My beloved 360, is that really you?

I apologize once again for the extremely late update.. I've had a lot of things going on with wedding anniversaries, and the return of my 360! Though I'm not sure it is mine.. but more on that in a bit.

So as you may remember Thursday, February 4, 2010 I posted that my xbox was only 20 miles away.. I did in fact receive my xbox that day. Total it took less than 1 week from ship date to return date. I'm throughly impressed.

I was curious how that box I sent out would come back to me, but it didn't. They actually sent me a new box with proper Styrofoam holders in it for the 360. You can bet I am holding on to this box in case (heaven forbid) I should need it again.

Microsoft sent me the standard letter apologizing for the inconvenience and thanking me for being a member of the xbox community (aww). They also included a 1 month xbox gold subscription. I worried a bit that this may be a European redeem code being that I live in Europe. The only problem is that my xbox live account is American (as I'm American and had purchased the subscription in the US). The card however is written in English and Spanish, while typical in the US the standard in Europe is generally French and English so I have a smidgen of hope it is either not region specific or a US one.

After checking out the paper contents of the box (with no sign of that infamous pink slip saying they replaced my xbox with a refurbished one) I took out my xbox and checked the serial. Still the same. Good. Except the whole label was different. No longer did it have a manufacture date but a "service date". While it makes sense it meant that the ENTIRE label on the back of the xbox was not the original one and could indeed hide that it was replaced. I removed the xbox from it's box and put it back in its home in my entertainment center.


First thing I noticed was the faceplate. My old one was broken. The door that hid the USB ports when not in use had lost it's springy-ness ages ago and was always stuck in the down position. I didn't mind having a pretty new one, maybe they replaced my old broken one?

My suspicions about possibly receiving a refurbished 360 started to become more firm as I plugged in and turned on my xbox.

I had to update lots of things with my xbox as soon as I turned it on which had me more and more convinced this was not my xbox. I had a method to check easily if the console was considered as mine. All my DLC that I have for Rock Band is divided across 2 xbox live accounts. One my US one that is gold and I play on and my silver French account that I needed in order to buy more points since I could not put a French credit card on my US account. As I popped in Rock Band I noticed right away it was playing from the disc and not the HDD where I had it installed. As you can see in the message above I was told that this game could only be played on the HDD and console it was originally installed on. My heart sank.

However once I started Rock Band up all my DLC played normally without me having to log both my accounts to have access to all of it (as I had to do on my friend's console when I stuck my HDD on it). That meant that either it WAS my 360 (albeit "brainwashed") or that at least Microsoft had taken the liberty to handle my licenses.

That wasn't all though. I USED to be able to listen to the mp3s on my computer in another room on my xbox in the living room (which is connected to a stereo). I can no longer do that. I was forced to reinstall the windows media center and link my xbox to my computer but it never works, just freezes and every time I try to access my computer from my xbox I am told to verify I have registered my console on my computer (I have). This problem is still unresolved. I'm afraid I'm going to have to call someone and try to get some assistance, hopefully it is someone who speaks English clearly and fluently? ;)

For now I have an xbox, it works I can play my games.. but is it really the one I sent off earlier? I think I'll never know..

Xbox 360 Repairs: A German Vacation

I've been a bit bad about keeping up with my xbox's trip to Microsoft for repairs. I honestly thought I'd have a lot of time to write it, but surprisingly (in the good way) it seems my time is ticking.

As I mentioned previously due to hang ups with Microsoft (getting a shipping label) and UPS, my xbox actually began it's journey to the Microsoft repair center in Frankfurt, Germany on Friday January 29th.

I did my best to pack her well for the trip (my xbox has suddenly become a "she"). My most difficult task actually was finding a box to send it in. Microsoft no longer sends "coffins", so I was left to my own devices which included harassing every store in town for an empty box and weird, empty stares as I tried to explain I just wanted an empty box in broken French. When I finally found my words (I kept asking for a "boite vide" but it turned out I needed to ask for "carton vide") I learned much to my disappointment that most the stores had already threw out their boxes to a recycle company that morning. I was sure I was screwed to wait another week before I could send my xbox, but I pressed on.

I eventually came to a book store where a woman seemed really kind and not annoyed to help me find a box (the other stores/employees must of thought I was insane). She helped me find a decent sized box that was pretty sturdy (it was made for shipping books). The only downside was that the box had been opened strangely.. instead of opening it from a constructed flap, they had just cut a "door" on one side of the box. I wasn't sure, but I knew I had to make it work.

To pack my xbox up I used some bubble wrap I had lying around. It was actually the kind with HUGE bubbles that I had used in the past to ship my PC from the US to France so I was pretty confident that it was trustworthy. I wrapped my xbox with the bubble wrap which was long enough to reach two opposing ends of the box, making a snug fit. There was some empty space that I filled with Styrofoam peanuts that my husband had brought from work.

