My 360 Is Back!

You read that right.  My Xbox 360 Elite is back and better than ever.  I expected a much longer wait.

I decided to send my 360 to Microsoft to get fixed.  I followed the progress on the Xbox website.  Here is a timeline of what happened:

Friday, October 24, 2008- Red Ring of Death is discovered.

Sunday, October 26- I arrange a repair.  The shipping box is sent.

Thursday, October 30- The box comes, I pack my 360, ship the box with my 360 in it the next day.

Friday, November 7- Microsoft receives my console.

Saturday, November 8- My 360 is fixed!  Shipped back to me a few days later.

Friday, November 14- This is the day that I originally would have received my Xbox, but no one was home to sign the UPS guy's paper...

Monday, November 17- The UPS guy tries again.  Success!

Microsoft sent a letter of apology (of course, my name has to be 'Xbox Enthusiast) and a card for a free month of Xbox Live.  That was very generous of them, considering the entire process didn't cost me a dime- the repair and shipping were both free.  They even renewed my regular warranty!

As for how my 360 is performing, the few things that were changed were the most noticeable, in a good way.  Signing into Xbox Live is a lot quicker, and testing the connection doesn't take as long.

But the biggest difference is that the 360 is a lot quieter.  When it starts up, it doesn't sound like a leafblower.  Instead, there's this really quiet, soft noise that sounds like a Gonk droid.  It only does the Gonk noise twice, then if I want to hear it again, I need to restart the console.

The sound of the console is also a bit more pleasant.  It doesn't make that motorcycle... er, racket after 20 minutes.  Even though the fan is the loudest part of the console, the 360's noises aren't nearly as obnoxious and distracting anymore.

All of that said, I recommend sending RRoD-afflicted consoles to Microsoft for repair.  It's worth the wait.