The Gamer's Quarter

[ryan]

I just had my fourth disc of Gears of War give me a Dirty Disc error. I really want to finish this thing too. Rage! RAGE!

Anyone have a possible solution? I boiled one disc, which got me past one area it had previously froze on when I reached it, but then it eventually stopped booting at all (error at boot).
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Come to me, Mordel. We shall depart.

[aerisdead]

Um, Replace your 360?

There's no way that you should go through 4 discs if your Xbox is reading discs properly.
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aerisdead

[Shapermc]

Yeah, I know you've sent yours in before, but this seriously sounds like a 360 issue. I replaced mine after a similar situation with Dead Rising and Oblivion combined. Best Buy's extended warrantee is a godsend in this department.

Also, I know that Morrowind on the Xbox would do this, but if you cached your memory out it would fix it, and I recall hearing something similar can be done with the 360 by holding a button when the game or system boots. That might fix it, but I recommend just trying to get a new machine.
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“The average man has a secret desire to be a swaggering, drunken, fighting, raping swashbuckler.”
-Robert E. Howard in a letter to a friend circa Decmber 1932

"There is no place in this enterprise for a rogue physicist!"

[ryan]

Yeah, the cache thing was one of the first suggestions people made in other places. Unfortunately, it's not a fix for it. All of my other games play fine, and Gears has been giving a few friends problems as well.

I guess I'll call to get it replaced again. ARRGGHH.
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Come to me, Mordel. We shall depart.

[Ethoscapade]

it is seriously unfuckingbelievable how low hardware standards are getting; of course, everybody replaces everything for free, so it's a nonissue, but honestly. nobody's genesis ever broke. people thought the ps2's were bad; 360's defect rate honest seems over fifty percent, but what with microsoft fixing them for free and all who's going to be bothered about that?

[dhex]

quality control becomes harder as devices get more complicated. much as i like to rag on apple for that, well, an ipod is not a sony walkman cassette player. the genesis has virtually no moving parts.

also, i broke a lot LOT of 2600 joysticks as a kid. generic accessory markets don't come from nowhere.

edit: but wait what "boiling the disc" ???
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[ryan]

Sometimes discs have coating still on them from when they were pressed, causing read errors, and boiling them is how you remove it. This was a big thing back for the official PlayStation and Dreamcast magazine discs, so much so that they had little images explaining how to do it inside the magazines.
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Come to me, Mordel. We shall depart.

[Pijaibros]

Placed disc into pot of filtered water.
Heat water to rolling boil with disc in water. Boil for 5-10 minutes.
Dry immediately with soft cloth wiping from inside to outside rim.

Results:
Surface appears clean and has normal appearance.
Surface is shiny and has good reflection.
No damage to disk. Plays once again.

Water's a hell of a solvent.

[ryan]

I was super excited whenever the boiling option originally worked. The game kept freezing after an explosion in an underground area, so I had played that space about 10 times, with different options and trying different things to try to get it to continue. I tried every combination people suggested to others on forums. I finally got past that part, but then it froze on boot.

The other discs froze at the part where you kick the fuel line after fighting off the invasion at the gas station.

This new disc is freezing at the exact same part as the original, right as you fly into the air after being hit with a shock wave from the underground blast. That part is cursed! Cursed!
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Come to me, Mordel. We shall depart.

[Pijaibros]

I had no problems with playing either Dead Rising or Gears of War. At anyone's house

Maybe you should get it replaced? Sell it to some shill and wait for that real fancy black X360 that's due out in the Spring?

Is your system receiving adequate ventilation? I know, dumb question. I don't know anyone who's had a failed X360 and there's alot of people I know with this system. I've seen more failed Wii systems, personally.

"Boiling the disc" is this generation's "blow the cartridge". Though I hear some folk choose to do a spit shine instead of a boil.

[ryan]

This would actually be the third time I've had to send a 360 in. The first time it gave the ring of death, or whatever it's called. I sent it in, paid the $130, then got it back 26 days into my new 30-day warranty. It broke again (screen would tear and a loud sound would screech out of my speakers) on day 28.

The unit is on the top of a small bookshelf with nothing near the vents. Ever since I got it back again it's been good. No problems with any games. It's Gears only. I've read about a lot of problems with the game though, dirty disc errors and whatnot. I can't sell this though, because it was sent by MS. If it's Gears, then I'd hate to send this in and possibly get it fix-broken (replacement #1 result) again.
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Come to me, Mordel. We shall depart.

[dmauro]

I'm pretty sure my roommate's 360 has had problems with crashing/not loading properly with every game we've played at one time or another. I was having problems with Gears of War and just wiped it clean and then it worked. It's probably a combination of bad hardware and bad discs, but it sounds like you should try to get a new 360.

[Nana Komatsu]

I am pretty sure I have a second generation Xbox 360 (no noise problems) and I had no trouble playing my borrowed copy of Gears of War through.
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[thatbox]

My friend's Gears freezes up all the fucking time, but it's never at any predictable point, so you can and do beat the game, you just waste several extra hours on replaying bits and pieces.
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[ryan]

thatbox!

Euric tried to help me out last night by going through it over Live. We actually managed to get past that cutscene, but then it froze on the next cutscene that introduced the new level. So we then tried him hosting a game after that, to try to bypass the area, but it just kept locking up.

I emailed MS support and they mentioned calling a number for a "repair fee." HAHAHAHA, no, no, there won't be any of that. I'll launch this thing off the top of my house before I pay them to fix it. Then again, they extended my warranty and refunded my money when they admitted there was a problem, so I should be good to go.

--

aside: you still in louisiana? I'm moving to baton rouge this summer. I'll have an 'office' (room in the apartment with all my consoles hooked up to my new monitor) you come by!
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Come to me, Mordel. We shall depart.

[dmauro]