Inspired by the demented HAL9000 computer from the classic science fiction flick, 2001: A Space Odyssey, it shows the inimitable RRoD symbol along with the saying “I’m afraid I can’t let you play that, Dave.” The shirt’s designer clearly had just about enough with his 360s crapping out on him, so had to immortalize his frustrations with this clever t-shirt.

So if you’ve had an 360 (or two or three) die on you, you’ve got to pick one up from SplitReason for $17.95.

[Joystiq via Mike Ballan]

If your console suffers from three flashing red lights on the “ring of light,” you’re covered. It doesn’t matter if the console is new or used, they’ll replace or fix it for free (including shipping.) So basically, you get a full warranty for one year for any defect, plus two more years to deal with the three-red-rings issue if it crops up.

In addition, if you’ve already paid to have a console repaired with this issue, Microsoft will reimburse you for your expenses.

It’s anticipated that this policy change will cost Microsoft over $1 billion to implement. Yikes. I bet the engineering team that designed the system’s cooling system is in some hot water (pun intended.)

[Letter from Microsoft's Peter Moore]

Apparently these guys were playing Tony Hawk’s Project 8 for about 3 hours when the console died. The console now will only display a flashing red light (ala Xbox 360′s red ring of doom) and refuses to start back up now. Glad to know Sony has done their part in keeping up with the Joneses.

Hopefully this isn’t an indication things to come.

The first Microsoft rep stated that the device simply drains too much power from the 360. He explained that the console requires a specific amount of power, especially during startup, and that everything was built to supply the machine with the power it needs. The Intercooler drains a bit of that power right from the start, so the console is now getting less juice. Especially during the startup of the system, explained the rep, this can cause problems as the 360 is trying to supply electricity to all its parts and somewhere along the line won

]]> http://technabob.com/blog/2006/10/26/nyko-intercooler-not-cool-for-microsoft/feed/ 2 http://technabob.com/blog/2006/08/29/next-gen-games-increase-xbox-360-failure-rates/ http://technabob.com/blog/2006/08/29/next-gen-games-increase-xbox-360-failure-rates/#comments Tue, 29 Aug 2006 13:08:34 +0000 Technabob http://technabob.com/blog/2006/08/29/next-gen-games-increase-xbox-360-failure-rates/ A couple of months back, I posted about my concerns that my Xbox 360 had overheated and died as a result of the next-gen game Prey. Now Kotaku is reporting about an Xbox 360 developer who reported an esimated 30-50% failure rate on Xbox 360s used in the testing games, with even higher failure rates on the zombie-killer Dead Rising.

It’s common sense that the more resource intensive a game is, the more heat it will generate. The sheer number of reports of Xbox 360 failures due to heat is certainly higher than most devices, and I personally never had a console die prior to owning an Xbox 360.

That all said, a $16.99 investment in a Nyko Intercooler is all you need to avoid such an ugly and tragic death of your system.

]]> http://technabob.com/blog/2006/08/29/next-gen-games-increase-xbox-360-failure-rates/feed/ 9 http://technabob.com/blog/2006/08/06/another-powerbook-bites-the-dust/ http://technabob.com/blog/2006/08/06/another-powerbook-bites-the-dust/#comments Sun, 06 Aug 2006 22:08:36 +0000 Technabob http://technabob.com/blog/2006/08/06/another-powerbook-bites-the-dust/ Not that this is the first time we’ve heard of a laptop exploding due to defective LI-ION battery, but this is one of the more spectacular examples of devastation we’ve seen. Clearly, leaving your laptop on and unattended has its potential consequences. Note that the machine got hot enough to melt an imprint of the keyboard into the LCD screen.

[via Wired CultOfMac]

More Photos of the Carnage

]]> http://technabob.com/blog/2006/08/06/another-powerbook-bites-the-dust/feed/ 2 http://technabob.com/blog/2006/07/19/will-prey-kill-your-xbox-360/ http://technabob.com/blog/2006/07/19/will-prey-kill-your-xbox-360/#comments Wed, 19 Jul 2006 17:02:00 +0000 Technabob http://technabob.com/blog/2006/07/19/will-prey-kill-your-xbox-360/ Since buying my Xbox 360 console back on launch day in November 2005, I’ve been one of the fortunate 360 owners to never have a problem with overheating, disc scratches or freezes. My console is in a wide-open, well-ventilated area and had always behaved well. I’ve played just about every game, demo and Live Arcade title to date.

Then, I bought the new FPS, Prey, and everything changed.

Within the first hour of play, the game froze twice. I figured that it was a software glitch. Then, the third time it froze, I got the Red Rings of Doom. I removed the hard drive, cleared its cache, rebooted, and managed to get about 2 more minutes of use before I got the Red Rings again. After a couple of hours, I tried again, and other games seemed fine for the 30 minutes or so that I played. Then I decided to try Prey again, BOOM, 10 seconds into the game HARD FREEZE, and now I can’t get the 360 to play anything for more than about 30 seconds before I get the Red Rings.

Did Prey kill my 360? Is this an indication that 2nd Generation 360 games which are pushing the CPU & GPU will create a whole new outbreak of system deaths?

Please comment if you’ve had any similar experiences.

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