I made my first post about my dead Xbox 360 the night it happened on 4/23/2007. Yesterday I got my Xbox 360 back, (yea!) a full 2 months after it initially broke down. It seems to me that if everything goes pretty smoothly with the return process you can expect about a 1 month turn around time should you have to send in your console for repairs.

What happened to me is the initial empty box they sent me had the wrong name on it. I thought about just using the box anyway, since it did get to me in the first place. I called customer support, struggled to understand the broken English, told them about the name issue and they recommend that I get rid of that box and wait for a new one. Just to be double sure there wouldn't be any issues going forward. I said, ok, I'll be waiting for my new empty box then.

About 2 weeks went by and I never received my new empty box with the correct name. So I called them up and they told me that my order had been closed and a new one was never opened. Not sure how that happened, but whatever, I just opened a new order. About a week later I got my empty box, packed up my dead 360 and sent it away.

About 2 weeks later I got my new Xbox 360! So everything is cool and I am back up and running. Microsoft also included a copy of NBA Street (which I already have) and a 1 month membership to live. I thought that was a pretty cool gesture.

I have also heard rumors that MS is beefing up cooling and putting an extra bead of glue around the CPUs to keep them from peeling off the mother boards and causing the red rings of death. The whole thing did not cost me a penny so even though it took a little time, I am still pretty happy with the way MS handled all this.