The Breakdown
After about three weeks of near flawless performance my Xbox 360 suddenly stopped working. It was quite strange, really, because just that morning and afternoon I had logged 2-3 hours on Need for Speed Most Wanted and Condemned and it worked just fine. When I went back to play again later in the evening, Need for Speed froze on me. I shrugged it off and tried it again with the same result. I tested every game I had and every single one of them froze up within five minutes. I didn’t get any error messages or ring of light warnings, everything just froze. The dashboard wouldn’t even work for longer than about ten minutes before freezing. Very bad times.
1-800-4MY-Xbox
If this happens to you, all you can really do is call up 1-800-4MY-XBOX and tell them the problem. They’ll ask you a few questions (name, address, Xbox 360 serial number, what the problem is) and they’ll figure out how to go about fixing it. Usually they just send you a box via DHL and you ship it back to them. Different problems require different parts to be sent back (some just the system, others require the system + hard drive + power supply). Everything is sent with next day delivery and MS pays for all of the shipping. You are also given a confirmation number you can use to track the status of your repairs.
For the most part, people have had good experiences with support and getting their system back in a timely manner. Be warned: you will be put on hold for extended periods of time because Microsoft is getting swamped with calls. Just be patient. Once you get through to someone, the rest of the process is fairly painless.
NOTE: My experience was slightly different than what most people will have. Rather than just calling 1-800-4MY-XBOX, I instead contacted my PR rep for Microsoft. He set me up with a support ticket and a few days later I got a phone call confirming my address and Xbox 360 serial number. One of the perks of being a member of the press – they called me instead of me having to call them and be put on hold for an hour. After that I got my box overnighted to me I sent my 360 back to them the next day and a mere 3 days later I had my 360 back.
Timeline
- December 10th – System starts freezing on everything.
- December 15th – Received phone call to confirm my info
- December 16th – DHL delivered empty box
- December 19th – DHL picked up Xbox 360 and shipped it to Texas for repairs
- December 22nd – Replacement Xbox 360 was delivered
A few things of note: My timeline is a bit skewed since I didn’t call support directly and some things fell on weekends which made the process go a little slower than will likely happen for you. The main thing is that the time from me sending my system in to getting one back was a mere three days. I’m not saying it will go that quick for everyone, but it is obviously possible wo keep your hopes up.
The reason for the quick turn around time is because Microsoft just gave me a new system rather than trying to fix the old one. It also came with a brand new hard drive (and people have been reporting that even if they had a core system to begin with Microsoft has been giving everyone a new hard drive …). Don’t worry about losing all of your progress if you have to send in your hard drive and they give you a new one. Your achievements, marketplace downloads, and game saves (I think …) are tied to your Gamer Profile so as long as you are an Xbox Live user you can recover everything.
Bottom Line
Overall, I’m pretty happy with the service. I got my system back reasonably quickly and can get back to work. Or at least I could if DOA4 would ever make it out … Browsing through some forums there are horror stories out there of being on hold for an hour and then getting hung up on or receiving a system that was also broken, but most people have reported good service and were able to get back into gaming very quickly. And that really is the most important thing, isn’t it?