The tricky part was sealing the box and making sure when Microsoft received it that they opened it the way it had been sealed. I managed to scribble "do not open here" on every part that you THOUGHT would be logical to open it from, and "open this side" on the one place that didn't make sense. I wrote in English and hoped that would suffice. I also needed to make sure that UPS did not handle the box with the "door" side on bottom as it wasn't strong enough. So I drew an "up" arrow and once again hoped.

UPS came and took her away on Friday January 25th. I was sure I'd never see her again.. I had heard horror stories of waiting months and how you always get back someone else's refurbished xbox, but the repair process had been started and I had to follow it through. I wrote down her serial number and will verify whether or not I get MY xbox back or some impostor.

I followed her journey to Germany via UPS's tracking system. I was pleasantly surprised to see she arrived at her destination the next Monday (Feb. 1). The next day I received a confirmation e-mail from Microsoft saying that had my xbox and that repairs had been started. Wednesday I looked again to see how she was doing and nearly wet myself when I read "console shipped back". Seeing as how I started to realize how much I took my xbox for granted and have been struggling with Rock Band withdrawal I had to hold myself back from being too overjoyed. Maybe it was so fast because they just sent me another xbox?

Today I checked on the status (Feb. 4) and checked the tracking number after poking from my Dutch friend of win who reminded me it had one, and noticed that it had actually moved and at 8:30am this morning is only 20 something miles away. I can't help but feel anxious that perhaps I will receive my xbox today but at the same time I am trying to be realistic and not allow myself to hope too much that it comes today as it may not and it may not even be MY xbox..

I'm wondering how that box I sent it in worked out.. did they manage to figure out how to open it and reseal it back? The site said they sent it back in the box you send it in.. we will see.. I'm hoping "in transit" means it is in the truck on its daily route.

Change of Plans: Thank You E74

Today I had intended to write an entry about how much I hate Guitar Hero 5... well while I still intend to tell you the original reasons why I hate Guitar Hero 5 (though not in today's entry), I have a larger one to add to the list to tell you about unfortunately.

Today I got the dreaded E74 xbox error. I'm going to partially blame Guitar Hero 5 on this one. As far as I know (and this seems specific to my case)this error is related to video/graphical hardware problem.

It happened that I was actually working on a video for next week, a Guitar Hero vocal video, just to switch it up a bit. I use a dazzle to capture the in-game footage, but my dazzle seems to be compatible with PAL only. As I live in Europe this normally isn't an issue. With my xbox I have the display options of PAL-60 and PAL-50. For my dazzle to record in color I have to have my xbox on PAL-50, being that you can't really see the difference I've always just left it there. I've never had to worry about changing it except to play Guitar Hero 5 actually.
The game was purchased in France (where I live) and clearly states "PAL" on the back but for some reason it tells me it is not compatible with PAL-50, so I had to put my xbox in PAL-60 (a fake NTSC if you will) to be able to play it. This kind of rather sucked as my dazzle would only record in black in white, but I went ahead and did it anyway.

After I got a video recorded, I decided to work on a Rock Band project I had planned to do with fellow Team Cena member dpritch. Well since Rock Band actually lets me play in PAL-50 with no complaints I decided to switch back my display settings so I could record in color at least. I went ahead and changed my settings back to PAL-50 and headed through the xbox panes over to "Play Rock Band 2". As I was passing through the frames I noticed that my xbox avatar looked weird.. she had all kinds of lines going through her and she wasn't whole. She was rather graphically messed up. I figured it might be because I had just changed my settings and decided to give my xbox a nice restart...

When I turned it on it sounded strange, nothing was on the screen and then suddenly I see:

I tried everything I could think of, praying that this wasn't really happening.. but nothing worked. I took the HDD off, I tried a HDMI cable instead of the furnished component one.. but no luck, I was left with no choice but to call Microsoft.

Calling Microsoft was a pain though, luckily you're given the option to speak to someone in English (despite the fact I called the French number), but I guess they outsource their tech support to some country where the people don't speak English natively. Don't get me wrong the twice I called (yeah I had to call twice for something not their fault) I spoke to two very nice and helpful women but it was so hard for me to understand them, we had awkward moments of silence and misunderstandings.

Anyway the good news is that for E-74 the repairs will be covered, so I won't have to pay for anything. The bad news is that I need to find a box at a store. All the stores had already closed for the day when this happened and things in France are always closed on Sunday so I have to wait till Monday. Then I got to schedule a pick up and after that it is about 2 weeks wait. Knowing my luck RBN will be released and I won't get to pounce on the Amberian Dawn songs like I've been dying to do for months now.. -sigh-.

Here's my short explanation on youtube: