by Matt | Oct 3, 2011 | Aggravation, Featured, Games, Tech
So, if you’ve been following my Google Plus account, you’d know that last week I got the dreaded Red Ring of Death. After 6 years, the ol’Xbox 360 launch console finally decided it had enough and put up the flag or surrender. I called Mircosoft and of course the console was three years out of warranty and they wanted $150 (plus shipping) to fix it. I thought that was about the most retarded thing I had heard in a long time and told them as much. Instead, I opted to buy a RROD repair kit and fix it myself. The only draw back I could foresee was that I would void my totally non-existent warranty. If it didn’t work, oh well, I was out $20.
I did a little digging and settled on the kit from Team Xecuter, the guys that mod consoles just for giggles. I figured if anyone knew a gaming console inside and out, it was probably a modder. I considered the one from iFixit as well, but it was a couple dollars more with slower shipping. I did use their really handy “how to open your Xbox” guide however. It was far more instructional (including photos) than the Xecuter one.
Shipping from XConsoles was crazy fast and I had my kit in two days. So, kit in handy and a free Saturday afternoon, I decided to see if I could resurrect my dead 360. The hardest part of the entire thing was getting the top and bottom of the case apart. One you get the sides and the front off, the back of the console has about 12 itty-bitty latches that need to be popped all at once. You could use a “opening tool” but I didn’t want to spend the extra cash and the instructions all said it wasn’t necessary, which was true, but it did take me about 45 minutes just for that one section of the case without it. Luckily I have about 3 dozen micro screwdrivers and I stuck one in each slot instead.
Once the case is apart, the rest of the fix is really easy and strait forward. If you’ve opened up a computer in the past 10 years, you can fix your Xbox. Essentially, what Microsoft did to save a couple cents per unit, is what’s killing consoles. They used this crazy X shaped bracket to hold the heatsinks to the bottom of the motherboard. It’s very reminiscent of older computer CPU fans, the kind where you needed to bend the bracket/latch down, almost to the breaking point, in order to secure it to the motherboard. Think that, only with four sides instead of one. The 360’s X brackets holds down the heatsinks so poorly, they separate and the thermal paste fails, resulting in a RROD.
So, the “repair” is really just to replace the thermal paste (good ol Arctic Silver!) and then re-secure the heatsink. Instead of using the X brackets, the kit comes with bolts and washers that are the same height as the bracket. A couple minutes later and I was putting the motherboard back in the case.
Then comes the moment of truth. Since the RROD is like a check engine light, it won’t go away until it’s cleared (thanks again MS!), meaning a working console that’s been fixed could still appear to be “broken”. How do you clear it? Give it ANOTHER error. The error in particular? The classic “overheat” error. You might have seen this one if you’ve ever put your 360 in an entertainment console, or had something sitting on top of it. The trick is to use the fan in the console to your advantage. You turn the console on with ZERO cooling. It overheats in about 30 seconds, flashing the two red lights instead of the 3. You immediately connect the fan to vent the heat and power down the console. Give it a few minutes to cool, fire it back up, and bingo, no more RROD!
I was actually pretty astounded. I really didn’t think it was going to work. What’s essentially $2 in screws fixes a console that they want $150 to repair. After seeing what the inside of this thing looks like, it’s very apparent that they tried to cut corners, save a couple pennies per unit and it really bit them in the ass. A normal cooling solution would have completely eliminated the RROD problem and saved them millions in the long run. I hope they’re taking notes for their next console.
Anyway, in total the repair took about 2 hours on Saturday and another 30 minutes (snapping the case back together) on Sunday and I’m completely pleased with the results. If anyone ever has a broken 360 and they’re just going to get a new one, tell them not to. A couple screws and about 2 hours of your time can save you $300 bucks. The bonus upside is that since the case is essentially open now, I can replace all the other parts if need be. I can swap a quieter LG drive for the cheap one that’s in there, or replace the cooling fans with silent ones from Vantec. All sorts of stuff.
Mission accomplished, game on!
by Matt | Sep 29, 2011 | Baseball
All the fair-weather fans who’ve come out of the woodwork disgust me. There are literally hundreds of pages of comments on every major Boston publication’s website today calling for either the resignation of Theo, the head of Tito, or the open roasting of Carl Crawford in the middle of the Common. Or all three. I can’t honestly believe some of the things I’m hearing. You bitter, angry, fair weather, new era Red Sox fans. All of you forget the past, the dozens of times they didn’t make it to the post season, the dozens of times they self destructed. You forget the 86 YEARS we had to wait to finally reach the top again. Now, after all that, you EXPECT to win? What’s wrong with you people?
It’s all relative. You’re focusing on the little things in one game, trying to justify and entire season that never quite came together. Sure, Crawford should have caught the ball. He tried, albeit in a very ManRam sort of way, to get to that ball. The better question might be why did Paps throw a fast ball with an 0-2 count? Actually, a better question would be why did that game mean something in the first place, they should have been up by 9 games stilll. Even better than that, why did the starting rotation go 7-20 in September?
You can’t get angry at people for being paid huge amount of money and then losing. You can’t. You know why? Because you’re the ones buying the tickets and paying their salary. That’s right. You, the fan, you wrote that check to Crawford, not Theo. He got who he felt was an All-Star outfielder to fill a vacant and weak position. ManRam juiced out, Jason Bay was terrible, they needed some one in left. Sure, he had a mediocre year, but that’s one year. Ortiz had a terrible year last year, was completely fine this year. It comes and goes.
