XBOX 360 video not working
July 3, 2008
The other day something very terrible happened to me. As I was kicking ass on Call of Duty 4 on XBOX Live, the screen started flickering.
I haven’t played COD4 in a few weeks so I thought I’d get back into the groove and do a free for all. Taking some time off did me good; I got back in the game and got 1st place with 22 kills. For those of you who haven’t played this game, when you get shot up, the screen produces a red pulsating spherical shape indicating that you are bleeding to death. I took a closer look at the graphics and noticed that it looked like a cheap gif. Because I haven’t played in a long time, I thought they added some new effect that I didn’t know about.
After playing on a few other maps, I noticed the color degradation on the textures of the objects in the maps. This is when I started to panic. I took the game out of the tray, gave it a good wipe down and tired it again. No luck; it was still choppy.
After I picked up my heart, which at this point was falling out of my ass, I made sure all of my physical connections where secure; you never know, it could have been a loose wire, right?
I turned my 360 on and then it happened; sound with NO PICTURE! I was devastated. How was I supposed to spend my free time, reading?!
I called XBOX Live support to see if they can assist me in this terrible time. I went through all of their procedures:
- Reset the display settings
- Try inputting the video to a different channel on my TV
- Use TV instead of HDTV (there is a switch in the video wire that interchanges between the two)
- Use the HDMI cable instead of the regular video cable
- Try it on a different TV
The conversation was short. The result; they’ll send me a coffin box to put my 360 in so I can send it back for repairs. Great.
If this has happened to you, try all of the steps that I mentioned. You can also try these techniques.
If nothing works, get on the phone and call XBOX 360 Live support so you too can get a coffin box to send your XBOX in.
[...] DailyJoypad.co.uk wrote an interesting post today onHere’s a quick excerpt The other day something very terrible happened to me. As I was kicking ass on Call of Duty 4 on XBOX Live, the screen started flickering. I haven’t played COD4 in a few weeks so I thought I’d get back into the groove and do a free for all. Taking some time off did me good; I got back in the game and got 1st place with 22 kills. For those of you who haven’t played this game, when you get shot up, the screen produces a red pulsating spherical shape indicating that you are bleeding to death. I [...]
dang, same thing happened to me too
=[
damn coffin boxes
I feel your pain hdmi. Let us now have a moment of silence for all of our fellow XBOX’s that have passed.
bummer, thank God for the PS3, blu ray disc and fewer crashes =)… BTW microsoft sucks at trying to get you that Xbox 360 back soon, my cousin still hasn’t gotten his back yet after his laser got screwed up and the xbox light turned red (indicating it’s fucked)… He sent it back to microsoft 3 months ago, he still has not gotten it. =/
Actually, I recently received an email from XBOX telling me that they have “repaired” my system. Now I’m not sure if that means that they are sending me a new one, or they actually fixed mine. I’m still waiting on their next email with some tracking info.
Hopefully, I don’t fall into the same trap your cousin did. If they pull that crap on me, I’ma raise hell! >:O
Hey guys, I just recently had this same problem too. At first, I thought it was the av cables burning out, so I searched for that kind of support. On those forums I heard that it really isn’t the cables at all and is some kind of internal problem. Then I found this one thread that had the very simple solution right in the middle of all the hysteria. He said that there are two ways to go about fixing it; one being that you take your 360 apart and replace the heat sink which was also very logical and might help your 360’s performance in the future, but much harder than the second solution. Then he very plainly said the solution that worked for me and I hope it works for just about everyone with this problem.
1. Turn on your 360 and leave it on for about 20-30 seconds.
2. Remove the harddrive as the xbox is still running and leave it out for another 10-20 seconds.
3. Reconnect the harddrive to the xbox while it is still on and leave before turning the xbox off for 5ish seconds. At this point, you should be able to hear the xbox reset the start up process.
4. Turn off your 360, disconnect and reconnect the av cable, and turn on your xbox again. Immediately it started up normally, no static lines or anything.
I would hate to hear about xbox support telling another poor soul that their xbox is broken and needs repairs that cost $99 when you can see if this little fix works for you. It literally takes less than a min to do. I realize that something that worked for me, doesn’t necessarily mean that it will work for other people. Just thought I might share my experience, and if it does do the trick, I’m just as amazed as you are.
