It has finally happened, my poor Xbox360 is flashing those infamous 3 red LEDs and won't power up any more :(
As a first generation unit I knew it carried the design flaw that has caused all other early hardware versions to fail but my luck has held out so far - probably because I don't use it all that often and only game for an hour or two in a single session.
It must be an early console because I remember buying it just after the first Christmas it was released (in the UK) and they were in rather short supply. By chance I happened to see my local Argos store had one in stock so I reserved it quickly and raced down to pick it up.
It's had an interesting life. Apart from sitting underneath my TV in the UK, I've also taken it abroad with me several times when I've been away for long periods. It's survived several international airports, baggage handlers, aircraft holds and being generally thrown around in suitcases. On one memorable occasion I left the hard disk in the hotel safe after checking out and had to rush back by taxi to collect it on the day of my flight - I couldn't possibly leave behind my game saves!
Last week, after a firmware upgrade, it started freezing / locking up solid and the only way to recover was to press the power button. After messing around with removing the hard disk and clearing the cache it seemed to improve, but I can't help wondering if this was a warning sign. After a fairly long gaming session (about 2 hours), I powered it down as normal but then it wouldn't start up again the next evening.
Really gutted. Was working my way through the excellent Portal 2 from Valve.
What now? I've ordered a tube of Arctic Silver 5 heatsink compound and a RRoD repair kit (aka an overpriced bunch of screws and washers) and I'll have a bash at a temporary repair. To be honest, I wouldn't mind a new one - at least the DVD drive will be an order of magnitude quieter and I'll get a HDMI connector.
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