360 Elite- Bad picture quality, breaking up, fuzzy

[SFRacingGSX]

The other day I was playing Halo 3 on my "halo box", and the whole screen turned to this blue kind of snowy looking screen. It happened during game play, so I tried turning my x-box off and turning it back on. When I turned it back on, it started like it was going to work normally, but then after the halo 3 welcome screen loaded, it was all blue/green and fuzzy again.
So after calling X-box support and searching on line, this is what I've tried.

The picture is messed up with any game, as well on start up of the dash board, and around the boarder on net flix.
- Tried on line and offline live
- Tried a different RCA port (Video 1-4)
- Different tv
- Different cables
- I checked to see the setting for display, all normal
- I tired restoring factory defaults
- I tried booting it up holding the right trigger and the y button which is suppose to reset the video settings. It reset, but still doing it.
- I tried this other combination code under the system info screen that was suppose to reset my x-box to factory default. I did it and it did something, but didn't help my problem.
- Unplugged everything for an hour or so
- took the hard drive out

So I have the elite model, and it cost me $450 about a year a 2 months ago. The first time I called x-box support they said that it was under warranty until jan 2010 and to send it in at no cost and they will fix it. I told them that I would call back because I wanted to test a few more things before I sent it away. After trying a few things with no luck, I called back and this time the rep told me that my warrenty was up on jan 2009 and that I would have to pay 100 to extend my warranty to fx it.

So basically now im really pissed. I don't play video games much so I really do not want to pay another 100 on since i paid 450 a year ago and thought id be good for a few years.
Done have any suggestion of what i should do? I really don't want to pay 100 bucks, especially since i don't play it much.

Another thing I wanted to add was that when i watch a movie on netflix, the black part around the screen where they crop it for wide screen is completely snow, but the rest of the picture comes in fine which tells me that it isn't the hard drive or the disc reader. Any Ideas?


Also is there anything i can do to induce the red ring of death?? I think they cover it for 3 years vs 1 year for everything else. I really don't want to pay 100 more, since i dont play it often

[SFRacingGSX]

I thinking about opening her up with the technique that i won't loose my warrenty with. What should i look for after opening it?

[Citky]

Don't open it,according to your symptoms,you should get some red lights soon,which will tell the problem

[SFRacingGSX]

Originally Posted by Citky

Don't open it,according to your symptoms,you should get some red lights soon,which will tell the problem

Should I leave it on all day to speed up this process?? It does seem to be slightly louder than normal also without a disc in it. Any help is much appreciated! Thanks!

The picture quality is so bad that I cannotplay any games

[Chaput]

It does sound like a RROD, but more importantly its the video chip. Both CPU and Video chip start loosen up due to excessive heat. The best thing to do is open it up and fix the X-clamps and over heat that video chip (after you add thermal paste). This can be found through google. Definitly recommend checking your warranty first before even trying to open it up.

I don't recommend leaving it on till you get the RROD, I would fix the problem before the problem worsens. And while your in there you can clean all the dust out of there to further prevent the dvd rom drive going out or more.

[011191]

If you are under warranty, send it to microsuck (free fix)

If you're not, you can spend 100$ for microsuck to fix it for you (but itll break in a few months) or get 10$ and fix it yourself.

Google X-Clamp fix (can be done under an hour)