Have you got a Hardware Problem on Your Xbox 360?
Posted by
Anonymous
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.
Microsoft Charge over $100 for the repair. and you will be without your beloved Xbox 360 for 2 weeks or so.
Worse still is that I have heard a few reports that when the Xbox 360 consoles came back from Microsoft, the notorious 3 red lights of doom came back shortly afterwards.
So how does this Annoying Ring of Death Happen?
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!
In the Xbox 360 Elite, Microsoft altered the design of the cooling system so that the Liquid cooling Extend's beyond the CPU to the GPU. This makes the console dissipate the Heat better and therefore does not overheat to the same extent.
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.
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 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.
So being a lover of computer games and having an Electronic Engineering degree, I decided to take action and review the top 6 selling guides out there and I narrowed them down to a Top 3.