Ok, I got my Xbox 360 (Elite) for Christmas of '07. I've never had any problems with it until last week, when the screen would start freezing and making a loud noise. After this happening several times, I got the dreaded Red Ring. I looked up some fixes for it and tried the towel trick, which has been working.

Now I'm having a new problem. I cannot connect the Xbox 360 controller to the 360. I have been able to a few times, but it will disconnect. The green lights will flash on the controller but can't connect. I've tried syncing them, but it won't work. Any ideas as to what is causing this? And could this be related at all to the Red Ring, which was for hardware failure?

BlazedNow

First of all your system's death is almost exactly like mine's, however I did not attempt the towel trick.

As for the controller here are a couple of ideas:

Make sure you press the connect button on the system before pressing the button on the controller, maybe you knew this already.

Try changing the battery in the controller, when it's low it'll stop working but continue to flash the low batterry warning for awhile.

It's certainly possible that you could have damaged the receiver in the 360 when you did the towel trick, though it's hard to know for sure.

Wow, this is really crazy because the exact same thing happened to me. I bought my Xbox in May 08. Never had a problem until this weekend when I played Mass Effect for the first time. 10 minutes into the game, it freezes. I can't even exit the game. I turn on the console and try again and it freezes again. The 3rd time, I get RROD. NO!!!!!!! I turned the console vertical, and it worked again! But then froze on the main screen. Then RROD again.

I am sending my system in for repair this evening. They better fix it. Paid $358 bucks for this piece of junk!!

rockdve36

I called and asked and according to the rep on the phone the 3 year warranty still applies even if the error is intermittent. I waited to get that clarified before sending mine out today.

Edit: As to whether it'll actually get fixed, who know. This is my first time going though the repair process (I guess that makes me lucky) but from everything I've read Microsoft will either:

a) repair your system
b) send you a refurb
c) send you a new system

It also seems like a lot of repaired systems have a higher likelyhood of breaking again, though they give you a 1 year warranty on each repair so it's still free.

Hi, I haven't been here in awhile but I'm hoping you can answer my question.

So a couple of days ago my 360 started freezing in games. Noticed it first in mass effect but have reproduced it in two other games now. Basically the system will freeze within 10 minutes of actual gameplay (as in actually rendering the game engine). It RRoD'd once but other than that the console would boot up normally when powered back on. Today I tried it and it didn't even get through the menu in ME before it froze, after which point it would RRoD whenever it was turned on (the first time it showed the 360 logo but didn't display the dashboard). I tried unplugging everything to see if that would help and so I could record the S/N. When I plugged it in again it RRoD'd the first time I turned it on though it actually loaded to the dashboard and appared to be working normally while flashing the red lights. I powered it off and on again and the RRoD went away and it's now back to doing whay it did 2 days ago, it'll start fine but crash within minutes of actual gameplay.

It's pretty clear that the system is on its last legs but I'm wondering whrther I should send it in since the RRoD isn't consistnt. I got this system about 3 years ago and so I'd still be covered under the 3 year warranty (it actually says the standard one year warranty expired in january 2008 so I might have another month or so). On the site it states this on the repair form:

"Your console may qualify for in-warranty service for this issue. If your console has not logged a 3 Flashing Red Light error, you will be offered our standard out-of-warranty repair fee..."

The wording suggests that they have a way of checking that you've gotten the RRoD beyond just turning on your system when they get it (some system log maybe?). I don't want to send it in just to have them turn it on, not see 3 lights and slap me with a $100 repair fee to "fix" their faulty hardware design.

What should I do?

[QUOTE="primehunter326"]

I'm a very late comer to HL, getting orange box soon.  To make up for it I got HL today, the first game I've gotten on steam AND it was only $1.00.  I have to say for a 10 year old game this is pretty damn good, reminds me of metroid prime one of if not my favorite game of all time.  Here I was thinking I'd either skip the first game in the series or else get it later on in some bundle, I'm so glad I took advantage of this deal.

 

Edit: why can't I use parentethis?

biggest_loser

Yes.  metroid prime in particular is very similar to half life at least from what I've played of HL so far.  there's a fair amount of shooting but also a lot of puzzle solving as well.  The main protagonists in both never speak, and the stories are told on the fly though in different ways.  In fact the biggest difference other than the setting is that in metroid you get upgrades throughout the game while in HL you don't really.

Do you know for ceetain what you username and pw are.  If just try logging out and t hen log in again.  are you doing it from the steam client or your web browser.

Edit:  Ok why can't I make questionmarks this is dumb

I just got it too, oh what I've missed out on...

I hate how late in my childhood I got into gaming, I missed so many classics and it just isn't the same to go play them now. The only real classic I played back in the day was pokemon blue...

[QUOTE="AnnoyedDragon"]Whose with me on this one? Wouldn't the PC gaming market be in a much better position if it wasn't for Intels extreme integrated graphics crap? They claim to be pro PC gaming but it is only regarding CPUs, their integrated chipsets have caused more damage than consoles and piracy possibly couldHerrick

No  they don't, they conveniently gloss over the grpahics solution when describing the PC's specs, focusing on  other things like CPU and RAM.

I guess you could consider me on the consumer's side here.  While I agree that people could open their eyes if they did some ressearch, but you have to realize just how uninformed most people are about computers.  Most people know the CPU as the processor, RAM and HDD space are both "memory" to most people and the average consumer doesn't understand why graphics cards are important.  They know you can play games on your computer, see the latest games playing on a console and put two and two together and don't think any further than that.  the main thing people don't realize is just how unsuitable intel graphics are for gaming, as I said all parties involved in selling these computers conveniently sidestep that little bit of info.  

Also if intel did implement a more capable integrated chip, that doesn't mean they have to discontinue their current lineup.  As crappy as they are, intel graphics chips are great for business workstations because they're cheap, power efficient and generate little heat.  It's really just consumer level machines that would be affected.  As others said if those computers were good enough for just the bare entry level gaming (playing games at very playable framerates on low settings) that could go a long way.

I'm a very late comer to HL, getting orange box soon.  To make up for it I got HL today, the first game I've gotten on steam AND it was only $1.00.  I have to say for a 10 year old game this is pretty damn good, reminds me of metroid prime one of if not my favorite game of all time.  Here I was thinking I'd either skip the first game in the series or else get it later on in some bundle, I'm so glad I took advantage of this deal.

Edit: why can't I use parentethis?

wait is this an addon or blizzard made?

To the TC:  I'd actually try War, just ot give it a chance.  WoW is great and is likely better than WAR but I'd give the underdog a spin before comitting yourself back to WoW.