I purchased my Xbox 360 during one of the first pre-order sales on 8/23/2005. I then got it about 11/22/2005. As many have experienced a high percentage of Xbox 360 from the first 18-24 months had severe overheating problems to the point of basically destroying themselves. I think every person I know that has a 360 has had it fail at some point, which is a pretty high failure rate, some multiple times. I however to this point had been the “lucky” one. Mine had never really had any issues. This was assumed to be because I had it in a well ventilated rack with a high exhaust fan drawing air out of the larger room into the rack space and out into another room. It seemed the 360 was going strong. Over its lifetime Microsoft extended the warranty on the 360 from 90 days to 1 year on all issues and then to 3 years on just the three red light issue. I thought mine was going to outlive its warranty, but that might not be the case. Over its life I could count the number of lockups on both hands, which is pretty good. Then last week while playing Dead Space (good game) it hard locked several times one night. It seemed to survive and keep going afterwards. Then last night while playing the On the Rain-Slick Precipice of Darkness – Episode Two it locked up again (without letting me save, grr). This time I turned it off and then turned it back on and got what you see to the left and below. I don’t think it is totally dead yet, but it is definitely dying. Now the question is will it die totally for warranty service to accept it before time runs out on 11/22/2008. We will see. Kelly is of course heart broken over the idea I might not get to play Xbox for a while.
