Sunday, December 16, 2007 while watching the end of Season 2 of Heroes on the Xbox 360 (streaming from my PC with the new DivX support) the video started skipping randomly. A four second freeze, then twenty second freeze, finally amounted to a perpetual video freeze that prompted me to reboot my Xbox 360. Well, there in-lies the problem. Instead of being presented with the lovely chime and brief animation of the usual Xbox 360 boot process, there was silence accompanied by the soft glow of a blank plasma screen. Perhaps I had knocked some cable loose or my network was on the fritz. Reboot number 2… Nothing! Wait… What’s that? The “Ring of Light” was taunting me with a display of 3 Red Lights. Reboot number 3… Of course, I was doomed (moreover my Xbox was doomed). Read the rest of this entry »

Xbox 360 owners who do not have Xbox Live still need to update their hardware in order to stay current with system changes and backward capatibility updates. This can now be done using only a basic internet connection and a CD or DVD burner. The original Xbox had to be connected to Xbox Live for updates (unless it was modded), but with the Xbox 360 Microsoft now releases updates online to be downloaded and burned onto a CD or DVD for use on the 360. Better yet, they offer complete instructions! [Link ]

The Xbox 360 may be an amazing console, but every now and then it will freeze or suffer from a severe framerate drop. I noticed this while playing The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion. Sounds didn’t match up during battles, the screen would freeze completely, and opening doors would take up to two minutes. This is caused when the cache files on the Xbox 360 hard drive become fragmented and need cleared. Don’t call Microsoft and wait an hour or more for a fix. Just read this VERY simple solution.

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