written by owen on 2025-Jan-04.

So I bought a used Xbox 360 on amazon for 180. The more I use this console the more it annoys me. I was playing Rage when I noticed the dates on all my save files were set to 2005. So I figured the bios battery must be dead so I did a quick internet search and found that the xbox360 does not save the clock time unless you keep it plugged in! What kind of nonsense is this? The PS2 keeps it time, the wii, the gamecube but the 360? nope. Time resets to 2005 every time you unplug the glowing orange power brick. The only solution is to leave the ethernet cable plugged in when you boot it up.

The games are great but the hardware is pure trash. I assume it is running over clocked ALL THE TIME which would explain why it is warm to the touch basically as soon as you start playing a game.

I bought the console "renewed" on amazon, no real point in buying a new one since they were last manufactured in 2013. The warm operating temperature is apparently common practice with all consoles - new to me of course. I figured the RedRingOfDeath was just an oversight and all the thermal paste talk was just precautionary but the hardware is slowly moving towards the heat death of the universe. If the console ever cools down it means its dying. Funtimes.

Probably 24 hours after I started playing my first game the console shut itself off instantaneously. No blue screen, nothing, puff. I assumed the game crashed. Turned it on again and it shut off after 5 minutes. Some days it will shutdown right after boot up, consistently until I took the disk out of the drive. Searching for this online returns the same pointless do XYZ as if you are debugging a PC. I plugged it directly into the wall and it worked for a bit then stopped. After a couple days of debugging it seems to be a power supply issue so I gave the power supply a couple wacks and it works consistently for about 2 hours each play session. It's a third party brick so I will have to buy a new one to see if the power supply is really the issue. Wacking it does help. I even opened it up and it's perfectly clean inside. This xbox is really a mystery box of problems and failure points.

Xbox live is another issue. I plan to play the games I bought offline but you need at least one live profile on the system to check for updates. When logged into my offline profile the "my games list" shows only blank thumbnails. Apparently these are downloaded from the internet EVERY TIME you view the list - it's insane. And this will obviously never be fixed because Microsoft does not care about its offline use. Do not try to create an xbox live account on the console. It is better to just create it on the website then choose the download profile option from the xbox360 dashboard. No, you cannot merge the offline profile or make it online active. I kept using my offline account because uploading gamer score is pointless at this stage plus using a live account causes other annoying problems like forced updates etc.

I have learnt to not jostle the power brick as I unplug it from the wall. I bought a 175w power brick replacement and an adapter which I hope will alleviate this issue without creating another.

Is the xbox 360 E worth it in 2025? yes. especially if you have never played any of these games before.

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