I had the exact same problem with my console after owning it for a year and a half. This isn't the same thing as the RROD. It's definitely the graphics card. I had a series of problems that finally ended in no picture ever (but you could still hear the Xbox loading sounds and what not when you started the console). The lead up to the complete failure was an occasional color distortion. I'd be playing a game and suddenly the screen colors looked all farked up. Later the problem evolved to showing only random horizontal lines of one or two colors moving around sporadically. Finally, I lost the picture completely. I got mine repaired by MS and haven't had a problem with the refurb (luckily). I don't think there's a lot you can do other than buy a broken Xbox off the net and use that one's card. If you got an RROD console, the graphics card is probably fine. An alternative would be to buy an arcade and put your HDD into it. Or you could just give up on the Xbox. If you do that, you'll probably want to destroy your HDD so no one can use your account/credit card.
[QUOTE="Shrinnan, post: 0]Oh, wow. That stinks. Is this a new issue, or is this an unseen issue with older 360s that has now come to light? In other words: How long have you had your 360? I also recommend anyone who doesn't have a 360 to get one at Best Buy with their $100 warranty (if the 360 breaks, they'll let you just take a new one from off the shelf - the other awesome part of this warranty is that if you bought a 360 for $450, and when you come to claim the warranty and that particular 360 is now $250, they'll give you the difference in cash so you'll make a $200 "profit." At least that's how Best Buy handles my warranty, I assume it's the same at all Best Buy locations.
I believe I'm on my 4th 360 now - my first one died to RROD and then Microsoft sent me another one and that one died as well, then Microsoft wanted me to pay them a repair fee and that's when I decided I was going to buy an Elite at Best Buy under their warranty - with that, my 360 at Best Buy ended up RROD but luckily I got $100 back that I used to pay for another warranty for my current 360. I believe the warranty is a 2 year warranty which seems to be the typical life span for 360 units. :/
If you can help it, I really recommend not paying Microsoft anything for repairs - the one they ended up sending me had the shortest life span of all my 360s but luckily that's when my first 360 was under the RROD coverage (the one Microsoft sent me ended up dying no more than half a year after the RROD warranty coverage ended).[/quote]
I guess you're not aware but they've changed their warranty. The warranty you're talking about is the Best Buy product replacement plan. They stopped selling that replacement plan sometime in the second half of last year. They now have the "geek squad black tie protection plan" which is a repair warranty. If the console breaks in the first year, you can still swap it for a new one on the shelf (they send your old one back under the warranty). If it's in the second year of the console's life, they send it to their repair center and you don't get the thing back for a few weeks. So basically, it's nice for the first year although you can get it repaired from MS (or Sony) for free that year anyway. So basically, you're paying for protection for the second year only. What's a smarter thing to do, pay for a repair before the console breaks or wait until it actually breaks and pay for it then? Obviously you're gambling that your console will break in year 2. It's a huge rip off now. They also don't refund the price difference under the new plan. Apparently they were tired of people taking their consoles back to "upgrade" them to newer sku's (and get price drops).
