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Welcome to my short series of articles where I explain the risky business of repairing the 3 red lights by very very dodgy methods.

If you go into Google and type in ‘how to fix the 3 red lights’ or something along those lines, you’ll get hundreds of results and Youtube videos where smart ass gamers claim to be able to fix the RROD by using a stupid console ending method called ‘The Towel Trick’.

This method involves you wrapping your console up in a towel turning it on for around twenty minutes and letting it overheat. The intention behind the overheating is to re-melt the solder connections which will give you a temporary fix. Temporary fix being the operative word because the towel trick usually works for a few days, if that.

By doing the towel trick you are roasting the electrical components on the motherboard inside the console, therefore causing immeasurable permanent damage that will be beyond repair. Trust me on that, I learnt the hard way back in 2007.

The hardest part is to be patient when you get the 3 red rings, but that is exactly what you have to do. As far as my advice goes,

1. Don’t implement the towel trick method.
2. Either grab a legitimate fix or send you console back if it’s still under warranty and you are willing to wait approx 4-6 weeks for a repair from Microsoft.

Safety is always the best policy.

Take a look at my reviews below

Xbox 360 Repair Guide Review

Microsoft claim that the red ring of death should soon be a thing of the past with the release of the Jasper Xbox 360. The reason they’re so confident is because the newer version contains a component which allows the Xbox 360 to run cooler and more reliability as a result.

Aaron Greenberg  of Microsoft recently spoke optimistically about ending the various failure problems to Edge Online:

We’ve improved that [repair] process. It’s very quick, and they may upgrade your system with the latest technology. So that works really well. What it comes down to is isolating and figuring out the issue, fixing the issue, and the more that we can fix the issue, and know it’s fixed, then we’re good going forward. We’ve put the worst behind us on this, but we know there are a few lagging systems, and so we want to take those and make it right.

I think the RROD will decline because I think you expect these system failures to be ironed out of future versions. Major corporations always do this, take a look at Microsoft with their improvements on Windows Vista with their release of Windows 7 for instance. I think it’s a shame the fundamental Red Ring Of Death problems weren’t spotted earlier on, or how major corporations don’t spot major faults with their products in the first place. You’d think the RROD has been a great warning for all rivals of the Xbox 360, but as we all know the Sony PS3 has a similar problem to the 3 Red Lights with their Yellow Light Of Death failure. You live and learn I guess…

During a game, when you’re using the Xbox Dashboard and Xbox Guide, or after switching on the console, the screen may stop responding or “freezes”. When this problem occurs, you receive no error message at the console and no flashing lights that indicate a problem.

Possible solutions:

Find out if It is a unique problem

Consider firstly whether the problem has already occurred several times. The problem if you have found for the first time, it may not occur more, and a correction of the problem is not necessary. You can find out if this is a unique problem when you turn the console off and then turn on again. If the problem does not then, is another debugging unnecessary.

Find out if you can return to the Xbox Dashboard

Use the Guide button on the controller to exit the game and return to the Xbox controller. Press this guide and then the Y key. Can you finish the game? The problem may be caused by the game.

Does the problem occur when you play games with one or more discs? Or when you try to install the game on the hard disk? If the problem occurs with several games, but you can resolve it by installing the hard drive, then perhaps the DVD drive of Xbox 360 is defective.

Location Location Location….

The Xbox 360 should be kept in a cool, dry, well ventilated place. Resist the urge to place the console or the power supply on a bed, a sofa. This can cause the ventilation holes to be blocked.

Place on the console away from heat sources. Heat sources include TVs, computers, monitors and other electrical devices. Turn on the console, remove it from the heat source, or turn off the heat source and remove them from the console. Use a common sense approach.

If The Problem Still Persists, Check Out My Xbox 360 Repair Solutions