[Mindy]

So Daryl asked me to get him Forza 2 and the wireless racing wheel for Father's Day. So I called around and found that Gamestop at the mall had Forza 2, EB Games at the mall had the wheel (no one else had anything, and these stores are on opposite ends of a huge ass mall). So since I was trading a bunch of stuff in, I went there, the game was more important, and since it was getting close to closing time, I went for the game first. I should have drove to the other end of the mall, it was a long walk, and had I known how heavy the racing wheel was, I'd never walk that far with it (my arms are still aching). So we get the stuff and head home, excited to see a new game and the wheel in action. First you have to load the drivers, as the Xbox 360 tried to boot up the driver disc, we got the blinky red lights of doom. After a few tries to reset it, we called (he called, I played with a puzzle) customer service. His phone cut out on him a few times and he had to call back, and instead of just pulling his info up from the first call, he had to give them everything again, not for just verifying who he was, but because apparently they couldn't get his info or talk to the first guy or anything. So he talks to the second person and she said he had to send it in for repair at $139.00, which at the time seemed like it was a fault from their racing wheel, and no one offered any explanation or help on the situation, they didn't try to walk him through anything to fix it, no special hints. Then as he's getting the reference number, his phone cuts out again. Call back and finally get a third guy. This guy actually tried to help. He asked if he had the xbox plugged into a surge protector, and we did, so he said try to plug it straight into the wall. Still nothing, then the guy explained why that was important and gave us some clue other than the wheel drivers killed the radio star.. I mean the Xbox. We've never really had issues with our Xbox 360, it's frozen up a few times, but that's it, nothing major ever happened. So come to find out it's supposedly in the users manual, you shouldn't use a surge protector with the Xbox 360, sinc eit has one built in. No we weren't using a cheap dollar store surge protector, we have a nicer one, I think it's made by Monster, but apparently it's not good enough.

So the moral is, many of the issues with the Xbox 360 dying and all, is caused by using a surge protector, so now everyone take your Xbox 360 and plug it into the wall, no splitters no surge protectors, nada. Like I said we've never really had isssues with ours, hopefully this info will be used, and can help everyone else protect theirs. At least the $139.00 repair fee covers shipping and packaging. We also get a 1 year warranty, an extra month of xbox live added on. We don't get the Halo 3 beta time back or extended (lol, that would be nice). It has a built in protector, so a secondary one isn't necessary and is obviously causing issues. So yes, please save your Xbox 360's before it's too late, were were so lost last night without it, we didn't know what to do!!
http://support.micro...1/en-us?sd=xbox
First thing under things to try:
*Make sure that the power cord is plugged directly into a known good wall outlet, and not plugged into an extension cord, surge protector, or power strip.

http://www.wikixbox3...lity+FAQ?t=anon