If anything, it was a combination of the starting rotation being weak in a tough AL-East and lots and lots of injuries. Listen, when you’re starting rotation has only two guys that have dependable records in it, it’s in trouble. Lester (15-9), Beckett (13-7), Lackey (12-12), Wakefield (7-8), Bedard (1-2). When that is your starting rotation for September, you’re in deep crap. Lester is the only one who had a somewhat normal year. Everyone else was sucking right out of the gate. Daisuke, Buchholz, Jenks, Hill, all on the DL. Combined with the fact that everyone in the bullpen had a terrible year, with the exception of Aceves and, if you made an argument for him having 30+ saves, Papelbon.
If anything needs to be done in the off-season, it’s not the firing of Theo or Tito. It’s strengthening the bullpen and the starting rotation. Paplebon, Aceves, Wakefield and Bard all are free agents next year. As are Ortiz, Scutaro, Ellsbury, Tek, and Salty, but we’re talking pitching. I don’t think there’s another 6 season, 30+ save, closer available. They don’t come along every day. They’ll have to resign Paplebon. Wake will probably retire, we’re assuming. I say keep Aceves, he worked his butt off for us this year. Danny Bard should probably be on the chopping block. Trade Daisuke and Hill, give Buchholz and Jenks one more year and see where they are. They really need a quality 3rd and 4th starter and a longman, 7th inning guy in the pen. That’s where I would be looking in the off season. Coming up for free agency next year, there are a couple interesting names.
Mark Buehrle (CWS), Rich Harden (OAK), Scott Kazmir (LAA), Hiroki Kuroda (LAD), Jason Marquis (WAS), Adam Wainwright (STL), Brandon Webb (ARI), C.J. Wilson (TEX), Chris Young (NYM).
The real question would be, are any of these guys better than Diasuke, Buchholz, Lackey, etc. Decidedly less interesting, and equally shallow, is the pool of relievers. They’ll have to find someone to trade with.
I didn’t mean to digress into a discussion about actual roster changes, I’m just saying that they need some help in the pitching department. They’ve shown they can go out and land big power hitters, now they need to work on the pitching for a couple years. There’s plenty of guys left in the farm system, despite criticism that Theo has traded away all our top talent, that we’re ok in the outfield and behind the plate for a while. Lavarnway, Kalish, Vitek, Iglesias, Nava, all rising stars.
My real point is that this might have been a “lost season”, but it’s nothing to cry about. Nothing to start warming up the pitch forks and torches over, and certain nothing to start calling for resignations about. Anyone who’s calling for Theo Epsteins head on a platter today simply doesn’t understand baseball as a whole. And anyone calling for Tito to be fired doesn’t understand that baseball teams are NOT “coached”, they’re “managed”. Huge difference. A football coach is in there, yelling and screaming, calling plays, super involved for a whopping 18 games. A baseball “manager” has 160 games. You can’t be yelling at people for 160 games. You have to let them play. You put people in the right situations, lineups, positions to help them play their best, but much more so than football, it’s really up to the individual player to achieve.
No one needs to get fired. You’ve got to realize this is just what happens. They’ve done it dozens and dozens of times. This is nothing new. All you fair-weather fans make me sick. Calling for heads to roll because they didn’t win it all this year. Please. This is Red Sox Nation. We survived 86 years with nothing but tears and disappointment. Remember that the next time you think you DESERVED a championship team for the 3rd time in 7 years.
by Matt | Sep 28, 2011 | Baseball
So, Sam stopped by last weekend to hang out for a bit and of course we brought out the card binders. I had been on a bit of a binge, buying all sorts of random blasters again and I had a bunch of stuff in my “for trade” pile. I ended up trading my Michael Choice auto for Bowman Platinum and two Ryan Zimmerman relics from 2008 Baseball Heroes and 2011 Lineage. You can actually see the scans over on his post. In return I got a super nice signed Razor Letterman patch of Kyle Weiland, a 2011 Gypsy Queen David Ortiz relic and a 2007 UD Masterpieces Papelbon relic. Quite the nice trade. Scan is here.
by Matt | Sep 20, 2011 | Aggravation, Featured, Games
What’s better than 1 angry post a day? TWO angry posts a day!
I need to address a couple issues that I’ve come to have in the battle of the first person shooter franchises this fall. These issues may very well be worked out and may become non-issues by the time the games ship in Oct/Nov, but by all indications and through public announcements by the games development studios, these are all real problems for a gamer like me. (more…)
by Matt | Sep 20, 2011 | Aggravation, Featured, Personal, Tech
I read about the Netflix/Qwikster announcement this morning and just had to laugh. That company is so severely confused and mismanaging what was a virtual monopoly on the video rental industry that they almost deserve to fail. I say almost because even though I’ve personally cancelled my membership a long time ago, it’s still the representation of the idea that streaming media can work and, more importantly, that it should not only come from Tier 1 service providers.
Netflix was, long ago, the white knight, saving us from Blockbuster and Hollywood Video, the evil corporations that charged you extra for being lazy and not bringing videos back. That was their business model. You would pick up a movie for a couple bucks and end up paying twice that because you forgot to return it on your way to work the next morning. Then, they raised the prices of the initial rental, just to get those people who actually returned it on time. I remember renting a movie from Hollywood video for around $5, going home, watching it, and returning it tw0 days later and paying $10 in late fees. That business had to die. (more…)
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