Thursday, March 5, 2009

Xbox Red Rings Finally Defeated?


Everybody who owns an Xbox 360 has the same fear; that one day you will turn on your system and get the dreaded "Red Rings of Death." If you don't know what I'm talking about, the red rings of death is a hardware failure that permanently kills your console. It is noticed by three of the four lights on the power button lighting up and flashing red. This lets you know your system has breathed it's last breath. There was a huge increase in the number own 360 owners who experienced this failure. So much so that Microsoft extended their warranty to 3 years to cover any broken systems.

Well now, it seems that Microsoft has finally fixed this problem that has plagued the Xbox community for awhile now. When your system gets the red rings, you can send it in to Microsoft and they will repair it for you. However, many consumers have reported sending in their console more than one time to be fixed, myself included. So what does Microsoft actually do when you send in your console? And when you get it back, are you just going to have to send it in again? Microsoft's Aaon Greenberg states that "We've improved that [repair] process," though he would not go into detail about it. "It's very quick and they may upgrade your system with the latest technology. So that works really well."

Trying to give more detail, Greenberg tells that "What we do in general, the way it works, is that they will fix it with the latest [hardware] improvements that we've applied to the current Xbox 360's. Obviously we're continuously improving the technology inside the box, not to get too technical. So they'll apply that when they make the increments to your system."

Electronics, especially ones like video game consoles, make continuous hardware improvements. Well the Xbox 360 is no different. The newest hardware installment, code named "Jasper", has reportedly already been released. How does this help with the red rings of death? Greenberg has an answer. "We're seeing great performance out of the current systems, so we're really happy with how they are performing. From friends that have had repairs done as of late, I can tell you from our own initial staff that we're seeing very strong performance from a quality standpoint."

In response to the red rings, Greenberg says, "what it comes down to is isolating and figuring out the issue, and the more that we can fix the issue, and know it's fixed, then we're good going forward. We've put the worst behind us on this, but we know there are a few lagging systems, and so we want to take those and make them right." Greenberg can't tell exactly what the new hardware updates are but, I think it's safe to say that the infamous "Red Rings of Death" are finally a thing of the past.
Article Written By: By Zack Duncan