GameStop Fixing, And Reselling, Red-Ringed Xbox 360s

[Groenteman]

Somewhere out there in a Gamestop warehouse there is a guy stripping down and reflowing xbox360 boards in a scrappy old oven... for 10$ a piece apparently. For 10 years now. Mmmm solder fumes!

Because I really don't believe they properly replaced the defective solder. That's the problem with these in case anyone is wondering, its a lead-free solder that breaks when heated and cooled often. Dumb, but not so dumb Apple didn't fall for it too with their macbooks.

Funnily enough, fixing up borked xbox360s was a fairly common thing in Poland. For most people there it was the only way to own a state of the art console, and some jail-breaking later they could get whatever game they liked running for next to nothing.

 

[cathou]

a guy i know have repair two xbox360 by baking it in the oven, so the trick was knowned. but reselling them as refurbish... not sure it's even legal...

 

[Micalas]

So if they sell a fixed red ring and it functions just the same as any other how this this bad?

They work better, if Gamestop is removing the gimmicky, poorly designed x-clamps from the boxes, not just re-pasting the GPU and re-clamping it. Friends in college financed their schooling by buying up RRoD 360s, fixing then reselling them. Was easy to do, picked one up for $40 from a pawn shop and fixed it myself. there was no short supply of them either RRoD is what the 360 excelled at.

No no, you don't understand.

This is Gamestop.

Anything they do is bad. Anything. No exceptions.

Donations to homeless shelters? They're pro-poverty.

But on a serious note, if you do this to an Xbox does it void any support from Microsoft? "You fixed our product? How DARE you!"

Nah, I wouldn't go that far. I just wouldn't trust anything used from GameStop (or EBGames in my case) because they are trying to maximize profit over everything else. My example is Mass Effect 2, I had an employee loudly calling me an "idiot" in the store because I wanted to buy the game new for I knew it was part of "Project $10" and they were only selling it for $5 less then a new copy. He was being obnoxious enough that several customers walked out with me.

Good lord, that's a special kind of ridiculous.

OT: If the fix held for a decent amount of time, I wouldn't be too steamed.

 

[Strelok]

Because I really don't believe they properly replaced the defective solder. That's the problem with these in case anyone is wondering, its a lead-free solder that breaks when heated and cooled often. Dumb, but not so dumb Apple didn't fall for it too with their macbooks.

Not sure where you got that, the issue was the awful x-clamps and poorly designed ventilation of the 360. The system would over heat and melt the solder the x-clamps being to tight would pull the GPU off the motherboard causing the E-74 error. The fix was to re-paste the GPU and replace the x-clamps with bolts and washers, some would re-solder the connections to the motherboard or a less reliable fix was just wrap a towel around the Xbox causing it to overheat and melt the solder again then try and fix it hoping the solders were re-connected. Solder quality had little to do with the RRoD, poor design and Microsoft's refusal to admit error or that there was ever a real problem was the cause.

 

[faefrost]

I'm not seeing the controversy here? They are refurbing and repairing the product to return it to factory functionality and selling it as refurbed. The fact that the ultimate problem stems from a manufacturers design flaw, and will eventually occur in every unit regardless of whether or not GameStop returns it is on the manufacturer and the knowledgable consumer. All GameStop is doing is resetting the failure clock back to factory state. They are selling the product as exactly what it is. I don't see anything particularly shaky here?

 

[faefrost]

a guy i know have repair two xbox360 by baking it in the oven, so the trick was knowned. but reselling them as refurbish... not sure it's even legal...

What do you think "refurbished" means? Any refurbished electronics you buy will be something that failed somewhere along the line and was repaired or reprocessed to return it to factory operational condition.

 

[cathou]

a guy i know have repair two xbox360 by baking it in the oven, so the trick was knowned. but reselling them as refurbish... not sure it's even legal...

What do you think "refurbished" means? Any refurbished electronics you buy will be something that failed somewhere along the line and was repaired or reprocessed to return it to factory operational condition.

but refurbish usually mean that it have been refited by the manufacturer not the vendor...

 

[faefrost]

a guy i know have repair two xbox360 by baking it in the oven, so the trick was knowned. but reselling them as refurbish... not sure it's even legal...

What do you think "refurbished" means? Any refurbished electronics you buy will be something that failed somewhere along the line and was repaired or reprocessed to return it to factory operational condition.

but refurbish usually mean that it have been refited by the manufacturer not the vendor...

Actually that's "factory refurbished" which implies it went back for re-production etc. in most cases anything labeled "refurbished" is handled by a third party not the actual factory. The refurb outfit buys up the defective product, refurbs it, then sells it off via a clearance vendor of some sort. Sometimes in partnership with the original manufacturer, sometimes not. If you have ever seen adds for companies like Overstock.com, they will often clearence out such refurbished merchandise.

And the key thing is not so much who did the repair, but what warranties and guaranties are being offered? In the case of GameStop the key question is how long did the fix last? What was the mean time before failure on a repaired console? How did it compare with the mtf on a factory new one? (Which honestly it would hard to be worse than.)

 

[Gatlank]

As for the topic at hand, I'm frankly surprised this is news to people Gamestop has been refurbishing and reselling products for a long time now. Not just consoles but game disks in general.

The thing in question isn't the refurbishing of products but the fact that they are reselling a product considered to be permanently damaged.
Eletronics stores at least replace the damaged components when refurbishing their products. Gamestop was just an inch above of using spit and ductape and that doesn't give strong guaranties of stable operationality.

 

[Strazdas]

but refurbish usually mean that it have been refited by the manufacturer not the vendor...

refurbished means "i made it work again" and nothing more. if you want new parts you buy new stuff. refurbished is a gamble that some people are willing to take. personally, i never would. people are awful at handing electronics. the fact that so many people manage to break their smartphone screens that there are even ads and specific services for replacing that is proof enough to NEVER buy a used phone. same theory applies to other electronics.

 

[Lightknight]

This is not new or even 'controlled' information. I was once a SM for Gamestop and this information was always freely available to me and my customers. Even Microsoft have addressed reports that upwards of 90% of the 360's manufactured before 2009 'red ringed' right off the assembly line, and had to be refurbished before being sold as new.

As far as the effectiveness of the fix...just no...don't even shop at Gamestop.

It's a fairly significant question. If what they did actually fixed the problem then that's fine and well. If it just set the clock back then they left the bill on the backs of the insurance policy and Microsoft in addition to the $50 it cost the client. We're talking about major settlement here if that's the case.