North American Xbox owners have already began to recieve their replacement power cords. These new cords are on the bulky side, and plastered with warning messages and instructions which appear to be made for the kind of person who would stick a fork inside a socket.
However, there appears to be some discussion as to the true intention of Microsoft. G0t M4xx 21 explains his theory:
The real problem is the Foxlink power supply. There have been numerous reports of "loose power connectors" in xboxes, and the cause of this is that the solder joints on the PSU have actually broken where the connector mounts to the board, which can result in the xbox not powering on, or possibly even sparks, smoke, and fire.
So, instead of taking the costly duty of recalling all older xboxes, what do they do? They give you a power cord with this huge GFI thing. This in no way will solve the problem, it is merely a bandaid. So, when your PSU sparks and shorts out, it just trips a switch instead of catching fire, but your xbox still doesn't work.
mhd.64bit.at
Thanks to W2S
