Fixing The Dreaded Red 3 Rings Of Death

How to fix the XBox 360 Ring Of Death, or the trials and tribulations of how I learned to repair an Xbox 360 Ring Of Death problem.

So I get a phone call from my fiance' and she's flipping out. Her son's has an X-Box 360 red ring of death malfunction. Yikes! Not the phone call I was hoping for. What the heck do I know about how to fix an XBox 360 ring of death problem? So I ask to talk to him and find out what the heck is going on.

Matt proceeds to tell me about these 3 red lights blinking away on the front of his XBox 360, and it just won't work. Now I have my own X-Box 360, (well I say it's mine although my daughters would beg to disagree with that statement), and it's been going strong for quite a few years now. But Matt is a serious gamer. I mean fanatical. If his X-box had an hours of use counter on it I think it would have rolled over a few hundred times by now.

So I ask him how long he has had it, mainly to see if it's possible that the unit is still under warranty. Well of course it's not....so I tell him to let me do a little bit of research on this and see what I can find out.

Well after an hour or so of scouring the internet I have found countless sites on the woes of various other X-Box 360 red ring of death owners in the same predicament. So I call Matt back and tell him I have good news, and bad news. The good news is there are a ton of sites with info on how to repair the problem. Some for sale, some for free. I even found some videos on YouTube of people showing you how to take the console apart and fix it. Some of these were hysterical, one guys has a cigarette hanging out of his mouth, dropping ashes into the XBox 360, while he is ripping it apart. Unbelievable!

Anyway I tell Matt that from the amount of info I was able to find it sounds like the problem is fixable. Some of the fixes blew me away. I found a bunch of sites that proclaimed that the quick and dirty way to fix the XBox 360 ring of death is to fire it up, wrap the console up in a towel, and basically let the unit cook. Holy crap! Are you kidding me?! And the unbelievable part is how many people said they tried this and it worked!!

Sorry but I just couldn't bring myself to try that one. I mean from what I gathered this whole problem stems from an overheating problem. So you're going to fix that by heating the damn thing up? Not me, I decided to try buying one of the instruction books and see what the deal was.

To my surprise, it was relatively simple. The hardest part was the process involved in taking the console itself apart. But once I had it completely taken apart, the fix was pretty easy. I did have to go out and purchase a few things to do the repair. One was the thermal compound that I picked up at Radio Shack, to use on the heat sinks. Another was the special sized torx screwdriver, I needed a # 8 and # 10. I had a# 10, but had to pick up the #8. And the last thing I needed was the metric screws and washers.

I don't know that you absolutely have to use the metric washers and screws that the guide called for. You may be able to substitute a comparable regular sized one. But I decided I wasn't going to take a chance on it. It was only a couple of bucks for the ones they called for. I found a store nearby that specialized in metric nuts and bolts and got the 10 metric screws and washers that the instructions called for.

The only other stuff I needed was a thin wooden skewer, just a thin piece of wood to punch into the holes on either side of the console to release the grey plastic ventilation side covers. I used a wooden shish-ke-bob stick that I had.

And the last tool I needed was a thin bladed terminal screwdriver to release the tabs holding the top of the console to the bottom, which are located on the back of the unit. Luckily I had a really thin bladed screwdriver that fit the slots. I don't believe it was a "terminal" screwdriver, but it fit and worked. As I think back, getting those tabs to release on the back of the console was probably just about the hardest part of the whole disassembly process. The rest of it was pretty much a piece of cake.

Once the entire console was apart the tricky part began. It wasn't to bad getting the x braces off to get at the heat sinks. And the cleaning of the old thermal compound off the heat sinks and processors is a must. When you are done they should be shining like a mirror. It will take a bit of work to get them to this point, but I believe it's worth the extra effort.

So after everything was cleaned up and the new thermal compound was applied I started to put it all back together. I had a heck of a time getting the x braces back on. I guess it was because part of the fix is to make it a tighter fit. Well let me tell you it was definately tight. But after working with them a bit I got them both back on.

After that it was pretty straight forward, just reverse all the instructions and put it all back together. I was pretty nervous when it came time to fire it back up. I honestly didn't hold out much hope of it working. But to my surprise.....woooHOOOO! no more red ring of death!

The unit fired up fine and worked like a charm. Well needless to say I was the hero of the hour with my soon to be step-son. He couldn't believe it either. I was worried that the problem could return as I said Matt is an X-Box junkie. And at the time Halo 3 was just coming out and I knew he and his friends would be playing 24/7.

