Ugg, the PR spin MS spits out every time a report of failures surfaces just irritates me. It's not a question of IF your 360 is going to die, but WHEN. I've spent a whole mess of money and time fixing mine.
1st 360, bought June 06: RRoD after 7 months or so. Error 0102 GPU failure. Fixed it myself using RBJ's x-clamp method. Arctic Silver 5 upgrade, etc. Died a second time a week later, so I heatgun revived it a second time. Did RBJ's shroud mod, and closed as many air leaks as I could. Bought the XCM high speed air cooler and addon fan. Even with that, it died again. Fixed clamps again, lasted a while died again. Screw it, time to buy another box.
2nd 360, bought around April 07: X-clamped replaced it as soon as it came in the door. (I didn't want to deal with Microsoft. I had friends send their box in, and get it back 2 months later! Or even the wrong one!) Did all the extra cooling mods...was running peachy. Then.....Error 74. Nothing I could do to fix it. Argh!
3rd 360, bought Oct 07: This unit had the new GPU heatsink. Didn't touch the x-clamps this time. Stuck the XCM cooler in, and then ran it with the lid off allowing ample airflow in but not exactily pretty. When the LianLi XB01 came out, jumped on it right away. Is now installed in that case, with a 12volt mod applied to the 120mm fan. Super quiet, and super cool. Convinced all my friends to invest in that case, and we've all been running them awhile with no problems. At least should you be forced to buy a new 360 now, you only need buy a $200 dollar arcade, and your XBLA content can finally be transferred with that website tool. Labours of love I guess. *sigh*
This post has been edited by wmxp: Mar 21 2009, 12:09 AM