360 issue

devices

hello everyone

I've been having an odd problem with my 360 lately and was wondering if any of you have encountered/fixed it before.

it started when i began playing Assassin's Creed a few weeks ago. i played for a few hours and at one point i was at a loading screen and the game froze up. the console made a clicking noise like you would hear from a cd player that has a bad cd in it and then a system message appeared saying that the disc was unreadable and needed to be replaced.

after much swearing and pleading i restarted the console and the game seemed to work just peachy. the thing is though that its become a recurring problem; and especially so with Mass Effect. Where AC would do it every now and again at load screens (roughly once every few hours), Mass Effect seems to just be random. Whether i'm walking about or at a load screen. I havent tried any other games since this has started happening, but the issue never surfaced until I began playing AC on it.

Both discs are crystal clear, not a mark on them, so this is pretty baffling to me. Perhaps the laser itself is dirty? I also wondered if it could be a heat issue and considered buying one of those extra fans that fits on the back of the machine (on a related note, can anyone tell me if those actually work?); but as to what else could be causing it i'm lost.

Any ideas?

Thanks in advance!

Grimm

This sounds alot like the same issue im having. I'll get a disk not readable error after maybe an hour and a half of assassins creed. Also i keep hearing a really disconcerting sound from the xbox that sounds like its eating my disk but theres not a single mark on it. Do you just you hear the noise when you play assassins creed or is it with other games too? Mine does it on start up and when i run any game.

devices

the only other game i've played that its had problems with is mass effect... and yeah it does make the same nasty sound, but only right before it locks up and gives me the "disc unreadable" message.

it doesnt make the games unplayable but its definitely an annoyance. if not for the autosaves in both games i would have had to go far back in progress many times.

ArcWield

A friend bought me Lego Star Wars: The Complete Saga for Christmas, and in the middle of the Darth Maul fight, it made a clicking noise and gave me the "Disc is Unreadable" message. I ejected the disc, and found it had a bunch of little divots in it (It was perfect when I put it in). After that, it would go to the first loading screen (after you choose a file, right before you enter into the Cantina), then give me the Unreadable error. Eventually, I returned it and got a new copy, which seems to be working fine.

The only other thing I can think of is when I was playing Bioshock, it gave me the Unreadable error in the middle of a loading screen, but the disc was unmarked, and I was able to go back and play past that point.

...So yeah, this doesn't help your problem at all, but if there's a solution, I'd like to know it.