360 Issues thread

[egparadigm]

I just sat down to play some Far Cry Instincts Predator on my 3rd 360. I now get "unreadable disc error" every time I try to load my game! It happens when I've booted the game and I try to resume my saved instincts campaign.

Anyone know much about these errors? The fact I can load the game suggests it's not a general hardware error (yet). The disc does appear to have two small (about 6mm) scratched on it - could that be the problem?

EDIT: I can't start a new game or play Evolution, either.

[Daragon]

If your other games are working fine then I wouldn't worry about it just yet.

[Yoshimax]

I just sat down to play some Far Cry Instincts Predator on my 3rd 360.

Some people never learn tbh.......

[anephric]

I was going to post something about a "good taste patch in the last dash update", but didn't.

Saying that, I played through both games o_O

[PhilG]

My week-old replacement from Play.com went wonky after a Gears session last night - quit to dashboard and the picture and sound disappeared. On/off and nothing, switched the lead to SD and the picture came back, touched the video lead whe switching it back to HD and the picture flickered on and off, so it's gone exactly the way of its predecessor.
Going to send it back to Play for a refund (as its less than 28 days old they'll do it with no hassle), and then pick one up from Currys for convenience of return

[davidcotton]

My week-old replacement from Play.com went wonky after a Gears session last night - quit to dashboard and the picture and sound disappeared. On/off and nothing, switched the lead to SD and the picture came back, touched the video lead whe switching it back to HD and the picture flickered on and off, so it's gone exactly the way of its predecessor.
Going to send it back to Play for a refund (as its less than 28 days old they'll do it with no hassle), and then pick one up from Currys for convenience of return

Just got a 360 from play. Was wondering how good/quick they were with handling returns of this nature?

Cheers

[Jay]

I just sat down to play some Far Cry Instincts Predator on my 3rd 360. I now get "unreadable disc error" every time I try to load my game! It happens when I've booted the game and I try to resume my saved instincts campaign.

Anyone know much about these errors? The fact I can load the game suggests it's not a general hardware error (yet). The disc does appear to have two small (about 6mm) scratched on it - could that be the problem?

EDIT: I can't start a new game or play Evolution, either.

Do the scratches follow the circumference of the disc? ie - are they perfectly circular? Both 360s I've had so far were scratching discs in this way. The first I took back to the shop and was given a new one. When it happened to the second, I sent it back to Microsoft. They've just returned it with a new drive and confirmation that there was a problem with the orginal drive. Now I've just got the hassle of sending my Forza 2 to MS for a replacement.

[PhilG]

Just got a 360 from play. Was wondering how good/quick they were with handling returns of this nature?

Cheers

Within 28 days they offer a refund/replacement. After that I had to resort to Sale of Goods Act to get them to handle it - which they were happy to do once I gave them a Microsoft fault reference.

I've just spent 30 minutes on the phone to the poor sods who man the Xbox 'helpline' - they would only offer a repair or refurb for my new machine (less than 2 weeks old!). Appalling.

So, got my MS ref, called Play, guy was very helpful and entirely sympathetic. I gave him the MS ref, parcel-force will collect on Tuesday and they'll refund me as soon as they receive it at Play. Then I'm off to Curry's for a new one. I really like the 360, but it's a potential nightmare if/when you need it fixing.

[egparadigm]

Do the scratches follow the circumference of the disc? ie - are they perfectly circular? Both 360s I've had so far were scratching discs in this way. The first I took back to the shop and was given a new one. When it happened to the second, I sent it back to Microsoft. They've just returned it with a new drive and confirmation that there was a problem with the orginal drive. Now I've just got the hassle of sending my Forza 2 to MS for a replacement.

No, thankfully my drive is no disc scratcher... yet. It's just a small superficial scratch that runs against the grain of the cd (outer edge towards inner.) I spoke to MS and they said that I should get a replacement disc. Just got to wait for softuk to reply.

My week-old replacement from Play.com went wonky after a Gears session last night - quit to dashboard and the picture and sound disappeared. On/off and nothing, switched the lead to SD and the picture came back, touched the video lead whe switching it back to HD and the picture flickered on and off, so it's gone exactly the way of its predecessor.

If I remember correctly, Play ensured that you returned the whole console and replaced all the accessories? Just wondering if you maybe had a faulty power brick or something. It seems highly unusual that your console would break down with the same symptoms and unusual symptoms at that.

[anephric]

I've just read that this is often a laser calibration error - is it cheap to have somewhere local recalibrate the laser rather than sending it back to MS? I'm getting dirty disc errors in Forza and have generally slow loading.

[anephric]

Hmph. I've read how to do it myself and I don't fancy it. It's not as simple as ripping a DC apart and tweaking the pot.

[Commander Marklar]

My recently returned 360, which had drive issues and had a new motherboard, crashed a few times today literally booting up DiRT. Now I've got the ring of death on a console with 2006.09.10 manufacture date. I've not got many games for it but having to put up with this kind of crap just makes me not want to bother with, sell the lot.

[Charlie]

I know what you mean. Following my experience of the ring of death I seriously contemplated putting an axe through mine (or destroying it in another equally amusing fashion) and buying a PS3 instead, but I quickly realised despite it's technical issues and lack of certain genres it remains my favourite console this generation.

[PhilG]

If I remember correctly, Play ensured that you returned the whole console and replaced all the accessories? Just wondering if you maybe had a faulty power brick or something. It seems highly unusual that your console would break down with the same symptoms and unusual symptoms at that.

Yeah, the whole lot went back to Play, so I got an entire brand new Premium pack. MS acknowledge it as a hardware fault, and Engadget reported it last year: http://www.engadget.com/2007/06/24/x...-output-issue/, so it seems that it's a known but less-common fault.

I suspect it's similar to the RoD GPU issue - the solder on the video output port melts and a contact is broken - if the connector gets wiggled back into contact and then cools it appears 'fixed'. It was damn hot after a couple of hours Gears play.

I'm going into town tomorrow lunchtime to Gamestation to collect a new Premium

[The_G_Man]

Played Forza 2 for first time yesterday and my 360 didn't like it. Screen went all blocky and dark, I also got umpteen disk read errors. Is this the beginning of the end of my launch machine?