My Two Bits
(The Editorial with one-quarter byte!)

What is "My Two Bits?"

My Two Bits is the official editorial page for the editor of Techtite.com. Techtite will accept reader submissions, for reviews as well as any editorials deemed well written and pertinent to this web site's audience.

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---DEATH to pop-up window commercials!

---PG-13: An Asset, or a Curse?

---Is Chrissy Snow in Charge of Disney...?

---This Editorial Can Be Closed By Clicking This TINY LITTLE DOT!

---100 Years to Live...? Poor You!

---Brad, Jen, Angelina, and those who give a flying...

---Long Live G4TV...

---"Big Brother," Kaysar, and The Value of a Game...

---No News is Good News...

---Paranoia, Box Office Destroy-a...

---An X-Box 360 Editorial.

---"State of the Site" Address, 2006.

---Why Hollywood Needs Its "Stones"

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No sidebar comments for this review. Yet.

The My Two Bits editorial for April 2006 is titled :

The X-box 360's "Three Red Lights of Doom"

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Yeah, okay; so my last editorial was about Sharon Stone in Basic Instinct 2, and the film sucks big time. I'm still saying what I said a month ago, though; young Hollywood needs to learn something from the more seasoned Hollywood, before they can suitably replace them. How many PG-13 horror movies and "sexy" movies can there be, until truly gritty movies are made again? Never mind. Let's move on.

So here I am this month, wondering what I'm going to write about. Apparently my X-Box 360 heard me, because it has just entered the life cycle that many a disgruntled 360 owner has nicknamed "The Three Red Lights of Doom." Here's the thing: apparently some X-Boxes are so poorly built that they go on the fritz, either a week, a month, or in my case, around half a year after purchase. These systems suddenly become unstable upon boot-up, with three red lights surrounding the power button, apparently signaling a "hardware malfunction." Darn.

I know this will fall on deaf ears, because "obviously," we people who have "three rings" must've done something wrong, right? Well, let me tell you what I did "wrong," to the best of my knowledge. For the first time ever, I stayed up all night one weekend playing a game. Oh dear; what a cad I am! I actually finally (and I do mean finally) bought a game like Elder Scrolls IV, that made me actually want to play it for more than two hours straight. Well this apparently overheated the system, because as soon as I rebooted the system some hours later: three rings of doom. Again: darn.

The saddest part of this sad story is how not many message boards can help you in this regard, aside from "you're in good company, friend." Many people have encountered the three rings of doom and they all have their own haphazard solution. I say "solution" because as soon as your 360 enters the three-red-rings life cycle, successful boot ups are a crapshoot. One person claims to get more frequent successes when he plugs his 360 directly to the wall with no surge protector. Another says that you need to clean all your connections with a dust cloth and that will help. Microsoft's own help page in the matter isn't much more help, with one solution being to boot the system with the hard drive removed, and maybe the system will work without the hard drive. That's like telling a new Ferrari owner that they can only drive their car under 30 MPH. Seriously; "remove the hard drive"...? Come on, now.

Then there's the "connectors" issue. This is odd. My system worked fine on a game table of sorts (don't want to keep a system like this on the floor!) and then it didn't. Desperate to try anything, I tried to connect the wires so they weren't tangled at all, so they inserted "just so," and all that. To be honest; one connection actually worked, in that I was able to play a game for two straight hours, which after not breaking the "ten minutes of gaming" barrier for two days, is saying something. Yet it would really depreciate my opinion of the 360 if it were so "dainty" as to have its power and video cables "just so" in order to operate. Furthermore; what about six months ago when I first installed the system, and it worked just fine? Did I just get "lucky" when connecting the cables the first time...?

It all comes down to the system's need for proper ventilation. Sure you hear that, and you plan accordingly, as you should. I put the system on a table like any other game system. Only it doesn't simply need that, it would appear. It needs to be nowhere near any other appliance. It needs to be nowhere near the television set, as that also generates heat. It needs to be nowhere near the wall, as that may "block" the ventilation of the system. We're talking several feet from the stupid wall. Imagine a kid who casually puts his pricey X-Box 360 on the floor in the middle of his room. Oddly enough, this is the perfect location. Basically you need to buy a system that's priced around $400, and put it on the floor. Great.

In the end, I'm dealing with the notion of sending the system in for repair. I hesitate doing this because it's the first time I would ever have to do such a thing, and furthermore, you can understand my hesitation to send a pricey X-Box 360 to "wherever" and ever hope to get it back repaired. Until then I am not advising people against an X-box 360, as much as putting it on a pedestal. Literally. Put not one additional piece of equipment next to the stupid thing. Some would say that the latest in gaming technology simply requires good ventilation. I'd say it was built like crap. If this system required that much ventilation, it should've been made better.

As Always: I'm Techtite, and these are My Two Bits...