Last week, SquareTrade, an extended electronic warranty company, reported that approximately 60% of all Xbox 360 warranty claims sent into their offices were due to the Red Ring of Death. But interestingly enough, it also stated that disc read errors amounted to almost half of the remaining warranty claims regarding broken Xbox 360s.
"Other problems we see crop up fairly often are fried video cards, hardware freezes, on/off failures and, interestingly, disc tray malfunctions that also tend to damage game discs," said SquareTrade.
Could this be the next big ailment to affect that Xbox 360? Most owners of the machine are well familiar with the loud noises that the DVD drive makes as it spins up to speed. Some have compared the sound as similar to that of a 747 jet engine. While this may sound a little overblown there is no doubt that the DVD drives are pretty loud.
Theage.com reports that the occurrences of Xbox 360 malfunctions due to DVD drive failures are probably more common than first thought. Customers who purchased brand-new 360s reported that scratched game discs were directly linked to faulty DVD drives. Although it has been well documented that game discs can be scratched if the Xbox 360 is moved, some are reporting that the damage occurs even when the 360 isn’t moved.
Mr. Parkinson purchased a brand-new 360 for his son and although he avoided the RRoD, after only six months of usage, game discs were scratched by his Xbox 360.
"It was a very clear mechanical circle.When I called Microsoft about the problem, in every third sentence they would ask: ‘Did you move the Xbox?’ Even though they won’t admit there is a problem, they keep offering a repair." Parkinson maintains that his son’s Xbox 360 was never moved from the shelf it was placed on.
Another owner of a 360, Mr. Frew, said, "A customer service representative told me that ‘apparently’ Microsoft is looking at extending the three-year warranty to other issues and if it does get approved for disk problems then I will be refunded my $132."
While Microsoft has extended the warranty for its Xbox 360 to three years, the warranty doesn’t cover anything outside RRoD problems. But as the evidence mounts that DVD drive failures are much more prominent than Microsoft would like to admit, it may have to finally break down, so to speak, and offer free repais for this as well.
