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They extended warranties for people who bought their consoles prior to a certain date (which probably included all expired warranties, and any others purchased prior to the announcement of the Red Ring bug). But those extensions have since expired, too.

I know because I bought my system in the first year, but didn't play it often enough to get the Red Ring, as others had. So when I finally did get it, my warranty and the extension had long-since expired. I knew this because I had registered my console, so it was already accounted for when I filed my repair claim.

Unless one keeps the 360 on overnight the system shouldn't over heat or let alone get a so- called "ring of death". If you play for a specific amount of hours each day, maybe watch a movie or two on it (or tv show), then give it a breather...there's no reason the system should give anyone problems. Unless you seriously do something to it to cause it to give you any.

My brother in law has had his 360 since the they put out the systems exactly a little over 5 years ago. He might have exchanged hard drives here or there , but other than that hes been in good standards. It might sound odd to some people but its true. I've had mine so far for over a year. Not one problem whatsoever.

I wouldn't say that. Like I said, I've had my system since the year it was released, and I've never run it for longer than three or four hours a day. I've also gone through periods of several months where I didn't play at all. I think that probably postponed my Red Ring, but I still got it.

A friend of mine has had his console for three years, and he plays even less than I do (like, literally, four or five hours a week). I think he finally got his Red Ring about a month ago. Everyone I know has had one.

So I would tell your brother-in-law to be on the lookout. As for you, I think you probably haven't had yours long enough to be in the danger zone (please, no Top Gun jokes). Give yourself another year.

The sad truth is, those metal bushings get dirty, no matter how much you play, and I think the internal fan plays a factor too. I've read that keeping your 360 on carpet also expedites the Red Ring, but I don't know if that's true.

Yeah, I had my 360 since they first came out and this is the first problem I've eveer had with it.
Over the last few years I've watched all my friends eventually get the red ring of death, some more than once, and I've always considered myself lucky so far -- till now.

Not sure I can send it in for repairs though.
It was a gift and I have no receipt.
I assume you need one.

I'll have to find somebody who repairs them.

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Fear the Probe!

You don't need a receipt. Just go to the Flashing Red Lights support page on xbox.com and follow the instructions. You should come to a page that lets you file a claim, which includes typing in your console's serial number and other information.

They'll send you a box with instructions for packing up your console, as well as a label already printed for shipping. When I took it to the UPS Store, the clerk there didn't even have to ask me what was in it. He'd obviously seen these before.

You'll also get email updates telling you when they've received your console, when a technician has started work on it, and when it has been repaired and shipped back to you.

Red Dead is pretty fun, although the MP is really bad. Rockstar clearly didn't learn a thing from GTA's multiplayer.

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To fix the red ring of death without the help of Microsoft....click here.

Sorry, but the launch 360's are prone to over heating, this is why MS lost billions in repairs. Yes, some old 360 are lucky to have not broken down by now. Mine was played a few hours a day, as I was in work more thn not( I was in work sometimes, from 10am one moring till 3pm the next day.) It still red ringed. My Elite, which overheated and get another error because of it, was rarely played on, I used it to chat to my friend while playing WoW. Fact is, the older chip sets in the 360 are more likely to over heat. At one point (for a year or more) the 360 had somewhere are a 30% failure rate on their hardware, when it should have been at most 5%. It's simple to explain why. They rushed the console out. I think that people in MS said that the console wasn't tested properly, or wasn't completed or some crap. It was a while ago. Point is, it's not as simple as play it less and it won't die. I paid £350 for it, I'll play as much as I want, like I have done every console. This Gen is the only Gen I have had problems with consoles braking down. I used to play all my old consoles much much more than the 360 and they never broke down.

M$ are lucky that the 360 is so darned good at what it does and that the competition is only really one other product which is still significantly more expensive (if all you want to do is play games, that is) and arrived long enough afterwards to concede a significant market share. I've had mine for just 18 months and it's not played an awful lot but, in the back of my mind, I'm still waiting for those little lights to change colour just like they have with all my friends' 360s.

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"Critics are like eunuchs in a harem; they know how the Tatty 100 is done, they've seen it done every day, but they're unable to do it themselves." - Brendan Behan

Good thing is, the newwer the 360, the newer the chipset. I thjink the newest 360's have the falcon chip which is supposed to be great for not over heating. I think my 360 has the Jasper chipset, which is meant to be very good, and the overheating is a lot less, but mine managed it.

Mine's a Falcon - The newer ones are Jaspers, I think, which are supposed to be the most reliable. I was reading somewhere recently that all 360s built from April onwards are Jaspers whereas before it was only Arcades and (I think) some Elites. That might be because they've dropped the Pro?

I wouldn't recommend any of the home remedies to fix your 360. Most of them require you to pop open your system and do surgery, and the ones I've seen don't even tell you what you're fixing.

My aforementioned friend got someone to follow those procedures, which repaired the console for only a few days before crapping out again. They even tried cutting a hole in the top of the casing and installing a giant fan to cool the system, but that didn't work either. So rather than spend $100 to get his 360 fixed properly, he'll now have to spend $300 for a new one.

There's also the towel method (wrapping your 360 in a towel), which apparently works... but only for a few hours at a time. Not good enough for me.

The first few suggestions in the link you posted, jrs, actually come from Microsoft anyway, and the video at the end seems pretty suspect to me.

Not as fun as the original trilogy but way better than the fourth part quite easy though it took me total of probably 6 hours to finish it but still Warrior Within is the best of them all

I thought the previous instalment was fun for an hour but then really repetitive. Worth a rental for me, I suppose.

Wow. I wasn't at all excited about Red Dead Redemption until today. I stupidly assumed that it was a sequel to Red Dead Revolver (which I never played), with the same contained gameplay... NOT a GTA-style sandbox game, as I see now that it most definitely is. Damn those Rockstar guys!

I'm thinking I'll barge through Alan Wake over the weekend, and then it's trade-in time.

I had $40.00 credit at Gamestop and just used that towards purchasing Alan Wake. So when the game came out I just picked it up for about $20.00

Heh, I've got £15 worth of Tesco Clubcard points getting posted out to me so I'll probably use them to get Red Dead Redemption for a decent price.

Yeah, Alan Wake feels like a one-and-done, so I'm thinking I can get at least $40 for it to put toward Red Dead Redemption.

I'm actually warming to RDR's multiplayer now, you really have to use the normal aim over the free aim to shoot anything online. It's still pretty broken though

So I think I'll be buying RDR today.....