The red ring of death is something that Xboxers the world over dread. However, Microsoft has done what they can to ease the pain of the repair process, which includes shipping you a pre-paid box to send your broken console in. As of May 26th, however, you need to get your own damn box.

Microsoft will no longer be sending out pre-paid boxes to victims of broken consoles.

“Customers can now ship their consoles themselves using an e-label provided by Microsoft and do not need to wait for an empty box to be shipped to them.”

I love how they make it sound like they’re doing this to benefit the customer. Customers have always had the option of shipping using their own box, so really that statement should read “Customers must now ship their consoles themselves.”

Xbox Scene

GameZine reports that Microsoft have extended their warranty to cover the E74 error as well as the Red Ring of Death. A growing number of complaints about the error have led to Microsoft addressing the issue, mentioning that the error is linked to the RRoD issue.

Microsoft are also refunding those who have already had to pay out: “Microsoft will refund to customers the amount paid for an out of warranty repair due to a general hardware failure associated with the e74 error message. Those customers should automatically receive the refund within 4-12 weeks, and no additional action by customers should be necessary.”

Oh, and here’s some press silliness:

“While the majority of Xbox 360 owners continue to have a great experience with their console, we are aware that a very small percentage of our customers have reported receiving an error that displays “E74″ on their screen.”

Yes, Microsoft. Now add that “small percentage” to the percentage that have had something go wrong, and you’ll have more than a minority.

The mysterious Red Ring of Death has perplexed many Xbox 360 owners. What evil magic causes the system to overheat and crap out so often? Bunnie’s Blog has a very interesting theory about why the technology behind Microsoft’s console leads so often to failure.

The key seems to be in the solder joints, where a simple dye test can indicate faulty manufacturing. According to Bunnie’s Blog, it all starts with a RROD 360:

I actually sent it off to MEFAS to get digested for solder joint inspection on the GPU through a process called “dye and pry”. In this process, the motherboard is flooded with red ink, and then the GPU is mechanically pried off the board. The red ink flows into any of the tiny cracks in the solder balls, and at least in theory, when you pry the GPU off the cracked regions will shear first so you will be left with visible red spots at the points of failure.

Photos of this test show lots of partial cracking in the solder balls, but it doesn’t seem to show “catastrophic failure”, which would be indicated by “pools of red ink over a connection interface”. It’s hard to say if this is the true cause of RROD, but it’d be nice to see if Microsoft will have a response to this type of product testing.

Comparing the difficulty of getting complex systems to work just right, this blogger also brings to mind the imagery of space and air travel. These products are so complex that you just have to marvel that they manage to get nearly everything right. Good thing Microsoft’s not in charge of designing the space shuttle, right?

Via Bunnie Studios

This is getting a little ridiculous. It seems that Microsoft will ban you from Xbox Live for just about anything these days, including fan modifications.

Over at Maxconsole.net, Malloc posts an email he received from a man whose friend’s Xbox 360 was banned from Live for having a fan modification. Apparently voltage is easy to detect through Bios settings, so installing a huge fan is going to undoubtedly raise red flags.

When his friend contacted Microsoft customer support in regards to ban, they confirmed that he was indeed banned for using a custom fan, as opposed to the stock one.

“…Microsoft have started banning xbox 360’s with modded cooling. So if you’ve done the 12v mod your in risk of being banned for it…. How do I know this?? Because a friend of mine just had a nice chat with Microsoft About why he was banned and they explained it was because he had non-stock/modded fans.”

Given the 360’s tendency to overheat, this is sad news, especially considering that your only other option is to purchase a Nyko Intercooler, which reportedly drains too much power from the console and causes a general hardware failure.

I know that Microsoft extended the warranty on all consoles to three years, which is great and all, but it’s still entirely possible for your system to go kaput after the warranty is up. Banning users for trying to save their $350 console that’s prone to breaking is pretty much bullshit.

UPDATE: Chad Lakkis, our glorious leader here at Ripten, contacted Microsoft’s PR company earlier today regarding this claim. It is his understanding, based on the conversation he had with the individual at Edelman, that Microsoft is capable of scanning an individuals console and the company has indeed banned users from XBL for “modding” their Xbox 360.

While he was not able to obtain a quote regarding this specific incident involving a fan, he did obtain the following statement:

“As part of our ongoing efforts to keep Xbox LIVE safe and secure for the more than 8 million members of our community, it is our policy to ban modified consoles from the Xbox LIVE service. We have found that a small percentage of gamers are playing with modded boxes which would potentially compromise the gameplay experience for other gamers on the service. We believe that even one modded console on the system is one too many. That said, if one of our customers feels like his or her console was wrongly banned from the service, he or she can contact 1-880-4my-xbox.”

I have to say, I’m really glad that Microsoft has a dispute system in play now. They’ve had more than a few wrongful bans, so it’s good of them to acknowledge that and give those unfortunate souls a way to clear things up.

