‘Red Ring of Death’: BBC Watchdog Highlight XBox 360 Issue

View at Digital-Lifestyles (alpha remix)
Last night the BBC Consumer TV programme, Watchdog, had a pop at Microsoft and the XBox 360 over its reliability.

BBC Watchdog Highlight XBox 360 'Red Ring of Death'Many of the people who had purchased X360’s were finding that their machines were failing a short time after one-year warranty period had expired. The BBC say that 250 of them had contacted Watchdog to complain.

The most common cause of failure? The “Red ring of death” that indicates that their Xboxes have become Ex-boxes. The name comes from the front panel of the X360 which shows three flashing red lights, where normally there are green. If all of the lights but the first section are flashing, this indicates a general hardware failure has occurred.

When Xbox fan-boys contact Microsoft, they’ve been told that they have to shell out £80-85 to get their little dream machines fixed, as they out of warranty - even if it is just a little.

Many are attributing this failure to the machines running too hot. Anyone who has played the X360 will know that those babies run _loud_, due to the significant amount of fan-age they require to keep them running cool enough.

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