How much would you pay for a dead Xbox?

October 26, 2011 7:13 PM

I just bought a new xBox, due to a 3 segment red rings of death that was not a faulty power supply. Somebody on Craigslist locally is offering $35 for red ringed xBoxes. Anybody have an idea on what his angle might be? I'd like $35 dollars, but it's not that important to me that I'm willing to contribute to some sort of scam by supplying the raw materials for it.
posted by COD to Computers & Internet (11 answers total)

He probably opens it up, re-applies thermal paste to the CPU/GPU, and sells it as a working XBox. Not really a scam, just someone willing and able to do the work.
posted by ellF at 7:27 PM on October 26, 2011 [3 favorites]

Yeah, he's just gonna take it apart, clean it out, maybe apply some new heat sinks and resell it. Usually nothing nefarious about it at all.
posted by Sphinx at 7:32 PM on October 26, 2011

Not a scam, just a guy who recognizes that the majority of people don't care to try to repair their own xboxes.

He's making a nice little bit of side cash fixing them and reselling them.
posted by davey_darling at 8:04 PM on October 26, 2011

Just make sure you unregister your machine's s/n from your Xbox Live profile before onselling it, in case something crazy happens down the track.
posted by tumid dahlia at 8:13 PM on October 26, 2011 [1 favorite]

There are tons of people on Craigslist who buy broken Xboxes and Ipods, fix them, and resell them. Nothing wrong there. Now, some of them do better work than others, but that's why there are folks looking to buy broken stuff, so they can fix it.
posted by Slinga at 8:44 PM on October 26, 2011

Could also be that he is able to exchange or return it directly ... through a process that most people are unaware of (or don't bother checking).
posted by jannw at 12:06 AM on October 27, 2011

If I'm not mistaken a red-ringed Xbox still has a working hard drive if it hasn't been removed. That's probably worth more than 35 bucks as well.
posted by bardic at 12:34 AM on October 27, 2011

He might not even do the heat sink thing; a blast with a heat gun fixes things often enough (at least, for long enough to sell it on).
posted by obiwanwasabi at 2:48 AM on October 27, 2011

My boyfriend buys red ringed xboxes, fixes them, and sometimes resells them for a bit more than he bought them for. He likes tinkering. Nothing nefarious about it.
posted by elsietheeel at 8:47 AM on October 27, 2011

Response by poster: Thanks. Turns out the guy doesn't have a car, and I ain't delivering for $35, so it doesn't matter.
posted by COD at 9:35 AM on October 27, 2011

Epic.
posted by tumid dahlia at 5:11 PM on October 27, 2011