My repaired 360 should be getting back today.  Happened to me before Halo 3 released too.

I think the new 360 slim looks pretty reliable, and apparently you cant get RROD on it, so why not just get the cheap arcade model and pop your old HDD in.

I had the E68 turned out the Hard Drive was not clicked in correctly (ooops!) although this does not sound like your problem but from what I can gater if the PSU is functioning correctly and has no error condition then the HDD can be a good candidate.

I most certainly will be keeping the shrinkwrap on when I use my console.

Consoles have been shitty this gen.  My PS3's laser is crapping out on me.  My Wii's GPU is damaged.  My friends 360's dvd drive died (I repaired it and its mine now Mwhahahahhaha)

PS3s are pretty far from immune to burning out.

I was willing to write off my original 60GB model as dying from "normal use" if such a thing were possible under two years, but not entirely unreasonable considering it was Folding for an unbroken stretch of about 6 months, 24/7, when not being used for games or movies. Less than 10,000 hrs of total runtime most likely.

But, my brother's 40GB SKU died just under the 2 year mark as well (same exact YLoD), which I could write off due to being one of the initial production run models of the scaled down, cheaper to manufacture (read: made cheaper) revised hardware, but... I really don't need to make excuses for SCE.

That's two PS3s I've eventually sent in for a $170 repair. One which cost $600, and the other which was $400. Neither of which lived to reach 2 years.

Ironically, my early production (mid 2007 Zephyr model) 360 has run without any hardware problems since I bought it back in the summer of 2007. Of course, it goes for weeks (over a month) without being turned on, so it's not a valid comparison by any means.

look on craigslist for a repair person, dime a dozen on there. sometimes repairs as cheap as $30....Then promptly sell it on craigslist before it breaks again in 3 months. I was dumb enough to get my ps3 fixed and then decided to keep playing it and it died 3 months later and the standard reflow didn't work so I sold it for $150 broken....could've gotten $300 for it while it was working....In summary, $30 fix gets you twice the value, but I highly recommend you sell it as these are temporary fixes.

Sometimes lighting does strike twice I guess.

I'd put in a work order and send them in for repair anyway. The MS service department is so adept at handling broken Xboxes, I'd be surprised if they even blinked twice about a couple more busted systems. Plus you can always work that angle over the phone if you call the service department: original owner, two broken Xboxes in two days? Come on. If you didn't get an apology over the phone I'd be surprised.

Besides, unless you're going to try fixing them yourself, what are you going to do with them? Do you really need 2 door stops?

I guess you're right. I'll put in a work order on both of them. Theres no harm in trying, at worst they'll just send them back unrepaired right?

Just do it online. Dont do over the phone.