Does anyone now if they already started "fixing" the problems with the 360's yet? Has anyone brought one recently and has it burnt out yet. I don?t care about the three year warranty; it should not break in the first place, so I don?t want to be returning my 360 every month for just playing on a system that?s designed to be played on!
Well right now is a confusing time to buy a 360 cause you could end up with one of several variations.
-Original 360 Mobo with 90nm GPU/CPUs(don't know that name) and without extra heatsink.
-Original 360 Mobo with 90nm GPU/CPUs and with extra heatsink
-Zephyr Mobo revision (90nm GPU/CPUs) with extra heatsink*
-Falcon Mobo revision (90nm GPU and 65nm CPUs) with extra heat sink.
* There might also be Zephyrs without the new heatsink, but I'm not sure about that one.
Most people tend to believe that if you have the extra heatsink your system should be fine. I, however, refuse to touch a 360 that has 90nm CPUs so I am waiting for a unit with a revised Falcon mobo. The only problem with finding a Falcon is what to look for since both the Zephyr and Falcon have HDMI and manufacture dates in July.
If you don't mind not having 65nm CPUs but want the new heatsink then look for a 360 manufactured in or after July.
If anyone has any clear-cut method to find a Falcon please inform the others and myself.
I would say it's still not safe. I purchased one 3 months ago and it gave me the 3 dreaded red rings of death after 62 days of using it. Luckily I bought it from Target which has a 90 day return policy. I didn't even play on it hard. I think the LONGEST gaming session that I had was about 1 1/2 hours. I don't have much time to play games, so I figured it would be safe to buy a 360....I was wrong obviously.
Of course its safe, the problem isnt such a pandemic as everyone makes out,my advice is buy one now and keep the receipt,it will be under the warranty anyways for a year, if you want to flash your drive and worried about opening the box and voiding the warranty then maybe wait a year to do this, or else just by 2boxes,but by in large if you send back a box with sticker broke or tampered with they will give u a new one anyways.
Also at this stage the Elite's are out and it seems they have resolved the overheating issue. I have personally never experienced or seen the 3Rings on my console or my mates, and i have flashed a few boxes,if you do get the rings, there are some very quick and easy ways to resolve this issue, Xclamp etc, but obviously any of these mods would void the warranty
I recently bought an elite and I ran a burn in test where I ran it for 24hrs straight with a game in it... after that I played bioshock for 4hrs straight and no issues found... so far so good...cross our fingers
there are so many stock piled at stores, especially big types like Wal-Mart and Costco that there is no telling what you will get. That is of course unless you check the little tag under a small flap on each box which shows the manufactered date.
and to allybhoy, you can mod a system without voiding your warranty. You just have to know what your doing. And i am in a gaming clan and have seen many many people get the RROD problem so don't downplay the fact that it is a faulty console, because it is. Until the new versions hit sometime the end of the year EVERY console out there has the potential for problems. I know people with Elites who had drives burn out, and who have had them scratch their discs up so they would no longer play and so on.