michael ciccarelli » freelance web designer

I bought my xBox 360 Premium in May 2008 which was almost 2 years ago and within this time have probably actually only played it for a couple of hours total. The problem with it was of course the infamous 3 Flashing Red Lights Error. After having 1 unit shipped in and replaced by Microsoft, then having the “newer” model, which wasn’t suppose to have the same problems as the earlier models, repaired by a local shop, I’m still dealing with this issue 90% of the time I have the urge to play.

I’ve been staring at my broken console collect dust for the past couple months while I continued to pay monthly for xBox Live, a service which I obviously wasn’t able to use but was too lazy to call Microsoft and cancel my auto-renewal account. With the release of Call Of Duty: Modern Warfare 2, came the urge to jump on the bandwagon and play it, since Call Of Duty was the only game I ever really played on xBox in the past. Needless to say I really wasn’t happy with my xBox and was planning on buying a PS3 with the new COD but I really didn’t want to drop all that money with the holidays coming up so I decided to try my xBox the other night to see if it had any life left. Of course I was able to get through an hour of play with the old Modern Warfare so I figured I’d pick up the new COD for my xBox and hopefully be able to get to play it a bit.

Here I go at the main screen getting ready to jump into some killer action, my xBox is working, everything is cruising along and what happens next…

weeeee!! The infamous 3 RROD and I didn’t even get to play 1 game, shit..

Of course at this point I’m feeling like an idiot for wasting $70 on a game for a system I knew was broken, but for some reason thought it was a good idea. I called up the video game store that I just bought the game from and told him my situation. Told him that I’d come back in right now and buy a PS3 along with COD: MW2 if they gave me the credit back for the 360 game I just bought and opened only an hour ago. Of course they told me no they won’t take back games that have been opened.

So I guess I need to have my 360 fixed again, but in the mean time I still wanting to try out the new game I just bought. So I did the only logical thing to do; disassembled my 360, wet a towel and strategically placed the unit ontop of the wet towel right outside my bedroom door (balcony), stretching the cables into my TV. This method actually worked, I was able to get through a solid 4-5 hours of play without the game locking up on me or the system overheating, which from what I understand is the reason for the 3RROD Error.

Here’s my 360 chilling outside, it’s new home and if it continues to give me trouble will likely be smashed on the near by concrete without any hesitation.