My first Xbox died August 1st 2007. When it died I bought an Elite while I started the repair process. It ended up taking 2 months to get a working unit.

The first Xbox they shipped was brand new. It had a manufacture date from the week before it was shipped to me. It also arrived defective out of the box, no error codes, but also no video output at all.

The second was a true refurb, it had a year old manufacture date, but is also quieter and cooler than my Elite. From info I found online it appears to have a later cooling fin arrangement internally than my elite.

This is also pretty funny. RRoD in Microsoft booth at GDC