This info comes from a techy mate of mine:

I thought I'd post my tale of woe and then subsequent jubilation as I know a lot Xboxers on here have had the RROD.

I bought Call of Duty 4 yesterday. Eagerly got home to play it, put the disc in, fired up the game, watched the rather cool intro and lo and behold, system crashed only to show the dreaded red rings of death on the reboot.

GUTTED!!

I guess it's one of those things...you never think it'll happen to you until it does!

I phoned MS and they said they would send UPS to pick it up and repair it...ok fair enough, but that means 3-4 weeks without my Xbox!

I use my Xbox for streaming all my torrents to my LCD TV, streaming my MP3's to my surround system as well as playing games so this was quite bad news. I'd already spunked far too much money on a night out on friday so I knew the rest of the weekend was going to be petty quiet what with no football and I was going to stay in doors play Xbox and watch a few torrents as the weather is crap (too cold, wet and dark to work on the car) so what the hell was I going to do?

So after moping around a bit feeling bored and dejected coz my Xbox didn't love me anymore, (even the Mrs was starting to have some sympathy at this point...) I started looking on the net to see what could be done to get my Xbox sorted asap. I found a towel trick that over heats the system until it starts again by melting everything back into place which seems to work but can be a bit of a fire risk...so that was out of the question or open it up and fix it myself..which voids the MS warranty..also out of the question.

But I also came across some information about the new 65nm Xbox chipset (rather than the old 95nm) called Falcon which apparently runs cooler and quieter than the older versions and avoids the RROD issues that have plagued the system for so long. So I decided today to go on a mission to track one down rather than sit there moping and if I found one, once I had my old Xbox back in working order from MS I'd flog it on Ebay.

Anyway after going to a few stores in the area and hassling the assistants with mad questions about the lot numbers and manufacturing dates of their Xbox stocks, I finally found somebody that had a clue at my local Game and managed to bag myself a brand new Falcon based Xbox. Lot 740, manufacturing date 05/10/07 - just over a month old!!

i've checked through the case with a torch and it does indeed have all the internal characteristics of a falcon (large silver heatsink, 2 inductor rings on mobo). It runs at least 50% quieter than my old one even during gaming and is barely warm to the touch even after the last 6 hours of COD4 and comes with an HDMI socket which was previously only found on the Elite.

Obviously only time and some hardcore gaming will tell if the RROD issue has been fully dealt with in this new version, but I would recommend that anyone who has had the RROD to flog your old system and get yourself the new Falcon version instead...even if it's just for the lower fan noise and cooler running. Also get yourself a £20 2 year extended warranty with Game who will replace any faulty system for you on the spot. Definately makes for a happy XBoxer!!