The Ring of Death

For those of you who game, you are probably saying "DAAAMMMMNNN!" or "Oh that sucks!" or maybe even "I told him to get a PlayStation 3". Well regardless what you are may have been thinking in your head, I have thought of worse if not the same things. One thing for sure is that I added a few more expletives, mostly starting with "F" and ending in "K".

For those of you who are not gamers, what you see above is what Microsoft imaginatively refers to as "Three Flashing Red Lights on the Xbox 360 Ring of Light" or what gamers have more concisely termed "The Ring of Death."

Xbox officially describes the cause of the ROD to be a "hardware failure". The customer service representative (who apparently had a wicked cold cause he kept sneezing and sniffling as we spoke on the phone) informed me that a common cause for this "failure" is due to overheating. He informed me that if my Xbox is plugged into a surge protector or extension cord, this could cause the console to overheat. So his suggestion was to plug the Xbox console directly into the wall and consider an cooler for the console.

This quick diagnosis was promptly followed by a service request number and he informed me that Xbox will repair and/or replace my system free of charge. Easy as that, no questions asked. Thanks Bill! If only everything were so easy!

So all you Xbox-ers out there, make sure to unplug your consoles from your well intentioned surge protectors. I'm going to look into getting an intercooler (nyko has a good one) once I get my repaired console back in about 3 to 5 weeks. Until then, see you on the PSP!