Yikes... My Xbox 360

[Karoz]

A couple of days ago, somethings strange happened to my 360. It was something that I had read up about before buying one.

I played a quick game of Madden '07, then went to use the bathroom. When I came back, my TV was back on the AUX channel, and my 360 had three red lights around the power button flashing. I knew this was a sign of the 360 failing, so I immediately turned it off. After about 30 seconds, I turned it back on, and it appeared to load normally.

Now, I know that the three red lights will flash if your AV wires come unplugged. However, to my knowledge, the wires were fully connected. Do you think that my 360 is going to crap out on me soon? Is there anything I can do to prevent it from doing so at this point?

Any help would be appreciated.

[Guru13]

if it happens again you are in trouble, it's some sort of failure with the system, if you're still under warranty than you will be fine, but if not it could be bad.

[eagles21]

Yeah, the red lights mean there is some sort of problem with the hardware. Like FFG13 said, if you have a warrenty, you'll be fine either way. And if you don't, hopefully it doesn't happen again.

Here's a help site about it:

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/907534

[fantasybeast27]

I had 3 red lights and it was busted. Bring it in ASAP.

[sox 06]

It hasn't happened to mine but that is a sign that your 360 will probably stop working in the near future. Get a new one if you can.

[Karoz]

It's still under warranty, so that aspect of it isn't a problem.

The thing that I worried about the most is all of my saved content. Usually, when you send in your 360 for repair, they just send you a refurbished one as a replacement. In that instance, you would not have the same hard drive, thus you would lose all of your data.

I am assuming that they won't allow you to keep the hard drive, and just send you a new unit without a hard drive. Has anyone here ever attempted that?

I suppose another solution would be to get a memory card and back up all of my files. How much memory do the cards have on them? Will it allow me to back up everything, even my profile?

[teddy ballgame]

For some reason I remember this happening to me. It could have been because of the A/V cables because that had happened to me before too but I didn't think so. I haven't had a problem since, but again I'm not sure if it was the A/V cables.

[sox 06]

It's still under warranty, so that aspect of it isn't a problem.

The thing that I worried about the most is all of my saved content. Usually, when you send in your 360 for repair, they just send you a refurbished one as a replacement. In that instance, you would not have the same hard drive, thus you would lose all of your data.

I am assuming that they won't allow you to keep the hard drive, and just send you a new unit without a hard drive. Has anyone here ever attempted that?

I suppose another solution would be to get a memory card and back up all of my files. How much memory do the cards have on them? Will it allow me to back up everything, even my profile?

I thought I read somewhere that Xbox isn't doing the "send a box and you send the Xbox back" repair thing anymore. I might be wrong but if they do still do that I think you only send in the actual Xbox and you keep all of your accessories (controllers, harddrives, memory cards etc.). I might be wrong but I'm pretty sure that's the case.

[Guru13]

well the problem isn't with your hard drive so I can't imagine they would give you a different one, I'm fairly confident you'd be allowed to keep that.

[Karoz]

For some reason I remember this happening to me. It could have been because of the A/V cables because that had happened to me before too but I didn't think so. I haven't had a problem since, but again I'm not sure if it was the A/V cables.

It's good to know that you haven't had any problems since. This has been the case for me as well, at least so far. As I'm sure most people can relate, your 360 sounds like it is about to crash when playing Madden '07. It gets so loud and frequent that I sometimes anticipate the explosion of my 360. Perhaps this had something to do with. I'm not at all sure, though.

I thought I read somewhere that Xbox isn't doing the "send a box and you send the Xbox back" repair thing anymore. I might be wrong but if they do still do that I think you only send in the actual Xbox and you keep all of your accessories (controllers, harddrives, memory cards etc.). I might be wrong but I'm pretty sure that's the case.

To my knowledge, you are right about the fact that you keep your controllers and memory cards when you send in your 360 for repairs. However, if you were to keep your hard drive, wouldn't you have to open up your 360? In that case, your warranty would become void.

well the problem isn't with your hard drive so I can't imagine they would give you a different one, I'm fairly confident you'd be allowed to keep that.

This is what I would expect Microsoft to do. Hopefully this will turn out to actually be the case. If I ever have to send my 360 in for repairs, I will be sure to ask them the same questions that I have asked here.