Repair Your Broken Xbox 360 Red Rings on Your Own

Let me tell you about my experience of purchasing the one game that I had waited what seemed like eons to play. So I get home from the store with my new copy of everyone's favorite car stealing franchise and feverishly rip open the package to get out the prized disc inside. I turn on my 360 and pop in the disc. It spins in the tray and nothing comes up. Uh oh!

Guess what happens next. Red Ring of Death! My 360 decided to take a dump at the worst absolute time possible. It was worse than a nightmare. I tried all sorts of different things and nothing worked.

You have been here yourself I take it? Oh you know how frustrating it is. I couldn't believe that the 360 has done this to me multiple times but of all the times to do it it does it now. I have had enough.

Here are some quick tips to try if your system red rings.

First, remove any game that is in the system and power the unit off. Let it cool down for a bit and then try turning it back on after it has had a while to sit. If luck is shining on you your system may boot and start to work properly.

Second, make sure that the console is not sitting on top of or under any other components such as a receiver or DVD player. These can greatly increase the heat that is around the unit. This heat runs the risk of melting the soldering inside the system which is the main cause of the red rings of death.

Heat is a major issue with the Xbox 360s. Microsoft has since switched to a different chipset that runs much cooler, but there are a lot of consoles out there that may still suffer from overheating issues.