After experiencing intermittent freezes for a while now, my Xbox finally displayed the "red ring of death" on the weekend.

Mine was a weird situation, because my 360 only ever played up (freezing, not powering down properly) while my HD DVD add-on was plugged into the USB port. Unplugging the HD DVD player would stop the 360 from faulting, so I naturally assumed it was the HD DVD accessory at fault and not the console itself. Last week I managed to get my HD DVD player replaced by the retailer I bought it from (some 10 months later - well done Myer!) and within about 24 hours the 360 froze during a game of Oblivion.

I powered the 360 down, waited a few seconds, then turned it back on again, and pow! Three red lights - commonly known as the Red Ring of Death.

Surprisingly, the console still powers up without any problem most of the time. I've had the RRoD three times in the past two days, but nine times out of ten it starts without any problem. We've watched a few DivX videos and I've played some Carcassone and everything has been dandy.

So yesterday I rang MS support and they immediately emailed me the shipping instructions to return the 360 for repairs. I've heard good reports about the turn-around time so I'm pretty confident.

My only worry is that I will probably be without an Xbox during the week in which Microsoft is offering a free copy of Undertow in recompense for the Xbox Live downtime over Christmas. I hope I'll be able to work something out so that I can still get the free game.