New Elite Lockups

[Philonious]

On Friday I picked up a new Elite (manufactured in April 08) to replace my launch-ish (December 05) Pro which had red ringed earlier that day. Long-story short the Elite has frozen (recovers with restart) or semi-frozen (eventually recovering without restart) a handful of times already. It even struggled a little when I first turned while my original HDD was attached. I get that these things will lock up sometimes, but my first taste of the Red Ring has made me antsy.

My question is whether I should stick it out a little longer or return it ASAP? The store I bought it from has a pretty limited return policy, and apprently I only have a week(!?) to bring it back. I'm worried that this one isn't in it for the long haul and I have no intention of having two 360s sitting in a Microsoft warehouse. Should I see if I can get my hands on another Elite intead of this one? Anyone else having freezes/lockups in Fallout?

Also, is there any benefit of grabbing one that was manufactured a little more recently? I saw some 'August 08's at another store, and if it is worth it for a newer chipset I may argue for a full refund instead of a replacement unit and make sure that I get something more current. Dude at the store had said that his Elites had the same chipset as the newer units, but I'm pretty sure that they've launched a revision since April 08. (He also sort of dropped this one, which made me cringe, but I didn't want to risk whatever he would do if I had complained.)

Sorry to 'flood' the board with inane inquiries.

[Orca]

If it's freezing, that seems like a 'well duh' on returning it to get a different one. I probably wouldn't have bought an expensive piece of electronics that the guy dropped in front of me though.

[wyeast]

Boxes lot 0825 and later (somewhere July-ish I think?) have a minor board revision where a couple of memory chips below the GPU were removed. Might fare *slightly* better than older ones. That's about it for changes so far.

Change it!

[Purple Santa]

No brainer. It's still under the return policy...GO RETURN IT!

[Philonious]

Done. Sadly the original store would only give me in store credit, so CDs, DVDs and HMV certificates all around fro Xmas. Grabbed a September 08 Elite (batch 0835), it is quite a bit quieter, so once the NXE drops I will able to game in virtual silence... Hopefully this one doesn't start acting up. It does have a weird smell to it though. Can't quite explain it.

[Elrik Murder]

Done. Sadly the original store would only give me in store credit, so CDs, DVDs and HMV certificates all around fro Xmas. Grabbed a September 08 Elite (batch 0835), it is quite a bit quieter, so once the NXE drops I will able to game in virtual silence... Hopefully this one doesn't start acting up. It does have a weird smell to it though. Can't quite explain it.

You should have fought harder. I wouldn't have stood for that. I would have walked out of that store with my money.

[Everyone vs Dinosaurs]

Haha, Philonious sounds like a pretty passive guy. I don't really thing that he would've argued for his cash.


Not that being passive is a bad thing, I might've done the same myself.

[Cpl_Punnishment]

FYI

I have an Elite - My second.
Newest CD Drive, but not the newer chipset.

no issues yet (cross fingers)

BUT Fallout has frozen on me twice in 30 hours of play.

once, I was able to save and restart just fine (the GOAT exam bug, which seems to be commonplace)
once was just a random freeze outdoors. had to power her down and back on, then all was fine.

Based on the heavy gaming I do with this unit (and no problems in other games) I'd venture a guess that it's fallout that is freezing.

Still, probably a good idea to exchange your unit.

[Skull3r]

Really? I thought the newest elites wouldn't have problems. I was hoping to pick one up to replace my launch 360, (I need to free up a component slot behind my tv and move it to hdmi). Also, the larger hard drive would help when NXE came around.