Whoa, I wish I would have done that before I sent mine in. Luckily, I recently received my 360. Thankfully they didn’t charge me. Now all I have to do is hope that I never see the red ring of death.
the same exact thing happened to me i was playing COD4 and tryed the cheats for the first time today and after i turned the contrast cheat on and off the color went back to normal but it still had that weird glassy cheap graphics look so i went to my dashboard and it still had that look whilst nearly shitting my brain out i turned off my consle and started it up i get sound but no video and microsofts wonderful tech support gave me the same stuff they gave the guy who started this blog the same procedures,and then they gave me the wonderful news that my 360 is no longer under warranty and that im gonna havta send it in and pay them $99 i even tryed perpetuals techniqe bt nothing ah today was a great day….
Sorry to hear of your troubles my360blewmyhigh. There’s a contrast cheat?!?! I gotta find this! Googling….
I just tried Perpetual’s “fix” and it did not work for me.
I bookmarked your blog, thanks for sharing this very interesting post
Holy Crap,
What are the chances, I just tried Perpetual’s fix and it FRIKIN WORKED!!!!!.. Dude, you just saved my ACE…
THANKS!!!!!
YAYAYAY! That is super hot. I only wish that I had that tip sooner.
I Can also confirm Perpetual’s method works! But i found a even simpler way.
1. turn on 360, leave on for 10-20 sec
2. While still on, disconnect and reconnect the av cable. You will see the screen go black.
3. Reset your 360
Voila!
P.S. it mite take a few tries for it to work.
Thanks for the tip Pope! I hope this thread helps others through such a difficult time.
i had the same problem try the method with turning on for 20 sec take off the hard drive for 10-20sec putting the hd back on let it reset turned off the xbox disconect the av reconect and turn back on and should work took me a couple trys but it did work i just did it now so i dont know how long it will work for
Perpetual, I love you.
Great post.
My 360 did the samething yours did but I wasn’t playing COD4 I was playing Gears 2, I have sound but no video and I have this white line on the top of my tv screen, someone told me it was my GPU. Ohh well guess I have to send it off!!!
My problem was different im using a vga cable and used my computer monintor as the screen and my xbox takes 30-40 secondss to tturn on and im worried i have to send it off to microsoft cos ive allready gone through two
i tried perpetuals twice and it didnt work just god the freakin sound
Just happened to me on cod4, i had the most points in S+D then this started happening, lost my concentration and got owned!!!! going to try perpetuals advice and see if works!
Lol, I’m glad that that’s never happened to me. I was having a couple of problems with it before when it started to show signs of RRODing.
OMFG thank you!!!!!!!!!! the hard drive method worked, but alas too late. i have a ps3 so i traded almost all my games in. but it worked!!!
just bought nhl10 got home and set up my 360… bought it back in may, refurbed, and have only turned it on like a dozen times. that was all about to change with the purchase of nhl10, turned the system on (hdmi hookup), unwrapped the game (ofcourse it would go down like this), and then i noticed that the screen, which had gone into the inactive dimming, had bad textures and the colors seemed like they went all 256 on me. sooo, i reset the system only for it to no longer work whether its hdmi, rgb-component, or yrw-composite, audio but no picture. this is sooo frustrating for me as my friends and i have a running joke that i have bad computer\system chi, as i have had 8 compy hdds, 3 mobos, 2 processors, ram and video card poop out on me along with 2 first gen xboxen along with other accessory issues and now this. I barely ever even got to play this thing and then finally i find a reason throw down $65 for nhl10 and then yet again the computer and gaming gods have a good laugh…
… ive tried perpetuals thing and it didnt work for me, though i may have done it wrong, any one else who has had any success with this or any other method of getting the video back, plz clarify exactly what u did, much apprikiated… Microsoft has already given me crap about the warranty being out on the system that expired b4 i ever even owned it, as they refurbed it but it wasnt completely right when i bought it, but they refused to stand behind their work and fix the problem unless i payed for the fixes… soooo angry!
I just wanted to thank you for the original post. You are the dude in my eyes. I didn’t have a clue what to do when my video was gone but I was hearing those oh-so-awesome xbox boot up sounds. I realize my cables were switches to HD and not regular TV. I switched back and BANG! there was my video. Thanks again buddy!
OK so this is how it all started for me. I was sitting at home playin COD modern warfare and my video started coming in all shitty. Figured it was a bad connection i reset the console and checked all the connections. It worked fine for about a day or so. The next day i go to play and BANG my xbox’s video isnt working.. I can hear the boot up but still no video. my tv says no signal over and over again. I tried perpetuals method but nothing… i called xbox and they told me its not under warranty and that i would need to pay… Andone have any advice or info they could give me. It would be greatly appreciated…