Freezing in games? :(

[Studley]

My 360 has developed a nasty habit of just freezing during gameplay recently. At first it was only happening in Viva Pinata, so I thought maybe it was a game glitch. And it wasn't too much of an issue because VP auto-saves about every two minutes anyway.

But I got Project 8 yesterday and it happens in that too, which is pretty annoying because it DOESN'T autosave (apart from when you unlock new areas), I've lost about an hour's play to crashes in the last 24hrs.

The question(s) to those of you who've had hardware problems:

1) Is this probably related to overheating? From my limited experience of browsing xbox support forums, the answer is probably yes?
2) Would repeated in-game freezes be enough for Microsoft to replace my console, or would I need to get 3 red lights before they'd even talk to me?
3) Would it matter that this is my second console - my launch console was replaced in April after getting 3 red lights. They'd still replace this one if it was faulty, right? (Curry I'm looking at you, are you on 360 #5 now?!)

[Chris]

Tell them you're getting three red lights 'most of the time' so they can't prove you wrong when they recieve it. A frozen Xbox is a bad Xbox and they should fix their problem anyway, so I really wouldn't consider that 'cheating' the system.

[Rossko_UK]

Keep using the 360, you'll be getting red lights soon enough. I'd ask for the labels now!

[Curry]

Originally Posted by Studley

1) Is this probably related to overheating? From my limited experience of browsing xbox support forums, the answer is probably yes?

Likely.

2) Would repeated in-game freezes be enough for Microsoft to replace my console, or would I need to get 3 red lights before they'd even talk to me?

Repeated freezing is a valid reason for contacting them, and they will probably replace without a fuss.

3) Would it matter that this is my second console - my launch console was replaced in April after getting 3 red lights. They'd still replace this one if it was faulty, right? (Curry I'm looking at you, are you on 360 #5 now?!)

I'm on #4 and they keep replacing without a problem. I currently have both a dead and live one at home, once you call for the 3rd time they send the new one immediately without having to ship in first

[damrock]

I'm having the same problem alot of random crashing Either get lines going all over the screen or a black screen.

[PaulWillocks]

I was getting a few crashes at the weekend but I think that was due to overheating as I moved the location of the 360 to a cooler area and its been fine ever since.

[Sir SpankalotUK]

viva pinata does crash on mine quite a bit and does seem to be associated with the autosave feature. Wish I could move the saves off the memory card and onto the hdd, so I could see if that solves it, but alas ms have decided to block moving saves on the new games for some weird reason.

[Curry]

It's called "losers doing achievement cheating". Blame 360gamesaves.com.