Just a side note, a buddy of mine had his (white) xbox die on him out of warranty. He went out and bought a new 360 with kinect, but only with 4 gb built-in. Another friend of mine and I got the HDD out of the plastic casing, and eventually got it out of the metal enclosure that it was encased in inside the plastic casing. Since the new HDDs connect via SATA directly, we just plugged his old HDD into the SATA ports in the hard drive port, and it works perfectly...
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My advice is to go look around DONT repair it. Loblaws here in Canada was selling the 360 base model for like 125$ a month ago, difference is you get the warranty again if you go that route. Instead of the $90 repair, just cough up the extra 30 bucks and get the warranty too...
The price should drop big time soon with the new slim version out...
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The problem is the RoHS silver solder that they are using in the manufacture of consumer electronics will develop tin whiskers and cracking in the joints causing issues. This time it is true they dont make them like they used to.
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