Xbox 360 - What a ride...

[zektor]

Well, I finally jumped the gun and purchased an Xbox 360. I had Dell credit, so decided to order it through them.

It arrived a few weeks ago, just before I had a few days off work. Perfect timing I figured! Well, I hook it all up, boot up, and damnit I have a red light and an error (Error 67 to be exact). Did some research and found that it was the hard drive. I removed the drive, and sure enough the 360 booted right into the interface. This is the point that I started feeling that I made a big mistake ordering this console. I hear all of these horror stories of "red rings of death" all over the net and figure that it just wouldn;t happen to me. I was wrong.

Well, I had the HD replaced. Popped it on, and all seemed to work fine...until I played FEAR. I play for a few minutes, the console freezes. I play again, same deal. Now I am at my wits end, just about ready to return the 360 and forget all of this ever took place. But, I decided to try one more thing.

The HD that I replaced the bad one with had pre-installed a bunch of garbage from Microsoft. Trailers, music, demos, and some other nonsense. I formatted the HD and tried again. Lo and behold, no freezing. I have now been running the system every day for a week, some days all day long (12+ hours) and no freezing. I ended up discovering that sometimes the cache memory needs to be cleared on the HD (from M$ support site) and if not this may cause the system to freeze.

Well, I am sure glad I stuck in there and did not return it. Yes, it did suck to open a brand new unit and have a hardware failure right off the bat, but at least I was able to overcome that issue easily. Now I just hope I never have another issue with the unit.

Even tho all of this had happened, I can honestly say that this is the BEST console I have ever owned. The games are amazing (I am absolutely hooked to Gears of War), the online support fantastic, and sharing my 70+ GB MP3 collection with the unit kicks ass. I also own a PS3, but I think (as of right now at least) the 360 will be consuming most of my game play time.

Just figured I'd share the story with you all. I wonder how many others have had issues like this right out of the box tho?

[Drag0nsfyre]

Congrats on getting aboard the 360 bandwagon. Sorry to hear about your out of the box mishaps. I havn't had a prob with mine at all. I've had a few freeze issues but it was usually due to some online lag during F.E.A.R. (usually when there are alot of people in a single deathmatch) So far though It's been trouble free. Enjoy your new system there are a ton of great games that I've been enjoying and I look forward to some other great upcoming prospects. My most recent purchase was Crackdown and I have really been enjoying that one alot.

[sharkbates]

Just curious. How do you go about clearing the cache??

I was getting freezes with FEAR also and have since put the game away.

thanks ahead for any help.

[Nintendo Gamer]

.....

[petewhitley]

Just figured I'd share the story with you all. I wonder how many others have had issues like this right out of the box tho?

I had that exact same "Error 67" fresh out-of-the-box with my 360. I looked online, found out what it meant, and just took it back to WalMart for a new one. THAT one had actually been used apparently, as it already had a profile on it. I was too burnt out at that point and kept it. No problems since.

[X SMF X]

I used to freeze at random points in Rainbow Six Vegas, both in online multi player and single payer. In some games you can press A while the game is booting up to clear the cache. I have also used this trick that is from their support site to clear the cache and have had no issues.

1. Goto the "System" blade, then click "Memory".
2. Hit the "Y" button.
3. Then Hit "X" twice, then Left Button (LB), then Right Button (RB), then "X" twice again.

[johno590]

I love my 360... My xbox has froze probably 3 or 4 times. It happened 2 times in NFS Carbon, but that game was bought used so that could be the reason?

[Drag0nsfyre]

Just curious. How do you go about clearing the cache??

I was getting freezes with FEAR also and have since put the game away.

thanks ahead for any help.

I havn't tried performing this myself just FYI.
This info was taken from the xbox 360 forum for how it is done.

To perform the function, access 'memory' in the system blade, and then highlight the hard drive. Now press: Y, X, X, LB, RB, X, X. The following message should appear: "Do you want to perform maintenance on your Xbox 360 storage devices?"

The poster goes on to say the following information.

It deletes ur cache and game updates, Dont worry when u place ur game inside it will update and you will get the latest update.

I also saw a thread when searching this out for you with the title "Use caution when clearing your cache" Where some people think they may have lost game progress files etc. I've also seen where some people think it helps while others see no difference at all.

Again, I havn't tried this at all myself. I know that this function has been requested before so maybe MS may put in an official feature to do this in a future console update.

Hope this helps answer your question.

Edit: sorry for the repeat. I just saw that someone already posted how to do this after I posted. ooops

[zektor]

Or, if you have a memory card, you can just copy your profile and saves to it and format the HD like I did. Of course it means you'll have to re-download purchased Xbox Live content again (although you will not have to repurchase it thankfully).

[NE146]

I've gone through three 360's (gave the first 2 of them away to my brother and nephew). Haven't had much problems with each aside from random freezing here and there. It's funny because on my latest one which I just bought this year, every freeze has been on Robotron

[kaedesdisciple]

Congrats on getting it to work. Only freeze-up I've had so far was on Dead Rising, and that was after I'd been at it for quite a while. Since then, well, I don't want to say anything to jinx it...