What should DrSpike do about his Xbox?

[DrSpike]

To solve your problem, you need to donate it to me.

You're better off buying one that works - they are only £150 or so at Amazon at the moment.

[conmcb25]

Yeah, I can watch TV whilst playing Eve.

You were a n00b when I was just a glint in Daddies eyes,,,,,,,,,

[DrSpike]

Other games have started to freeze now - I figure it's a matter of time before my machine is unuseable. I'm going to attempt to convince customer services that it intermittently red rings (using descriptions from online) and if that doesn't work get a new premium.

[DrSpike]

I called customer services today. As soon as I said the words 'flashing red lights' they gave up all pretence of helping me fix the problem and told me how to ship it to them using a pre-paid label (looks like they've stopped the 'coffin' boxes here though as I have to find my own box!).

So far so good - hope they don't test it too thoroughly.

[ZEE]

i had this problem with Oblivion, it may be that your hard drive is fragmented.

the fix from the UESP:

Xbox 360 Fixes
One problem specific to the Xbox 360 is that the cached game data can become fragmented, leading to a gradual deterioration of game performance, including lagging and screen freezes. To fix this problem, you need to press and hold the A button on the controller while the game is first loading (up until the "Bethesda Softworks" logo appears). For more information, see Oblivion-Fragmented-Cache-Data-Fix.

not sure is this is for all games tho

[DrSpike]

Thanks but I don't think it's that as it affects multiple games (and a growing number). I also tried clearing the cache as one of my troubleshooting steps and it made no difference.

[asleepathewheel]

I called customer services today. As soon as I said the words 'flashing red lights' they gave up all pretence of helping me fix the problem and told me how to ship it to them using a pre-paid label (looks like they've stopped the 'coffin' boxes here though as I have to find my own box!).

So far so good - hope they don't test it too thoroughly.

cool. in the UK you have to call in? In the us, I just filled out an online form in about 30s and printed my label, popped over to ups and shipped it off. 10bucks or so to ship, but glad i had them use that much packing material as I got the same shell back.

[DrSpike]

I think you can do it online here but it didn't seem to work properly, so I had to call customer services to log the repair.

It's free here though I think.

[DrSpike]

MS (or at least their representatives in Germany!) have it now. Hopefully they are fixing it as we speak.

[DrSpike]

Result - they sent me a refurbished model within a week of UPS picking it up from my flat (though because UPS left it with a neighbour without leaving a note I just found out about it! It's been here since Thursday).

I wasn't expecting it back for a couple more weeks yet, and was half expecting to get my old one back not really fixed. The new one has a quieter fan and disk drive, so overall I'm pretty happy.

[DrSpike]

Forgot to mention they also sent a nice note saying 'I hope you don't mind a refurb'. Absolutely not ol' chap.