Last night I was playing gears 2. Yay!
Right before I turned off my Xbox for the night, the fans started going louder than I'd ever heard them before. Ugh.
I just went to turn on my 360 today. Fans were BLARING from the get go. Ugh.
I turned it off, then back on. FANS WERE LOUD. And... 2 red lights and a blank screen. BOO!

I'm freakin out. What is this? Can I fix it? Everything I've read has said it's an overheating problem, but the air coming from the fans was cool and I have my box VERY well ventilated (all sides, bottom is resting on a wire shelf, ventilating it from below as well). I also read dust problems, so I sucked as much dust out of it as I could with my home vacuum (using the proper attachment, of course). Dunno if that helped, because I'm too scared to turn on my Xbox and have it give me 3 red lights...

Help?

sorry. ive never encountered that problem.

*knocks on wood*

So I called Xbox support, they said it's an overheating problem. They're sending me stuff so I can send it in to get repaired (thank god it's still under warranty for a month!)

BUT THEN! In preparation of sending it off, I turned it on to open the disc tray to make sure I hadn't left a disc in the system. turned it on via controller, got the red lights, and was unable to open the tray. Okay, I turned it off again, then turned it on by pressing the open tray button on the front of the system. The tray opened, it booted up, and I was at the dash! I was able to sign into live, everything was dandy for a minute or two, then the fans started up again. Scared, I shut the system off.

What do you guys think? Should I see that brief turn on as a glimmer of hope, or suck it up and stare at the brand new (some still unplayed) games I've bought over the past weeks and send the thing off?

*EDIT* I just tried to turn it on again--no dice via controller, then when I tried the tray-power-up again, the tray got stuck half-way out and now I can't power it on again to shut the thing. Anyone know a way I can gently get it back in? I don't want them to have to fix a busted disc tray AND the boot up problem.

And yeah, after that I'm def sending it to M$. I want a working 360, damnit. And no need to make the problems worse.

*EDIT 2* I waited a bit, then managed to get it to turn on again so I could get the tray in. I'm so sad! I can TASTE the awesome games But even though it boots 10% of the time, those lucky times are cut short by that crazed fan. Even though it turns on sometimes, I should still send it in, right?

It's gonna be hard to put my 360 in a box to send it away

*cries*

This post was last modified: 11-21-2008 04:52 PM by happynoodleboy.

send it off. youre already receiving the prepaid box anyway.

That sucks big time. One of the best systems out there has to be plagued. Even though I'm a Nintendo loyalist, there's no denying that the 360 is one damn good system.

Yeah man, it's (well, it was, and will be again "before christmas" said the support guy) my lifeblood. My other consoles are secondary Guess I'll have to switch to the second string (my PS3). Good thing I just picked up Valkyria Chronicles.

Or I could just commence my summer Chrono Trigger play through early.

don't forget you can keep in touch with your 360 friends list on xbox.com, Its quiet handy, i was queueing downloads at work, i got home and all the demo's were done.

yeah its overheat, maybe you can try the towl trick and get a few hours of game play in if you want.

Yeah, I had a "sort of" same type of issue. Mine was with my power cable thing overheated. Got boxed up and some of the inside melted so said Microsoft. Sent it to them and they fixed it, didn't even have to send my Xbox in, just the cord. XD

don't forget you can keep in touch with your 360 friends list on xbox.com, Its quiet handy, i was queueing downloads at work, i got home and all the demo's were done.

Oh, I know--I just sent everyone a message detailing my situation.

Yeah, when I was on the phone they asked me to check the power cord. It was fine, of course. And the 360 definitely did NOT overheat--I was always so damn paranoid of this happening I babied it like whoa. I had it upright, on a wire shelf to allow airflow to all sides, bottom included, it had 9" on the most crowded side (all of the others had 1' or more), I kept the power brick off of the floor to prevent dust buildup or heating from the carpet, I used compressed air on the thing DAILY. And when it finally died and gave me the "I'm overheating" lights, the air the fans were pumping out was cooler than the room's temperature.

Damnit.

*EDIT* Oh, also, in case they just send me a new one and don't actually fix my system, how does one go about relicensing all of their DLC? I don't have to send them my hard drive or any cords/accessories, just the system itself, so I'll have it all downloaded, but won't I have to do something so it'll all work on my new console?

This post was last modified: 11-22-2008 12:33 PM by happynoodleboy.

Nah. Your HDD is where it's all at, the console just makes it all run. As long as you have the HDD you don't have to worry about a thing.

this happened to me when i put a fan on it, the fans inside went crazy nd i got 2 red rings so i took it off

Well, in my desperation last night, I tried to turn it on... It booted once, the fans started going crazy about 2 minutes in, and upon a second reboot, I got a nice E 74 error with one red light in the bottom right quadrant. *SIGH* Should I update my service order, or will they figure it out? I'm sure they have to test the thing anyway... I'll just leave a little post-it on it when I send it: "Hey, FYI, it'll turn on SOMETIMES, just wait 2 minutes. Also, went from 2 red lights to E 74 error."

Yeah, but I thought it was licensed to your console's serial number for the purposes of offline play...

I don't believe so, I've played my HDD on my friends consoles plenty of times,

Yeah, but were you offline?

Also, should I update M$ to tell them I've gone from two red lights to one in the bottom right with an E 74 error?

nah. they dont care. once they do a once-over on your console, they'll immediately ship out your refurb console. they only check to make sure the console is actually busted.

Nah, we were online playing Halo.

Umm send it in and they will return it in about two weeks they have gotten quite fast.

Also you need to re liscense your stuff and its very easy. The xbox comes with intructions for it but you can do it as well by just redownloading all the downloads you have. What will happen is it just downloads a new license because the file is already there. Takes a little time but its painless in the end.

Two weeks, eh? That's not bad! They said three weeks, but maybe they're just saying that to cover themselves in case it takes longer than 2?

As for redownloading... I guess I COULD do that, but I have some stuff downloaded that isn't on the marketplace anymore and doesn't even show up on my download list anymore, so if there's a way for M$ to do it themselves and relicense even the stuff I can't download anymore, I'll go that route.