die for me. By that point, the generation was over. I still have it. And it was my launch 360 that would get replaced, not a slim or any other 'fixed' revision. I bought a 360 S for real cheap at the end of the generation because I wanted to finally get a large 250GB HDD (I lived off the launch 20GB and USB sticks the whole generation), and download my entire 360 library.
 
Oct 25, 2017
1,418
Literally everybody I knew who had a 360 had it red ring on them. Some of them were replaced several times.
My one and only 60GB model from around 2008 still works and hasn't red ringed but it has a faulty disc drive that I have to pry open with a credit card.
 

-Le Monde-

Avenger
Dec 8, 2017
12,615
I had my 360 repaired 4 times. I can't wait for the day I can play all my 360 games on xsx. Hope they re-launch the bc program once they go through the new console launch.
 

Milennia

Prophet of Truth - Community Resetter
Member
Oct 25, 2017
18,344
I Have a launch 360 and 2 slims (one being the halo reach and one being the launch black version) and have owned 2 other launch 360s
Never had a single RROD and all my friends around me had them at least once
I was a 360 wizard
 
Dec 2, 2017
20,738
I was 12 when the 360 came out, and the first time I was alerted to the existence of it was the morning it came out, and there was a report on the news about RROD on it.
 
Apr 26, 2020
738
We didnt had internet till like 2013, so when my dad's Xbox 360 died with the red ring we didnt know what the heck it was. Didnt really thought much about it tho, so we bought a new one sometime later(Not a slim one) and that one still is going strong to this day!

Didnt learn until much later that this was a thing and suffice to say i was shocked
 

Chettlar

Member
Oct 25, 2017
13,604
Given I had a slim I never had it, although I have had a few times, especially more recently where it has overheated and frozen, but a simple shut down and letting it cool usually helps.

But some games it seems to just get stuck on. Batman Arkham Origins thankfully runs perfectly through BC, but on my 360 it hangs, especially if I try to move to multiplayer. And its incredibly sluggish in menus. Gears of War 3 has caused a few freezes but only after long play times and the console getting really hot. And Dragon Age Inquisition has also caused it to freeze a few times.
 

nekkid

Banned
Oct 27, 2017
21,823
My launch console lasted 5 years before it gave up, despite giving it a real hammering in that time. I managed to fix it temporarily, but on the second failure I gave in and bought the Elite which still runs today.
 

Kamaros

Member
Aug 29, 2018
2,315
i had an falcon elite that died miserably, 1RL, not even had the possibility of fixing.

i remember the towel trick hahahaha, very very popular here in brazil.
 

Cranster

Prophet of Truth
Banned
Oct 25, 2017
9,788
I had it twice, unfortunately. Thankfully Microsoft always had great customer support.
 

aceldama

Member
Jun 8, 2019
518
Primary of those I remember was purposely overheating the console to melt some of the gel inside of it that could help cause the issue. This became widely enough known as the "towel trick".

It wasn't 'gel' it was the solder. The use of lead in solder in consumer products had been restricted around that time and the replacement solder were more brittle so connections could break more easily under heat/cooling cycles. Overheating reflowed the solder.

Every consumer product launched in that era had to deal with brittle solder though. It's kind of a disgrace Microsoft got away with distributing such a shoddy product - although I do think it played a part in why the Xbox One was less successful (people stuck by the Xbox 360 that gen because it was a sunk cost then jumped ship gen) and after that I think the whole affair is still part of the reason why Microsoft have been so keen to market the quality of the hardware engineering in the Xbox One X and the Xbox Series X.
 

In Amber Clad

rather sultry
Moderator
Aug 26, 2018
5,530
London
It killed a couple of mine. My launch day one had it twice, and was fixed for free twice. It happened again just before FFXIII came out and, being a massive FF fan, I thought, "screw it, this is a good opportunity to get that FFXIII limited edition console!" I already had the LE of the game on order too, because I am a complete mug, and the 'limited edition console' was just a standard 360 with "FINAL FANTASY XIII" printed on top of the HDD. It was totally phoned in. I still bought it.

That one lasted about a year and a half before dying, and oddly enough, this was another 'opportunity' for me to buy a limited edition console. Game were selling the Gears 3 slim console for cheap, not long after its release, and I wanted that "enormous" 320GB HDD that it had. I actually remember thinking the console looked hideous when it was unveiled, but when it turned up, I was surprised to find I really liked it. It came with a copy of Gears 3 and two of the limited edition Gears 3 controllers and as I was also a massive Gears fan, I had already bought the Gears 3 LE and one of the controllers. I told myself I could get some money back by selling the game and the two controllers, but I'm incredibly lazy, so I ended up stuffing the pads in a drawer and giving the game to a friend for Christmas.

I was intending to get the FFXIII console fixed up and sell it on, but again: lazy. I still have it.

So yeah, RRoD kind of cost me a bit :D I had a decent bit of disposable income at the time, luckily. If this happened now, I definitely wouldn't be able to just go out and buy a new machine on a whim. My Gears 3 console still works like a charm though, and I honestly still think it looks awesome :D