Xbox360 repair time line, addendum

I have a quick aside to the repair process that is going to have me calling my local GameStop tomorrow morning.

A few days before my Xbox360 reached the clearing at the end of the path, my mom's husband's unit, a year younger than mine and played less often, started its trip through the repair cycle. He received his unit back a few days ago, in working order... until tonight. Seems his refurbished unit has died with the lower right red light and an error 74. Again this is a hardware failure along the same vein as the RRoD so he's once again out of action.

I'm thinking of trying to get as much trade in value as I can for my box and trading it in for a new unit before i give the refurbished box a chance to die. That is assuming that it works out of the box. I really think I'd have better luck with a new box than with a refurb. Besides, it would be a great excuse to upgrade to an elite. We'll see if I get a box back Monday and what condition it's in when it gets here.

Update: I did some troubleshooting tonight while I was over visiting the family. First off it seems like he got the exact same box back after only a day in the repair center. I really wonder if they did anything other than slap a new label on it and hope the jostling from UPS and FedEx fixed it. I also found this handy list of Xbox360 error codes. From the extended error code on the 3 red rings, and the E74 error code on the initial failure message his case is a failure of the scaler chip and not the graphics chip. That's interesting to me since there is no cooling at all for that component, and it's fairly small. Makes me wish I had found the site before my unit died so I could compare the failure reason.

Posted by Enosh @ 11:28 pm EDT | Permalink | 3 Comments

Xbox360 repair time line, part 5

So I have learned an important lesion about shipping companies yesterday.  UPS will update their tracking site in almost real time.  When activity happens the updates hit their web site.  This allows package stalkers like myself the gratification of really tracking a package across the country.  FedEx on the other had, will only update their tracking page once a day with the activity for that day.  This leads to a great deal of frustration for a package stalker.

Also it would appear that Microsoft trucks repaired units to Ft. Worth as FedEx takes them in batches from there.

As such, although I was given a tracking number on the 17th, FexEx didn't acknowledge that the tracking number existed until the 18th and the package didn't actually enter the system and start traveling home until the 19th.

I really hope FexEx delivers on Christmas Eve...

Posted by Enosh @ 11:24 pm EDT | Permalink | 1 Comments

Xbox360 repair time line, part 4

Finally.  I've been stalking the repair status page long enough.  Tonight I have a FedEx tracking number (which is not yet valid) and a new serial number.  Wee!  Now we get to see how long it takes to reach my door step and whether or not the local FedEx carrier actually rings the door bell and gets a signature or not.  I'm betting he drops the box at the front door and runs for the hills.

12/17/2007 New serial number and return tracking number issued.

Now to go off and abuse FedEx's web servers a bit while I stalk the package back to my door step.

Posted by Enosh @ 9:26 pm EDT | Permalink | 3 Comments

Xbox360 repair time line, part 3

12/13/2007 Repair Status: Device Received at Service Center

Not sure why it took a day for the system to update, nor how long it'll take for the return box to head my way but that's the update for today.

Posted by Enosh @ 10:14 pm EDT | Permalink | 1 Comments

Xbox360 repair time line, part 2

Short update:

12/12/2007 Coffin delivered to repair center by UPS.  So much for 3 day shipping, cursed weekends not counting as business days.  The service center hasn't yet acknowledged receipt at least according to service.xbox.com.

Posted by Enosh @ 11:26 am EDT | Permalink | 1 Comments