Well, I have received a few questions as to how and why I had 2 xbox consoles so I figured I'd share the drawn out tale of my battle with Microsoft and the dreaded Red Ring of Death!
It began like any other evening. It was dark out, my wife was upstairs watcihng a movie, and I had just put my son to bed. I sat down, popped in Call of Duty: Modern Warfare and began to play some multiplayer. Suddenly, the game started to get kind of grainey and would then freeze. I got up, turned the console off and re-booted it. My console loaded up just fine and I got back into a game only to have the same thing happen again about 5 minutes into the game. After having this happen to me about 5 times, my console decided that it had had enough and boom.... 3 red lights greeted me. I was calm as this was not my first RROD that I had received (first one happened about 1 1/2 years prior on my launch console). So I removed all the hardware and cables and reconnected them, ensuring a firm connection but it provided the same results. 3 red damning lights.
"No Worries", thought I. I called Microsoft's tech support, convinced that it would take mere moments to get a UPS box on it's way to me to send this busted console back for repairs. Sadly, that would not be the case. Unlike my last call for this issue, I received an outsourced customer service rep. Now, I have nothing against people from other nations so please don't take this the wrong way. But one thing that really bothers me about call centers in India is that they cannot think of the fly. Either they can't or won't. They stick to canned responses and have zero knowledge about the produst they are supposed to be providing support for. So, after about 45 minutes of "conversation", she is firm that my warranty on my console is expired and will not cover the RROD. According to the website, my console's warranty had expired 1/12 years earlier. I angrily hang up and marched upstairs to proclaim to my wife that I was going to Target to get a new console.
I drove on down to my local Target, picked up a cheap Arcade console, and brought it home with a fresh warranty. I sat down, hooked it up, got my stuff moved over, and continued to play. THe next day, I logged on to the xbox site and registered the console. When I looked at when it's warranty expired, I noticed that it was in just 1 year. After some further research on the site, I found that the 1 year warranty is the basic warranty but Microsoft was extending the warranty a further 2 years to accomodate Red Ring errors. By that policy, my old console still fit under that warranty umbrella. I started to get heated!
I promptly called Microsoft's tech support and proceeded to explain the issue. Again, I received canned responses from a lady who refused to listen. I explained that they could not apply the policy to one console and not the other and how it was bad business to tell me otherwise. It was plain as day on their records when the manufacturer warranty expires for both consoles and by adding the 2 years for RROD coverage, both consoles fell within that timeframe. After 45 minutes of literally arguing, I asked to speak to a supervisor. When she finally relinquished the phone to one, it took about 5 minutes of explaining before he was setting up a UPS box to be sent to my house for me to send the busted console back.
So, after a few short weeks, my repaired console made it's return and I had 2 consoles. I was unable to return the Arcade console I had bought because I had already opened and registered it. So that, ladies and gentlemen, is how I became the owner of 2 xbox consoles.
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