X360 Red Lines Broke My Heart

I was always confident my year old Xbox 360 unit won’t succumb to the infamous 3RL. Unfortunately, a failed a hardware would always be a failed hardware. Yesterday, I experienced random red lines on my Dell LCD display while having a playthrough of Assassin’s Creed. I assumed it could probably be the disc or loose VGA connection, checked the connection and the disc for scratches -- all was fine.

nerve-wracking....

Best option was to restart the unit. Everything was great but after a few moments the same issue occurred.

ah... beautiful... sniff...

damn it...

Being the optimist that I am, retightened the VGA cable and restarted. Everything was running smoothly, no red lines for nearly half an hour so decided to punch in the disc and ignore the incident and hoped the red lines would just pass into oblivion - and at the same time drilling to my head it’s merely a minor defect that happens to every Xbox owner and most importantly, it doesn’t recur. Regrettably, after a few moments of jumping around with Altair, it happened again.

"And, when he shall die, Take him and cut him out in little stars, And he will make the face of Heaven so fine That all the world will be in love with night And pay no worship to the garish sun." - William Shakespeare

So I turned off the unit, was at the brink of a ‘teary-eyed state’ and turned on the system, the worst of my fears flashed before my very eyes... no display at all. Audio worked, everything else worked, but no display. I put down the controller, sat on my chair, and grieved for what has just transpired. (Note: I didn’t cry)

A heart wrenching experience for me. I’m seriously considering a PS3 purchase on christmas, but this was hard earned cash. Painful.