When I got my first console, Microsoft still only had the 3 month policy. My warranty was long gone. But as I said, I had several friends with 360 who had insane wait times on return consoles, and they only die again anyways! Microsoft can't change the fundamental problem with the console, because it would result in lawsuits. Essentially an admission of guilt. The x-clamp design stays, and poor cooling only gets band-aid fixes. They have made minor changes over the years, such as adding epoxy to the chip corners, reducing the standoff height underneath the motherboard, extending the GPU heat sink with the heat pipe offshoot. Just as the Seattle PI article says, failures with the 360 are a "rite of passage." I went into it fully expecting it to fail. I would much rather solve the problem on my own time. I just got unlucky the second time around. Third time the charm.
Wrong and wrong. It IS the ANA/HANA encoding chip, it's just relating to motherboard stress/flexing that we all know of and loath. By replacing the x-clamps, you're simply changing the stress on the motherboard, and inadvertently repairing the E74 error in the process. There's a whole mess of videos around showing people just "pushing" on the scaling chip and getting their E74 box to boot again. I wasn't so lucking with mine, as no amount of tinkering would fix it.
As for your "marketing ploy" theory, uhh....no. The failure rate fiasco costs Microsoft billions of dollars. Not to mention hurting their brand name badly. I'm amazed that actually got through this as well as they did. The three year warranty was essentially the greatest public outcry cover up. Another thing you forget, Microsoft do not make ANY money selling the console itself. Neither does Sony with the PS3. It's common practice for companies to subsidize the initial hardware, with the goal being to re-coop the cost on accessories and software. MS LOSE money everytime they sell an Xbox 360, not the other way around.
Forgot to mention, I added passive heatsinks to all extra chips also. Ram, HANA, etc.
http://www.sidewinde...bmfocobgar.htmlI don't care what you say, imo e74 IS! GPU related. I've fixed many consoles using many different methods, some of these involve putting the stock sinks and clips back on... hence no pressure change. I find it hard to believe that I have inadvertantly fixed all these machines by mistake. 99% of the 360's problems lie with the GPU, it just manifests in different ways, depending on what connections are broken.
Yes Microsoft have spent a lot of money and lost their good rep. I was not saying that they intentionally made a broken console. I was saying that they are probably receiving that many ROD units, they might have changed the way they show errors. This is why ROD is down, whilst E74 is up.