Get back from vacation, fire up some Geometry Wars 2 and it keeps freezing up.  Then... the RROD twice.  I start to call up M$, and while waiting on hold for over half an hour, I try it again and it's working.  So then I play some GeoWars and some back compat JSRF and everything seems fine, but I know it's just a matter of time now.  Pretty amazing.  You guys think I should try to fully cook it and get it over with or just let it gradually sputter into oblivion? 

Don't give it time to recover. Kill it while it's injured!

Replace xclamp, install new fans/hs, it's fine.

"But emofag, I'm a fucking idiot and don't know how to do that, I don't know how to operate a screw driver!"

Can't help you there bud.

Anyway, you spent more time on the phone with MS than it would have taken to fix it.

Don't call MS, you'll most likely get connected to some muppet who has a menu of responses, but no idea what you are talking about.

If it is the RROD, log in the issue on-line, slap the 360 in a box with the label they e-mail you, and you'll have it back in a week.

It's interesting to me that it happened after I basically took a two-week break from using the thing.  Maybe the longer interval between using it allowed extra time for some of the soldering to become more brittle...? 

What Emo said, only nicer.

Maybe the longer interval between using it allowed extra time for some of the soldering to become more brittle...? 

Nope. The board had time to cool off, and reflex back to it's original location, reconnecting the BGA joins on a corner of your GPU...

...well, either that, or you've got an E74... then you're fucked.

Dude, do NOT listen to anybody who says to fix it yourself.  That's just not sound advice, considering that you can get another one for free from Microsoft.  If you try to fix it yourself, and it turns out that it's a different problem, then you've voided your warranty and NOBODY ON THIS FORUM is gonna buy you a new one!$0$0$0$0I say bake it, get another one.  Easy.$0

Does MS actually send out new ones? I don't trust MS for shit anymore where it comes to fixing/replacing consoles.

Honestly if you can't fix it yourself it'd probably be easier to just go to an xbx community site like xbox scene and find someone locally to fix it for you for cheap, the fix is fairly quick and you'll be ready to go in a day or two.

I have a friend in NY, who I refered to some guy I know from xbx scene who lives in NY and he fixed his console for like 30 bucks, been running fine for a year now, fuck microsoft.

I figure I'll send it in on the chance that I get a Falcon back.  Should only take a week or so to find out, and I'm not in any hurry.  If not, and there are still problems, I'll get it fixed locally.

XS will do an exponentially better job fixing a box than Microsoft ever has. They don't actually fix the problem, they just reset the ticking timebomb to zero, and wait for it to explode again.

RROD Xboxes are cheap anyhow. If this one goes bunk after you try to fix it, pick up a new one from eBay and bolt that one.