8 posts tagged “xbox”

So, my Xbox 360 red ringed today, and I thought my widely unused Vox blog would be a great place to document my attempts to get it fixed, hopefully via Microsoft.

So, a little backstory. I got this 360 for Christmas 2006. Ran great, loved the thing. No problems what so ever. While my friends who have had theirs at launch are on their second or third 360's, I'm loving mine.

Yesterday, I boot up MLB 2k7, and it tells me there is an update. I download the update, everything goes well. Go back to playing the baseball, and then everything goes to hell.

There are these bizarre graphical artifacts all over the screen. I escape to the dashboard, and its the same there. Rebooting fixes the problem, but it happens everytime in MLB 2k7, about 15 minutes in.

I assume its the recent update, so I clear the cache and try to backdate the updates. Works good. I play some Hitman Blood Money. No problems, back to the good Xbox 360. Then, I get the same graphical artifacts, albeit, a little differently, in Hitman.

Since this is now a 360 problem, not a MLB 2k7 problem, I turn to my unlimited research library (aka google) and start searching for problems. I quickly discover, that this problem is semi-to-less common, and its usually caused by the heatsink on the GPU overheating. Since the GPU isn't 'critical' thats why it can spazzz out and the little red ring finder doesn't trip for it.

The most common cause seems to be too much dust in the bottom air intake. So, people exchange stories of using compressed air or small vaccums to clear the dust off the heatsink. I decide to do this, but since its late, I wait for today.

I wake up this morning, decide to try it, and uh noes, I get a red ring. Lower right quadrant. E74 error, which is...

A) Bad AV Cables (not true, I tried them with my two sets of cables. Same Problem)
B) Scaler Chip Error
C) GPU Error

Considering I don't want to void my warranty by opening up my Xbox 360 to try to install some cheap Chinese GPU or Scaler Chip, I'm forced to try to call Microsoft.

Its June 30th, 2007. Has of now, my Xbox 360 is dead, with the red rings. I am going to contact Microsoft later today, and hopefully they'll give me a free-shipping-free-repair deal, since mine is under warranty, and I didn't put mayo in the DVD drive or anything.

(Thats my little journal thing that will hopefully make up the majority of the Xbox is Dead things. Notice how I bloded the text, right? Nice, I know.)

Hmmmm....

When I plug my USB keyboard into my Windows PC, it takes roughly 5-10 seconds for Windows XP to recognize the keyboard, and then boot up the drivers for it. When I plug my USB keyboard into my Xbox 360, the integrated verison of Windows CE instantly recognizes it, and I can start typing right away.

Shouldn't the fully functioning verison of Windows let me use the keyboard faster? Oh well. Has are the mysteries of life.

Short interlude from my opinions on tech...

It just snowed 10" here, and they've canceled the school day. My poor mom still has to go to work. For me, a day of laying around, playing my Xbox and listening to podcasts. Not a bad day at all.

In a much sadder and serious note, CNET (formerly of TechTV) personality James Kim and his family are missing after a trip to Oregon. They had some real nasty weather there this week, so hopefully his family and him are in a hotel somewhere, and his cell phone is drained and he forgot his charger or something. Real sad story. Here's the CNET link. CNET editor James Kim, family missing

Two of my friends, Jake and Bryan, stood in line for PS3's. Stupid? Maybe. We report, you decide. Anyway, I talked with both of them about their experience, and they both told similar stories.

Both of them stood inline for the Xbox 360 last year, and had good things to say about it. They said it was friendly, people playing DS, playing football, joking around, talking about what games to get, and letting people freely leave line for bathroom breaks and getting food from parents and friends in the parking lot.

Fast foward one year, and they said the PS3 line was less friendly. No joking, no football, no DS (or PSP) and arguments if you leave the line and come back ("Hey! That guy was behind me! Get back there you bastard!"). My friend Bryan said a big argument broke out between two groups of people, those people selling it to eBay, and the group who were buying it to play it.

Why is this? Well, my first thought, probably due to my anti-Sony slant the past few months, was that Playstation fans are jagged, and (pardon my French) assholes, compared to Xbox fans, but, maybe there is another angle to this.

Sony has made the PS3 out to be rarer than gold. News stories of people fetching $3000+ on eBay and this being hailed the console to end all consoles have all created a frenzy about this new console. Add in the Wii and this massive Holiday '06, and its kind of a general anxiety.

For now, I'm happy with my PC and Xbox 1.  I plan to upgrade both to a faster PC and a Xbox 360, but for now, thats good. (I recently ordered the game Oblivion. Has a fan of its prequel, Morrowind, I'm really excited. Because I had $25 to burn, and I'm impatient, I got Amazon.com next-day shipping. Coming tomorrow, ordered on Sunday. Heh heh.)

