Has the 3 red light Ring of Death Stopped you from playing your Favourite Xbox 360 games?
I will tell you that your not alone, as it has happened to me a good Three times in 2 very short years. The first console lasted only 2 months from the date i bought it.
But it was somewhat of a relief because the very nice people at the Game store Replaced the console without the need to send it back. Due to the fact that it was covered by the warranty.
However, out of warranty its a right headache.
There is a cost of over $100 to send your console back to Microsoft, plus a cost of two weeks valuable, Game downtime.
From what I have heard, that when the repair was carried out, the Xbox 360 showed its 3 flashing red light's again after only a couple of weeks.
So how does this Annoying Ring of Death Happen?
The main reason the 3 red light occurs is because of the overall design of the console. Especially in the heat sinks and especially the one for the GPU (Graphics Processing Unit).
The GPU Heat sink is underneath the DVD drive of the console, and because of this the heat sink is too small for the heat output of the GPU core. Its only 10mm (3/8) High. On the other hand, the CPU is about 50mm (2) High and is liquid cooled.
The Elite model of the Xbox 360 has a slightly altered heat sink design of its predecessor. In the Elite model, the liquid cooling is on both CPU and GPU chips. So the Heat is uniform throughout and thus eliminates 'hot spots'.
So the effect of the heat generated is the warping of the motherboard, which cracks the lead free solder joints, causing the red ring of death.
The only free solution was the towel trick, but that can be even more problematic as it makes the warping even worse, and creates irreparable damage to the already weakened solder joints. I unfortunately, experienced this first hand.
I was looking for Valuable information. But if you want that, there has to be a Value on it. (i.e. you gotta pay for it), but if it saves your beloved Xbox, its going to save you a lot of money.
I found 10+ Xbox 360 guides on the web all claiming to get the fix done in 30 minutes, some say 1 hour and others say 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.
When I got to do the fix for the first time, it took about two hours. And thats with a degree in electronics! So is a half an hour fix feasible for someone thats not technically minded? So I created a page that gives a proper honest opinion on what guide to use. Narrowed down to a choice of Three.
For my top 3, click the link below. - 15634
I will tell you that your not alone, as it has happened to me a good Three times in 2 very short years. The first console lasted only 2 months from the date i bought it.
But it was somewhat of a relief because the very nice people at the Game store Replaced the console without the need to send it back. Due to the fact that it was covered by the warranty.
However, out of warranty its a right headache.
There is a cost of over $100 to send your console back to Microsoft, plus a cost of two weeks valuable, Game downtime.
From what I have heard, that when the repair was carried out, the Xbox 360 showed its 3 flashing red light's again after only a couple of weeks.
So how does this Annoying Ring of Death Happen?
The main reason the 3 red light occurs is because of the overall design of the console. Especially in the heat sinks and especially the one for the GPU (Graphics Processing Unit).
The GPU Heat sink is underneath the DVD drive of the console, and because of this the heat sink is too small for the heat output of the GPU core. Its only 10mm (3/8) High. On the other hand, the CPU is about 50mm (2) High and is liquid cooled.
The Elite model of the Xbox 360 has a slightly altered heat sink design of its predecessor. In the Elite model, the liquid cooling is on both CPU and GPU chips. So the Heat is uniform throughout and thus eliminates 'hot spots'.
So the effect of the heat generated is the warping of the motherboard, which cracks the lead free solder joints, causing the red ring of death.
The only free solution was the towel trick, but that can be even more problematic as it makes the warping even worse, and creates irreparable damage to the already weakened solder joints. I unfortunately, experienced this first hand.
I was looking for Valuable information. But if you want that, there has to be a Value on it. (i.e. you gotta pay for it), but if it saves your beloved Xbox, its going to save you a lot of money.
I found 10+ Xbox 360 guides on the web all claiming to get the fix done in 30 minutes, some say 1 hour and others say 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.
When I got to do the fix for the first time, it took about two hours. And thats with a degree in electronics! So is a half an hour fix feasible for someone thats not technically minded? So I created a page that gives a proper honest opinion on what guide to use. Narrowed down to a choice of Three.
For my top 3, click the link below. - 15634
About the Author:
John Devine is from Ireland and has an Electronic Engineering Degree and is Passionate about Xbox 360 Gaming. Full Details of his Top Three are found here: The Xbox 360 Ring of death Fix
