The great Xbox 360 disaster of Christmas 2008

[ozcatbug]

This thread is really interesting to me as I started learning to repair 360's on Wednesday. I've encountered a couple of RRoDs. Only one couldn't be repaired. In fact I was told for that one to not even bother trying to fix it. When it RRs less than a second after power on, nothing can be done.

Have to agree with the talk about Nintendo making the best stuff, or at least the hardest wearing. I've had a number of DSs, of all types, come through that you immediately think are write off's, but with a little work they come good. And yet some of the other consoles fail for no obvious reason. We still get DS originals through that can be sent straight back out to stores for sale. I've actually seen some Game Boy Advance SP consoles that still look and work fine, though we don't resell them anymore. Don't know what happens to those trade-ins.

[Geek King]

All of my non-disk systems still work-- Vectrex, Atari 2600, Channel F, Pong... (and on and on)

Guess what the failure rate on my disk systems is!

Three digit number starting with 1.

The difference is moving parts. All disk systems have moving parts, and no matter how tough you build something, if it moves, i causes friction, which will eventually cause a failure at some point.

Though, funny story, some of the early releases of the original US Playstation console are highly sought after by audiophiles because they used a very high-end CD player in it. Later they switched to cheaper models to save money, but there are guys paying $500-1000 for a working Playstation with the right serial numbers just so they can hook it to their stereos.

[manybellsdown]

We have one of those 360's that was warrantied against RROD. So naturally, when it broke it was something else. They told us we'd have to pay for the repair if it wasn't a RROD issue.

So we wrapped it in a towel and overheated it until it was.

The Nintendo console I've had the most problems with is the DS. I'm sure part of that is because kids tend to beat them up a little more than other systems, but I myself have been through three and I take care of my stuff. For whatever reason, the DS lite in particular seems to be susceptible to a lot of problems.

I think my husband has gone through 4 or 5 of them. He tends to crack the hinges. So far the 3DS has held up though.