A rather busy XBox 360 owner has figured out a way proud owners of Microsoft's console can avoid the embarrassment and delay involved in contacting tech support for their console. In a post in the Gamespot forums, the user claims the solution should work for all consoles facing overheating problems. The solution is neither elegant nor conclusive but seems to have done the trick for quite a few X360 owners troubled by overheating related freezes.
According to Goldeneyemaster then, the problem is not the XBox console itself but the brick-like power supply. Since, by design, a large flat surface of the unit lies on the floor, the PSU tends to overheat causing the entire console to freeze. The current solution is to find a box slightly larger than the unit and to remove the cover, balancing the unit on the box edges. This way the edges of the box will provide support for the PSU while allowing all of its large surfaces to remain well ventilated. The idea is to keep as large a surface area of the PSU as possible in contact with the surrounding air, if you can accomplish this in any other way that should also work.
This solution is not risky unless the box you decide to use is not strong enough to take the wait of the power supply. If you are in any way uncertain about how to achieve this please do not try it and contact Microsoft tech support.
Microsoft has reacted to claims that a considerable number of XBox 360 consoles were presenting with problems. As you can read below, a variety of sources suggested that the fault rate of the new console may be high and Microsoft has responded in two ways, with the usual PR rhetoric to begin with and with conviction and style just a few sentences later.
The initial Microsoft response, as expressed by Molly O'Donnell senior manager of global Xbox public relations, to the claims that a large number of X360s were reported as faulty stated It's a few reports of consoles here and there not working properly. It's below what you would expect with a consumer electronics instrument of this complexity.
The above response would offer little or no consolation to owners of faulty X360s but Microsoft realized that a large part of its consoles future success relies on the way each crisis is handled and the company has decided to act. O'Donnell urged anyone with a problematic XBox to call 1-800-4myXbox or go to the XBox website. If the problems can't be immediately resolved, Microsoft will send a courier box within a day and will pay to ship the console overnight to a repair center. Once it is fixed it will also overnight it back or ship a replacement. They'll be playing again in three to five days, O'Donnell said.
Microsoft has also updated its XBox 360 support page to include a few troubleshooters and reports on what each error code actually means so that XBox owners don't have to look around for other sources of information.
So Microsoft is not really acknowledging that there is a worrying problem but it will take care of it quickly and efficiently. That should make console owners feel better although they might reconsider the wisdom of spending 30 hours queuing outside a store.
Ask any Microsoft exec and the launch of the X360 console went extremely smoothly and has now set the standard for gaming hardware launches. Ask the gaming community, the guys J Allard thinks about the most, and you'll find a very different story slowly unraveling.
The image to your right is becoming a familiar to sight to quite a few proud XBox 360 gamers who must either think that Microsoft is facing a glitch with the Matrix or its new console.
Reports of various error messages and problems with the new console are coming in thick and fast while the most worrying concern is that they seem to cover a wide range of problems, anything from drives scratching game discs to hard drives that are dead and consoles freezing mid-game. Other reported problems include the console refusing to power down and various overheating errors. As a result of these problems, XBox support lines are overloaded and hard to get through to while users are turning to related forums for possible answers. A common problems seems to be the freezing-up of X360 during gameplay and one owner felt so confident his console would freeze that he actually filmed it (2MB).
One XBox 360 owner felt compelled to create a guide to help-out X360 owners facing problems since: ...between my friends and I, we bought 6 machines at the Zero Hour event. Of the 6, my machine has a dead hard drive, another machine is working but is rather flaky (seen some strange behavior - the drive may also be scratching discs, as my friend's copy of Condemned is now unplayably scratched, but we don't know if the drive caused it - the machine has also had problems booting games and being turned off...), one seems to be good, and I haven't heard yet about the status of the other three.
His forum post should help you, if not to solve your problem, at least to identify it.
Users claim that the solutions offered by 1-800-4-my-xbox offer a 2-4 week delay at best while EBGames claims it can't do anything until the next shipments arrive.
The DIY info is that for error code E64 you disconnect the HD and repower the console, Red in Sector 1,3 and 4 indicated hardware failure and the list goes on.
It is, of course, too early to know how widespread these problems are and how likely you are to experience similar problems. It is however clear that the launch has not been as successful as MS bosses would have you think and that knowledge should help you make an informed decision when choosing whether to buy the console immediately or to wait just a little while longer.
