Red Ring of Light.........conspiracy? :)

First off, I apologize if I am duplicating a thread here and I am sure someone will quickly point it out if I am. I searched this, albeit briefly, and didn't see exactly what I am going to post so here it goes....

Anyone have theories on why the xbox 360 gives you the ring of death after every 6-8 months or so? I just can't believe it is within the best interest of microsoft to simply extend a warranty for 3 years, giving up all that income on replacement and repair, simply to be a good sport about a flaw in their design. Surely they could have figured it out and fixed it by now and they don't require a new purchase so please, nobody respond with the first obvious choice of designed obsolescence. My computer is on 24/7 and hardly ever has a problem, nor does my windows operating system, so please avoid the obvious second choice of wear and tear.

My thoughts are that they are somehow collecting information every time you send your console in. Has anyone ever dared take one apart to see if there was any other kind of chip or device that would store personal information...ie. game play, patterns of strategy, etc......

They aren't making extra money off of this, they even give you a free month for the live subscription for your troubles. So what could be an even bigger incentive than money..........hmmmm.

Who else to throw this out to than this cool community? Any thoughts?

highly unlikely... plus it would be easier for them to just upload whatever information when you log into xbox live.

why would the do it anyway.. to get you uber Halo 3 strats...?

reply to post by purplemonkey



Wars in the future will be decided on the Halo battlefield.

The xbox360 has the huge Red ring of death problem because of a couple of reasons really, mainly down to cost cutting which has turned around and kinda bitten them in the ass because it's probably cost a lot more to rectify the problem.

Anyways, here's a few of the reasons why they die so frequently. first up is poor application, and in some cases non application, of the thermal paste that transfers the heat from the GPU to the heatsink. People reported that when they opened up the 360 there was no paste, or that there was actually plastic sheeting where the paste should be so that was overheating the GPU.

Second main reason was cheap low grade solder on the motherboard, after using the 360 for long periods the solder would expand and contract during and after each session and eventually lose contact which ended up in a red light, people would ways to fix it by opening up the 360 and using a heat gun on the solder around the GPU and it fixed it, others wrapped the 360 up in a Towel and purposely overheated it so that the solder would expand and make fresh contact. People with the proper tools re-flowed the motherboards which fixes the solder also.

then there was the huge power brick that they used for the power supply, that would overheat and cause the RROD too, this could be worked around by handing the brick in a well ventilated position or by blowing a fan on it.


Theres probably about half a dozen other reasons for the RROD with about 100 bizarre and ingenius workarounds for it, just have a look on the 360 forums and you'll probably see for yourself.


As for M$ looking to harvest your info, they dont need special chips on the 360 to do that to study your gaming style, they have Gamertags and live accounts to do that for them.


So, I say nay to a RROD/L conspiracy and just put it down to cheap chinese labour and M$'s desire to cut costs... but damn did they ever get it right this time as the console kicks ass regardless of its flaws.

well, first off, congrats on having a trouble free version of windows. Mine is rather stable, but I have had to do several clean installs since I bought it a few years ago.

I really find my 360 to be shoddy quality. I remember the DreamCast getting flak for its loudness, the 360 is louder, especially when the drive kicks in.

I have not had RRoD, but have had it freeze up or stutter enough ... even a black screen a couple times.

Most of the console companies are willing to sacrifice a loss on the machine itself, because they make the money on lots of software sales. I bet you the extended warranty to 3 years came after considering if they didn't, potential future console sales with their accompanying software sales would go out the window.

Software sales don't just include those games, but the DLC is a big profit maker. This is also why they use 'points' ... it is easier to spend points, plus they don't equal dollars, so it plays on the average person's low math skills when making an impulse buy. (80 point = $1) They sell tons of avatars, backgrounds/themes. They make a bit of money off of live, since I am sure they have no shortage of servers in-house to use for online gaming.


They can get ALL your nifty information if you have the ethernet cable plugged in. The console doesn't even need to be officially on. So no, it would not be worth it for them to have them sent in for such a ploy, too inefficient and expensive compare to free and digitally going into a database without human effort. Not trying to say they absolutely do this, but most likely, they do. Read the EULA carefully.

You do realize that your 'obvious' answer is the best one. They do come out with improved versions. And the thing is not far from its half-life. Just hope they don't drop it cold turkey like they did with the original box.

Oh, people have taken them apart, nothing fishy found though

Silver live is free anyway, so, it really costs them nothing to give you a month free of gold. it is a funny gimmick. I know, WoW is pay to play ... but again, for PSU, you can pay for that and play online with a silver account.

Just be happy with your console, hopefully your repaired one will not break down on you again.

new gen systems = extortion for game content (only half joking)

OK guys.........I knew there would be well thought out, eloquent answers from you all. Perhaps I am reading too much of this conspiracy stuff.....

I still find it odd that a simple solder problem would continue to recurr. We are on our 3rd xbox now in less than 2 years...... Why wait for 3 weeks for them to replace it when they just send you a different one back anyway? ....and why does the 3 year thing not renew itself everytime you get a new (different) console back? Grrr...

You all make perfect sense and I am sure each of you is right in the information you provide. It still doesn't sit right with me though. At any rate Microsoft has spent over $300 on my behalf to fix thier shoddy worksmanship......it's almost like having a free one

Thanks for humoring me though.

[edit on 15-2-2008 by glad_to_be_His]