It’s important to note that this incident is simply one guy’s side of the story, and I apologize if I didn’t make that clear. Another thing I want to make sure people know is that this isn’t simply snapping a fan onto your console, this involves opening it up and tinkering around with its guts via this method or something similar.

Now I’m not saying that I think that the fan banning is justified – if it’s even true – but in Microsoft’s defense, they’re being perfectly straight with us. If you mod your console in any way, shape, or form, they reserve the right to ban you. And it sounds like they do have a way to remotely scan it, so don’t try to be sneaky.

I’ll let you know when we get a response about the whole fan situation.

From the red rings of death to the unreadable disk errors, 360’s were turning on their owner’s like that scene in the Transformers movie. I was sick and tired of it, and I wanted results, so I emailed Bill Gates.

If you know me, you know that I hate the word NO. I hate it from anyone. Call me an Alpha male, stubborn, persistent, greedy… I don’t care. I get my way.

What got my juices REALLY flowing was that I had contacted Xbox PR in Canada to receive a loaner system while mine was in the shop. You see, even though my 360 had RRoD’ed twice, it still functioned ever so slightly. It was only a matter of time, however, before it froze, or would give the dreaded “disk is unreadable” error. It got to the point where it was happening about twice a day religiously.

I couldn’t really part with it for a month (the time quoted to me for repair), since my livelihood is based on my ability to review games and movies on the console. The pending release of Halo 3 sealed the deal. I absolutely NEEDED to find another way to solve the problem as being left without a console was not going to be an option.

As if that wasn’t enough, what pushed me completely over the edge and had me seeing red myself, was getting word that certain “large websites” and other media outlets were receiving duffel bags filled to the brim with swag and topped off with the new Halo 3 themed XBOX 360 console.

Now, call me irrational, but the thought crossed my mind that these websites have budgets, connections, offices — did I mention budgets? They can obtain a new working system in a heart beat from any one of their own offices. I know this because it happened all the time when I worked on location at similar companies in the past. So here they are, with a pile of free Halo stuff, while I was left staring at a red ring, simply asking for a loaner so that I may do my job. The steam started to whistle from my ears.

I calmly sat down, and began to type a very respectful email requesting a loaner once again. Still, no reply from Canada’s PR firm. Like I mentioned earlier, NO is not something I enjoy hearing, however I despise silence even more.

So, I emailed Bill Gates — yes, THAT Bill Gates. For those who doubt he pays attention to such correspondence, within 12 hours I suddenly was bombarded with emails and phone calls from the very PR people who for weeks either ignored me, or just didn’t seem to care. My email to Bill read as follows…

” … I understand that this may sound like someone looking for a handout, but I have built a personal business around reviewing these games, consoles, movies, HD-DVD’s, etc. on the review console your company (so generously) sent me 2 years ago. Without a 360 available to me for a month however, I will lose out on most of the income I generate to support my son and I. This isn’t just a cute little hobby for me. The money I make writing isn’t spent on more games or partying, but on groceries, clothes and everything my little guy needs… so purchasing a second 360, is impossible, even if it is necessary for my writing.

Please note I have sent a similar e-mail to Xbox PR in the Canada, since they are who I usually deal with. However, my review system came from Edelman, so I honestly wanted to get a hold of whom ever could help me best.”

There’s more to the email, but for privacy reasons relating to the PR companies involved, I decided to leave it out. In fact, I honestly wasn’t even sure if I was going to publish this story at all. Do I post it? Will anyone care? Is this reporting or this more along the lines of online whining — the very thing I simply can’t stand to read when published by others.

In the end, I thought it would be beneficial to share the information, as I felt the need to stand up for myself as a writer and avid gamer. My hope is that others who’ve experienced the same thing will not give up, and never accept NO for an answer.

I must admit though, as I sat down with my son, I began to wonder, am I too much of a gamer? There are people starving in this world (I know, I met a few of them when I was living out of my car) and here I am, worried about a video game system, possibly getting some PR rep in trouble because of my actions.

I understand how the game of PR politics plays out, I really do. Marketing and Public Relations are delicate and high stress industries, made even more stressful by people like me. In a round about way, the situation had me questioning my career decision. I love playing, I love reviewing, and I absolutely love writing, but at times I feel that my passion for what I do gets the best of me, and I end up losing sight of how my actions may be effecting others. I loathe hearing NO, but before this, I rarely thought about why.

In the end, I got my way. At one point, I had THREE XBOX 360’s sitting in front of my office. Who if anyone was made to pay the price for my tirade? While I may never know, what I do know, is that if I ever email Bill Gates again, it will be to ask him how his day was. We all like to be asked that once in a while.

Update: 10/27 – 3:58PM EST
For those interested in checking out the English version of the  XBOX 360 Manga Girl above, Kotaku has it posted here.