So my 360 went off for repair again...

[kn]

I bought my first 360 in May of last year.  Within a month, the DVD drive died completely so i sent it off.  Roughtly 3 weeks later I got a new unit that was a new manchine (not a refurb) dated Jun/Jul (can't remember for sure) of 07.  It had the new heatsink added for certain.  After a bit of time, the cooling fan in the rear of the machine started rubbing against the inside of the case.  As the machine warmed up, it went away after about 30 seconds.  Over time, it got longer and longer to go away until recently it didn't.  I could press on the rear of the case and the noise would get extremely loud or quiet altogther depending on where I pressed.  I finally got annoyed enough and called MS for a repair ticket.  The first person told me that's normal.  I hung up and dialed until I got a person that speaks the queen's english.  That person also started down the road of "that's normal".  I said hang on a sec and let the person listen to the fan grind from the rear.  I asked if he feld that screech was normal.  He agreed it was not and ordered up a coffin. 

Obviously Microsoft is now "ahead" of the game.  I sent my machine in the middle of last week and it arrived today.  Less than a week turnaround.....  Obviously the received it and shipped a new unit out the same day...  I'm in Texas so the repair center is one day away...

I'm kind of disappointed in what I got back... It's a 9/2006 manufacture date and definitely I've returned to a noisy DVD.  The fans are very, very quiet -- can't hear 'em, but the DVD grinds and chirps a lot more than my 07 build unit.  It does have the new heatsink in it so it's clearly a reworked unit, but I think it would make sense to trash the top side of the case and give it a new serial number along with a "remanufacture" date.  I'm not terribly confident this one will last as I suspect that it has the older DVD that is prone to failure and scratching disks.  It does rattle which worries me so I guess we'll just have to see.

Unfortunately, I bumped my last 360 while it had a disc spinning in it (my eternal sonata) and I heard a ghastly noise.  I pulled out the disc and sure enough, a nice, big scratch all the way around the outer rim.  I'm not sure how MS's replacement disc warranty works, but I think it is only on MS published titles so I'm probably hosed.

We'll see how it goes... I still like the games, but man, MS's subcontract manufacturers really blew it in the quality department and I very much suspect the single reason why the 360 didn't do considerably better over the last year...

This is not a thread to bash the hardware as the newer revisions seem to be holding up.  I still like my 360 as there are just too many games i have yet to play.

Back to my hole.