So I made a few suggestions to hopefully avoid a repeat of the dreaded XBox 360 ring of death repair. First I had him place the console on top of a box that was slightly smaller than the console itself. This was to allow extra air flow underneath the unit. Next I told him to place the XBox 360 on top of his TV instead of down on the carpeted floor beside it. And finally I had him put a small fan near the unit, blowing air directly at the console to help facilitate even more air flow.

Everything I have read about this problem is supposedly directly related to heat problems. So the cooler you can keep the unit the better as far as I am concerned. I did the same thing with my 360 here at my house. We had not had any problems up to this point and I didn't see any reason to push our luck. If it's at all possible to help prevent the XBox red ring of death problem from occuring, I am all for it.

I'd like to tell you that Matt's console is still running strong, but alas that's not the case. Although I can tell you that he never again had the problem with the dreaded red ring of death. The final problem was even more bizarre. One day he put in one of his games, I think it was Guitar Hero, and he got this message that said something to the effect that he needed to have an American version of X-Box to play this game....or something like that. Basically it sounded like the console had lost it's mind. He tried all his other games and got the same message for every one.

At this point he'd had the 360 for a bit over 3 years. If he shut the unit on and off a couple of times it would occasionally work. It wasn't as bad as the red ring of death problem, where the unit wouldn't work at all. But this new problem got worse as time went on. He had started saving up from cutting lawns, birthday money, allowance, etc. and managed to save up enough to get himself a new one about 2 months ago. Of course it worked fine for about 3 weeks and then up and died on him! Luckily it was well within the warranty period and he was able to exchange it at the place he bought it from.

So that's my story of the dreaded 3 XBox ring of death repair. I hope it has shed some light on the problem for you, and given you some insight as to how to go about getting yours fixed. Now my understanding is that if your console has this problem, and you are out of warranty, that X-Box will repair it for you if you send it to them, and pay them about $130 - $140, and that you can expect to wait about 4 - 6 weeks. What a crock!

This is obviously a poor design flaw on their part, and they have to know that there are millions of kids like Matt who play like madmen. And the way they play, those consoles are going to be heating up like crazy. You would think that Microsoft would at least waive the $140 fee, or at least drop it down to something realistic. I mean come on, they know that a majority of the owners of these systems are going to be kids. And how many kids can plunk down $140 to get their game system fixed?

Of course I am sure Microsoft is counting on good old mom and dad to pony up the money, rather than listed to their kids complain about their XBox 360 not working. And I guess in the parents eyes, it's cheaper to send it out and get fixed instead of shelling out the cash to buy a new one. But it still sounds like a load of crapola to me. But what are you gonna do? If your console is flashing those damn lights on the front of the console, you sure as heck are going to want to get it fixed.

With all that said I have posted a couple of links below here for some places you can get the instructions on how to do this repair yourself. There are 2 different links below and they are currently the top selling guides for the XBox 360 ring of death problem.

One sells for $23.95 and the other sells for $29.95. These are the two best selling guides on the market at the time I am writing this post, December 14th, 2008. I was just going to put up the link for the less expensive one, but some people just feel better buying the more expensive product for some reason....so I put them both up.

*UPDATE* I found out that as of today, (12/14/2008), if you click on the X to close the browser window on the one for $23.95, one of those "discount" windows will open offering you a special pricing. If you follow the instructions you can get it for $19.95 instead of $23.95!

They both offer videos how to guides as well as the pdf manual. And they both offer customer support and a money back guarantee if you aren't satisfied. And both of them are offered through ClickBank, so there's no hassle as far as getting a refund, as long as you are within the allowed return time frame.

I am living proof that you can do this yourself. I admit I was skeptical when I first took Matt's apart. I don't profess to be a mechanical or electronic whiz or anything like that. I think all in all it took me a total of 3 hours to get Matt's up and running again. And I really took it slow, I was scared to death that I was going to ruin it and end up buying him a brand new one to make up for destroying his old one.

Do yourself a favor and follow the instructions I posted above to try and help keep your unit cool, especially if you put in a lot of hours playing like Matt does. It's well worth the effort to help keep it as cool as you can. Well I am outta here....gonna go fire up the X-Box and get back to Halo 3. Good Luck!!

Repair Option # 1: X-Box 360 Ring Of Death Repair $23.95
Repair Option # 2: X-Box 360 Ring Of Death Repair $29.95