I've even got more thoughts on the Wii, where I think its going, and just thoughts. Stay tuned, same Vox time, same Vox channel.

What's on your Top 5 video games list?
Submitted by mileena.

Easy... well, not so.

1. Half-Life (PC, Valve)
2. Halo (Xbox, Bungie)
3. Hitman: Contracts (PC, IO Interactive)
4. Madden NFL 2004 (Xbox, EA Sports) (The last good madden)
5. The Sims 2 (PC, Maxis)

After a lengthy conversation with my friend about the OPM "closing" and me blaming Sony, he brought up an issue I never thought of. Blu-ray.

Has I speculated, OPM probably was doing horribly, and they have those demo disks. Honestly, I don't like demo disks. I've got a few from PC Gamer, OXM and some other magazines, and they aren't that great. They seem so... PS1-era. I don't know, its hard to explain my dislike of demo disks.

Anyway, we all know that Sony's online plan for the PS3 is junk. It supposed to be like Xbox Live... but better... and free. Yeah, right. Anyway, they couldn't finish it before launch, and now, Resistance is shipping with its own game-only online system, a lot like the PS2's online that everybody hated. If the PS3 had a real online system, they could offer download able demos, like XBL, which I would say is better that those damn demo disks.

I'm wayyy off topic. Back ON topic now, my friend thinks the cost of a Blu-ray is too much for a demo disk, and since all the Sony fanboys love their OPM demo disks, Uncle Ziff is worried that they won't buy it. Oh hum.

I'm not positive, but didn't something like this arise when the PS2 and Xbox came out, then the DVD was the format of choice? I mean, I think somebody told me that demo disks for the 7th Generation of Consoles wouldn't happen because DVD's were so darned expensive.

Well, Blu-rays will either fail or become the next big format, and the price will go down. So, despite my hatred of the Blu-ray format, I can't blame that on OPM's demise.

My friends also brought up another point. I have become very anti-Sony in the past few months. I mean, I ripped their throats out on the battery recall, on the PS3's overall design, on the PS3's price, on the rumored price of the PS3 games, on just about everything, including Blu-ray? I thought OPM was the weakest of the 1UP Group's print offerings (yes, even GCW, which I ignored for a rival PC gaming magazine), and when I suspect Sony shutting them down, I suddenly defend them. How did I come such an anti-Sony guy? Who knows. I think its just a reaction, since everybody thinks the PS3 will be teh rock, and I naturally think it'll be the worst of the "big three", so I'm going into defensive mode. Oh well, I think I'll be proven right on PS3, Sony and Blu-ray. I doubt the general public will ever know.

Oddly enough, I didn't like OPM, but I subscribed to their podcast feed so I can hear their thoughts on the closing, but thats the only reason. I don't own a PS2 (my suffered a terrible accident after 2 weeks) and I don't plan on getting a PS3, but I want to hear the staff's comments.

This is what THEY should do. Go the shock jock route and totally bitch out everybody who canceled OPM and name names and give reasons. Well, they probably don't want to burn bridges with Ziff, but honestly, I think that would be going out in a blaze of glory.

Then again, that would be a hell of a bad job reference when they try to go get a job at some other magazine.

Well, let me just make a short note, ATI and AMD announced they're working on a CPU/GPU hyrid, called Fusion. Fusion, is one of my favorite words. For English class, we had to do a creative writing thing, and I wrote this 100-page SAGA where I was the CEO of a video game/internet property/media company called Fusion. I think AMD should pay me royalties.

Yeah, right. Well, I have no idea how this Fusion thing will work, they'll have to have some special chipset on the motherboard, or have their own motherboard. If they have the GPU PCI based or something, then they'll need some kind of chipset, if its integrated into the motherboard, they'll need their own motherboard which AMD isn't into. It'll be interesting to see what they'll do. I'm a bit of a NVIDA and Intel fanboy, so I hope these AMD and ATI... or AMD/ATI... or just AMD goes bankrupt, but whatever, the unbiased part of me wants to see how, technically, they pull this "Fusion" off.

This wasn't the point of my post. The point is, Sony's Playstation 3, Microsoft Vista Home Premium or Apple's iTV? Which will become THE way to watch computer based content on the television?

Faults? The Playstation 3 will only stream off of the PSP, if I'm right, and thats bad. For Vista, you need a whole computer set up to your TV, which isn't a good deal. iTV? Well, no one knows how it'll work at this point. Steve Jobs' keynote, while it was "revolutionary" because Apple announced it this far out (very un-Apple), was very cryptic.

My pick? Well, the Media Center will do the most, basically because its a whole PC connected to your TV. The one that'll do it the easiest simplest? The iTV? The one that most people will have in their homes and most likely use in this fashion? The Playstation 3.

