I thought I’d escaped the curse of the fallen 1st wave of 360’s but alas even mine has succumbed to a fatal flaw. Quite randomly at first but then with more frequency certain light colours of the screen started going yellow. The dashboard was yellow, games were yellow and it’d come and go as it pleased. Then it was fine for a week. Now it’s flickering yellow.

I tried the wires connecting it to my HDTV, I even bought a second wire but it’s still yellow. My Wii on the same TV is fine so it’s defiantly the 360 that’s broken.

All this comes at the very start of a two week holiday from work. It’s my birthday Saturday too and I’m getting COD 4 (finally!). So I’m probably going to buy a new console and sell bits of my old one as spares. Mine, being bought on launch day is way past warranty and I still want a 360 to play while I’m off work for 2 weeks.

It’s annoyed me because none of my other consoles have died; from Master System to Dreamcast, PS2 and beyond. My PS2 has had the worst beat down ever and still functions like it should. £200 for a new premium console is *very* annoying.

Here’s hoping my new generation 360 (now with HDMI slot!) lasts the test of time.

I’m off work for 2 weeks.

Do you work for Chrysler.

If you can get it to produce 3 red rings, warranty is still up, the extended it to 3 years.

towel her up

I really would try and kill the thing but I' d still be 360-less while I was off work. I suppose I could buy a second, kill my first and then try to get it fixed for free... so I could sell it for more than just the spare parts and Hard Drive...

Oh and mikayd2, no I work for Northern Rock... so I might soon be getting a permanent unpaid holiday, if you get me.

I' d suggest a potential repair method, but it sounds like you' ve got scaler failure, and the success rates for DIY solder reflowing is quite poor, so I wouldn' t bother voiding your warranty. I don' t condone warranty fraud, so I won' t post anything to ring out your box effectively. Check your PM inbox anyhow.

Here’s hoping my new generation 360 (now with HDMI slot!) lasts the test of time.

Having an HDMI slot doesn' t assure you' ve got the new 65nm process Falcon chipset/heatsink combo necessarily, especially if you' re buying stock that' s been on shelves for a while. If you do decide to buy one, tell the clerk that you' d like to look at the box before purchasing. If they want to make the sale, they won' t object.

Take a look at the bar-code sticker on the back bottom righthand (?) side of the box. You should see bar codes, serial numbers and all kinds of groovy things.

First find the manufacture date. Somewhere in mid-August they stopped manufacturing the old mobo/heatsink combo. If it' s before, or even in August, I wouldn' t take it.

Next look at the LOT number; should be on the righthand side of the sticker. You want a box that is at least from LOT#734, if not higher.

The same sticker will tell you what your PSU wattage is. The Falcons distinctively have a 175w PSU.

If you can get all three of these, you' re golden, if you can only get an August box with the right LOT and PSU figures, you' re still good too.

I went out and got me a new 360 earlier today. Traded in some games I didn’t play anymore and got the price down to £147 for the Premium console, which is very good. I can' t find the manufactures date of the thing but the LOT number is 744 and it does have a 175w PSU.

I’ve yet to open it as I’ve been testing out my old 360 just to make sure it really is dead. I left it alone yesterday after the screen went yellow and flickered. Today there’s no picture coming from the thing what so ever. I’ve tried it on two TV’s via the component cable and AV and while there’s sound the picture is just blank. It’s well on its way to death.

Thanks for the advice Eddie. My mind is more at rest that this new 360 won’t suffer a similar fate, at least not as fast.

Even if I do somehow get the old one working again I can sell it off on e-bay or something to recoup my losses.