Xbox 360 s issues

[StillStanding]

So I bought this Xbox for my family for Christmas and didn't even have it for 4 months when the Xbox started saying the discs were unreadable.Took good care of it,(always supervised the boys on it, cause you know boys), and troubleshooted, but eventually had to do a Microsoft Repair Request online, and sent it out for repairs.Got a refurbished model back within 3 weeks,(can you imagine the angst of the kids during that time?) and within 2 days of that less than perfect model, the Xbox started reading disc unreadable again along with other undesirable issues like loud fan noise and other weird noises coming from it intermittently.I am in the process of doing another Online Repair Request and I was told that I have to wait another 3 weeks for another refurbished model.
I would like to know if this is a common issue with the Xbox 360 S? The warranty will expire in Jan. 2012.
Anybody out there know anything about this model and it's cons?
I feel really gypped.
My kids are bummed out. It's summer vacation and they both worked really hard and got straight A's.
I just bought a whole bunch of accessories and new games for them and now they don't get to try them and I'm broke. Some Summer.

[jingda]

Never heard of this problem before. Is it a Xbox 360 white or black. White use to have such problems before. Disc unreadable mean either the games have problem or the problem lies with the Xbox. Have you tested out other games and see whether the problems persists. Did you spill any liquid on the Xbox or jam anything in the cd drive? Test the games on another Xbox. If your friends have one test the games you bought on their xbox to make sure the games are peerfectly fined. Show me ana image of the xbox too.

[Sariscos]

Hi OldWarriorGirl,

I know exactly how you feel. I'm on my third XBox 360.

First, I want you to consider where the placement of this XBox 360 is. Is it on a floor? Is the floor carpet? Dust causes havoc with the XBox. That's why my 1st one failed... lots of dust.

Secondly, what's up with the discs? Are they new? Are they scratched? I know kids, kids like to leave discs laying around. Perhaps there's some stuff on it. Usually when it can't read a disc, it's 1 of 2 things.

A) The disc is damaged
B) The laser that reads the disc is damaged
C) The XBox doesn't read the disc with the laser that reads games, but rather the DVD laser which then prompts "Please insert an XBox 360 game" (In 10 different languages)

Sometimes just taking the dust cleaner for the keyboard solves a lot of issues. Something must be getting into that XBox.

Nonetheless, the refurbs that they send you aren't so great. It's a gamble. Maybe they fixed something else that was broken, but did not see the other errors because it may have worked at the time.

I hope this helped you out.