well, my buddy's xbox 360 that I was borrowing just rrod'd too.

Are you cursed?
What did you end up doing with yours?

I love my XBox360 (launch console,) but mine's died on me once too.
The problem is heat related. The main processor (and all the rest of the IC's for that matter) are soldered with lead-free solder. Extreme heat conditions cause the solder to crack more easily than lead-based solder. Hairline cracks cause one or more legs (on the main processor) to lose contact with the board, which equals RRoD...
I've modded mine with an extra large heatsink and cardboard fins inside to help direct airflow. It's a bit noisier, but has run for well over a year without any dramas whatsoever.

I have 20 friends who all own xbox 360's they have gone through 100 each.
See what I did their? :P
The 360 rate was and still is 54%, the ps3's is around 10% both microsoft and sony have yet to fix their problems.

The issue can sometimes be power related. Did you borrow your mates power supply too, or just the console?

power supply too.
left it in it's coffin without sending it in...
yeah, it's 100%
but I've already bought one so I'm stickin' with it, may get a PS3 next year sometime.

I've had my PS3 for almost a year now and have not had a single problem with it. Not one! (knocking loudly on my wood desk). =)

mine's still okay for the time being. never had a single problem with it , it's still my first one.
It's not placed vertical , well ventilated and as dustfree as possible :)
so i should better knowck on an amazon forest...

Ok, seeing as no one has explained yet what causes the RROD let me give you a few pointers...
The RROD is due to processor heat, and failed adhesive on the heat sink.
Keeping it that close to your TV could be causing a heat issue, make sure you have plenty of ventilation and that the TV isn't venting onto the XBox.
Once that's done, lay it horizontal, not vertical. The reason being is that if you have it vertical you also have gravity pulling on the heat sink, and that can also work against you in thermal failure.
Seeing as this is the 2nd one you've killed, I'm guessing the TV is venting onto the box.
Also the whole idea of 54% failure rate is idiotic at best... that number was from a "voluntary" survey in a gaming magazine that's little more than a printed ad for a game store. It's about as worthless as the paper it was printed on. But everyone loves to hate the XBox so lets just go with the 54% number.

No, thats a bad, bad weclock, big smacks. Get an RA for it and get it fixed, the RROD is basically an automatic repair and didn't MS dramatically extend the warranty for that exact error? If nothing else ring and ask them about it, if the repair is free than take it, if it's cheap and you can afford it, take it. If they give you any shit tell them the ps3 slim is looking mighty attractive

It was a fanboy vs haters survey and they got a few more haters than fanboys.
People hardly ever compliment good service or items but they'll bitch like crazy about the slightest thing going wrong making any opinion/volunteer based data collection practically useless

isnt it normal that people won't look in forums if things go okay. hence the high %.
Its like the radeon 4870 earlier this year. They where all crap because a few people had a few problems. The other 90% never responded that they where happy :)

The only way we would get a solid failure rate figure is from microsoft but thats never going to happen. I can believe its fairly high though as I'm unfortunate enough to be on my 5th xbox 360 and I don't know a single person that hasn't had to send off at least 1 xbox for rrod repairs.

I know 2 people who haven't. In fact they're 2/3 of the xbox owners I know personally (the other one being me)
When you say you're on your 5th xbox, does that mean you've had it repaired 4 times or have bought 5 machines in total?

Repaired twice and replaced twice all by microsoft, not about to give them extra money for something that should work for more then 6months-1year at a time. I think I'm probably one of the unlucky people when it comes to xbox's but I keep the thing well ventillated, horizontal etc.