Xbox – How to stop Xbox 360 from updating when there haven’t actually been updates

To my knowledge, Microsoft is generally very close-guarded about Xbox 360 title updates in general. More likely than not, a large percentage of them are security and stability updates. The best resource I've found thus far to keep up with major title updates is the blog of Major Nelson. He's the de facto "head Xbox spokesman" at Microsoft, and seems to generally try to comment on title updates when he is able and has useful knowledge to impart. Definitely when there is news about a title update bringing big new features, Major Nelson has been amongst the first that I've seen to announce them. Major Nelson's podcast will also sometimes feature comments on title updates.

Beyond that, often individual publishers and developers have different PR plans. If you track down individual game websites, sometimes they will comment on their own title updates and what to expect from them. Often these tend to correspond with DLC releases, and so can often additional information on title updates is sometimes buried in PR releases that are sent to news sites about a game's DLC.

I don't think anything more comprehensive exists, and I'm not sure it would be allowed to exist. Certainly few gaming systems can be as usefully informative about game updates as Valve's Steam often tries to be.

You need to get a Hard Drive Transfer cable which will copy everything, including your save games, onto the 360 slim (assuming there is enough room on it). You don't need the bricked 360, just it's hard drive and the new slim xbox. You can also do this with just a USB drive, but will take longer depending on how much you've got to transfer.

If you've purchased a new Xbox 360 console, you can transfer everything (games, videos, music, saved games, gamertags, and even your hard-won achievements) to your new console!

There are two options available for moving your precious information. You can either use the Xbox 360 Hard Drive Transfer Kit to move everything to your new console, or connect a USB thumb drive if you only have a small amount of content such as your gamertag and saved games.

As you'll only use it once, my advice would be to buy one off ebay where you can then sell it again after you've used it for near enough what you paid for it.

As for the xbox itself, it sounds like it's overheated and the graphics card has started to warp and come off the motherboard. This problem can usually be fixed by clamping the card back down via a bit of DIY and a few bolts. If you don't fancy doing it, there's usually a few people on ebay that do this themselves and would be willing to offer you some cash for it ;)