Computers Tips and Notes

Has the 3 red light Ring of Death Stopped you from playing your Favourite Xbox 360 games?

Well, let me tell you that I have been there a few of times before. Once was only a mere 2 months after I bought the console.

That was fine this time because the Guarantee was still there, and I was handed a new one by the Game shop.

But if the Warranty is up, you have limited and Expensive options.

There is a cost of over $100 to send your console back to Microsoft, plus a cost of two weeks valuable, Game downtime.

I have also heard a couple of reports, that the Red Ring of Death appeared shortly after The repaired Xbox 360 console, came back from Microsoft.

What is the Exact cause of the Dreaded Three Red light problem?

The root cause for the ring of death is the design of the heat sinks, mainly the GPU (Graphics Processing Unit).

The GPU heat sink is just below the CD drive of the Xbox 360, and as such the heat sink is too small for the heat generated, Its only 10mm (3/8) High, Whereas the CPU (Central Processing Unit), is about 50mm (2) High and comes with a Liquid cooler!

Microsoft, in the Elite changed the design slightly so that the liquid cooling extends to the GPU Which keeps the temperature Uniform between the GPU and the CPU and therefore decreases overall temperature that the system operates at.

In summation, that prolonged exposure to high temperature’s cause the motherboard to warp slightly, which in turn, cracks the lead free solder on the joints of the Xbox 360’s components. this then generate’s a system fault in the form of 3 flashing red lights.

I searched far and wide for a ‘free’ solution (towel trick) but ended up creating irreparable damage to my 360 and I had to live with a permanent 3 red lights, or as i like to call it, the Devil’s Halo!

As such, the nature of the internet being driven by money, if you wanted good reliable information, your going to have to pay for it. But at least I didn’t have to give any money to Microsoft, Again!

I stumbled upon countless guides out there. Some claiming to fix the Xbox 360 in 30 minutes and some up to 2 hours.

While most of the guides good offer explanations and step by step instructions, there are some guides that give you summarized information of the top guides out there.

To do the fix the 1st time myself did take the guts of 2 hours, and I have an electronic engineering degree! So how is someone who is not technically savvy, fix it in 30 minutes? So what I did was, create my very own web page to review the best guides, and give you my top 3.

For my top 3, click the link below.

Tags: computers