My Broken Xbox Story

[Chris F]

Well, this tale begins a week ago when I first purchased "Enter The Matrix".

 

(Bear in mind this is my SECOND Xbox, as my launch XBox suffered a smiliar fate 5 months after I bought it.)

 

When I first tried playing the game, it crashed on me three time. Each time my Xbox seemingly reset itself, kicking me out of the game and to the Microsoft Xbox startup screen. I figured it was a fluke, and well, basically ignored it.

 

Flash back to Saturday evening. I bought Burnout 2, and was playing it. Same thing happened. And while my friend was playing Enter The Matrix, he got rebooted as well on my Xbox. Still I'm ignoring the issue... Must be a fluke.

 

Now it's Sunday morning, I get up, first thing my father says "Chris, the Xbox is broken." He was playing WSB and it rebooted, locked up, and he couldnt eject the disc. He was finally able to get it out, and didn't use the Xbox for the rest of the morning.

 

Well at this point I'm thinking that the years warranty I got from EBGAmes really came in handy, since I can just go back return my XBox, and get it replaced with a brand new one! Thankfully, I still had two weeks left on the warranty! I trekked up to the closest EBGames with my broken Xbox and warranty in hand...

 

This is where the story goes downhill... :x

 

The employee tells me, well, since I have an older Xbox, before the bundles came out, the SKU number is different. So they can only replace it with an Xbox with the same SKU. So luckily, they pull an XBox out of the back that is one of the original Xboxes. At this point I'm very hesitant because the manufacturing date is EARLIER than the Xbox that just broke, and the fact that they're sending back all the old Xboxes (that's what I overheard). They can't give me one of the new bundled ones because they're a different SKU.

 

I didn't put up much a of a fight. I buy a years extended warranty on the new Xbox. I figured if the Xbox worked, I wouldn't care about the manufacturing date.

 

I get home from EBGames, set it up. Now my setup consists of: a Cat5 network cable (for Xbox Live), a Monster Game S-Video cable, and teh standard power cable supplied by Microsoft with the Xbox.

 

I put in Wolfenstein... I go through a few menus... Xbox reboots. :evil:

 

I try setting up my Xbox Live account using my Xbox Live CD... Installs fine... But now the power won't shut off on the Xbox... I have to physically unplug the Xbox to get the power off. The Xbox does eject discs fine though.

 

Now I'm thoroughly pissed off. I call Microsoft, and explain the issue. How could I possible get two Xboxes with the exact same issue happening?! After a few minutes, I start to think that perhaps it's not the XBoxes fault, but one of the components. I discount the Cat5 network cable, because I seriously doubted it would cause an issue(s) like this. I discount the power cable, since I have everything through a surge protector, and nothing else is being affected by this.

 

Which leads me to... The Monster Game S-Video Cable. Well, I have no way to test this, since my Xbox still won't shut off, and it impossible to change the video cable and test it now.

 

Well, after a call to EBGames... I can bring back the "new" broken Xbox, and they'll give me a refurb model, IF I don't want to take one of the old stock of Xboxes with the original SKU.

 

Well, after consulting with my father, we decide to: Eat the loss, trade-ion the "new" broken Xbox, put that credit towards a new model, bundled Xbox. I take the trip up to EBGames, finish the transaction, purchasing a Microsoft branded S-Video cable, a Monster Brand surge protector, and a 2 year warranty.

 

I come home, hook all the new stuff up, and voila. No issues. Everything works perfectly.

 

Well, we lost money on the deal, and I'm pretty sure I got shafted, and I should have fought more, but I was just exhausted of going three Xboxes since launch, and the fact that I still can't figure out what was causing the issues. Although I'm starting to suspect the Monster Games Cables, because that was the one thing that was constant through my owner ship of three Xboxes. :cry:

 

At least I got a second S-Controller out of the deal, and I've got a copy of JSRF/Sega GT 2002 if any of you would like it.

[Sherbz]

Did you also lose all your saves? Or did you transfer them to a memory card?

[Chris F]

Oh yeah... I forgot that part.

 

I never bought a memory card. So I lost all my saves. :oops:

 

And I forgot to buy one when I was there buying my new Xbox!

[kelley]

My first Xbox had some weird issues, it would randomly erase the HD when powering on the unit.

[Buck]

The employee tells me, well, since I have an older Xbox, before the bundles came out, the SKU number is different. So they can only replace it with an Xbox with the same SKU. So luckily, they pull an XBox out of the back that is one of the original Xboxes. At this point I'm very hesitant because the manufacturing date is EARLIER than the Xbox that just broke, and the fact that they're sending back all the old Xboxes (that's what I overheard). They can't give me one of the new bundled ones because they're a different SKU.

 

I'm assuming that when you purchased the Xbox with the warranty it was new? If so, then you shouldn't have got the runaround about different SKU #'s, they should have handed you a brand new Xbox, different SKU or not.

 

Either way, the main thing is that you've got a working Xbox again so you can host those 16 player games of RTCW :wink:

[Chris F]

Well, I'm going to write EB Corporate, and let them know of the situation. Maybe they'll do something for me, I don't know...

 

As long as I have an Xbox that works, I don't care. I'll just have to start working on unlocking everything in my game colleciton that I lost on my hard drive. No worries. :?