Now, I'm a Xbox fanboy, so I dislike the PS3, but the Playstation brand is insanely popular. The name "Playstation" is what "Nintendo" was in the 90's. My grandma doesn't say "Do you want a new Nintendo game for Christmas?" like she did with my cousins, she says , "Do you want a new Playstation game for Christmas?". The odd thing is, my cousins didn't own a Nintendo (Sega Genesis all the way) and I don't own a Playstation.

The two names are buzzwords with a generic gaming console with non-gamers. Not to mention the following that the PS brand has. I remember when the PS2 came out. Friends of my dad, who weren't really big gamers, they had Madden and few other games on their PS1, but were excited for the PS2.

Despite all its flaws, the high-price, the janky controller, the blu-ray format (which WILL fail, mark my words. I'd promise a future blog on the subject, but I don't seem to be keeping up on those promises.), the PS3 will sell like hot cakes, and some people will use their PS3 in a media... convergence... thing?

Me? Why would you want to watch YouTube clips on a TV? Sure, if you buy a movie, then it'll be cool, but I don't... and if I did, I'd settle for my 21" Samsung LCD monitor. Sigh, I don't understand people.

Robert Heron over at Ziff-Davis predicted that one day, we won't have a PC, we'll have 10 computers, in various different household items, including a car. I don't like the idea. Don't get me wrong, I like having little computers in TV's, Cars, whatever, but no base computer? How will you surf the net? Through your TV? On a tablet on your nightstand or near your sofa? Meh, we'll have to see.

Nevertheless, today, we are enjoying technology today that was not even being DREAMED up 20 years ago. I'm not fond of the "free thinkers" who say we're living in the second Renaissance, but honestly, aren't we? The first Renaissance brought about new ideas in modern science, medicine, architecture, art and music. In 500 years, will my relatives talk about how this era brought in new ideas in computing? Will they look upon men like Jobs, Gates, Laporte, Ellison and Kildall in the same light has da Vinci, Shakespeare, Copernicus, Clouet and others?

Its a radical idea, but I think we're there.

Congratulations, my friends. We're Renaissance men.

1340

2006

Well, for the past 17 years, I've been blissfully unemployeed, living off handouts of cash from my parents, grandparents, and other family members. However, since my 15th birthday, my parents have been getting more and more strict, saying "Get your own job," or something to that effect. Yikes. Back in the day when I collected comic books, I had to save up my lunch money all week just to get enough cash to make my monthly run to the comic store to pick up my latest issue of Ultimate Spider-Man.

Well, I've finally decided I've got to take the plunge and get a job, so a few week ago, I put on my brave face and my stern voice and went into Kmart and caught myself an application, and went back, carefully filled it out, then turned it back in. I waited two weeks, and finally, called Kmart at 3:03 in the afternoon and I was told the "hiring lady" had left. I called a few more times, but apperantly, the lady leaves before I get out of school (just like my teachers... :) ) so I gave up on Kmart, I'm looking at a Pick & Save (Wisconsin grocery store) and a Blockbuster, both on my way home from school, and both supposedly cool places to work from friends who work their or previously worked there.

Anyway, the point of my store is what fine item I'll chose to buy with my $6.50 an hour pay check (minimum wage in Cheeseland is 6.50, nice eh?). The one item that convinced me to take the plunge and get a job was a Xbox 360, and the game Dead Rising particular. I'm a huge fan of my orginal Xbox, and I love everthing zombie. But, I've been thinking, and I was instead going to build my own computer, then an Apple MacBook, but now I've decided.

I'm going to get a... Dell Desktop. Thats right, possibly the oddest thing I'd ever choose, but here's why. While I've always wanted to build my own PC, its just more expensive than Dell's production line machines, even one cutomized to my tastes (high mid-range gaming stuff, and a TV tuner so I can have a cheap TiVo/DVR) comes in at just under $1500, while a similar system, built from parts at newegg.com comes in at just over $2200.

Why not an Xbox 360? Well, it would be stupid to just buy it for one game, and besides Dead Rising was critically acclaimed when it first came out, but now, my friends are frusterated with it, and are getting pissed. Why not an Apple MacBook? While its true, I am a huge Apple fanboy (who doesn't even own a Mac), I really want to play games like Doom 3 and Half-Life 2 (plus one more game that is my secret gaming fetish, I'll reveal it in an upcoming blog, stay tuned). My PC runs both of those games, but either at poor visual settings, or poor framerates, or maybe both, but my customized Dell I've picked out (its what I'm calling high mid-range. Its not a screaming new 7950GX2 card, but its not a 6200GS, either), will play most current games without trouble.

So, I'm losing some major nerd street cred here by picking a Dell Desktop over a Xbox 360 (minus points from the gamer crowd) and a MacBook (minus points from the Apple crowd), but maybe those items will be after my Dell. I'll post more stuff about this future Dell rig after I get my job and get closer and closer to getting enough money for it.

Later, guys.