My Xbox 360 just arrived at the repair center in Mesquite TX this evening. I came home from vacation Sunday, started it up and got one red blinking light (hardware failure) and an "E 73" error (the ethernet port). According to my pet sitter it first happened last week when she started the Xbox; the next day it worked fine, then it always gave the error. I had unplugged the ethernet cable before I left. This Xbox was a Falcon Elite manufactured October 23, 2007 and purchased (new) December 28, 2007. Less than 300 days of casual usage, it's dead.

A while back I bought a second Elite to get my wife off of my Xbox, so I was still able to play the last three acts of Gears of War (first time for me) with Sithisis (more about that later).