If the red
lights are flashing on your Xbox 360 it is most likely that you have
encountered the ‘ring of death’, rather dramatic sounding but a big
issue for Xbox 360 users.
When those lights start flashing, it is usually indicative of either
a problem with your hardware or your power supply and there are
usually indications prior to this that something is wrong, such as
your screen or sound freezing up. These usually happen over a period
of time before the system completely crashes.
The ‘ring of death’ is usually indicated by three flashing red
lights, but faults are also indicated by one, two or four lights
flashing. If you have one or two lights flashing, this is also a
usual indicator of some kind of problem with your hardware caused by
the system overheating and you are likely to get various E errors,
like E66, E67 or E68.
If you find four flashing red lights, this is usually telling you
that your AV cable isn’t plugged in but can also be seen during play
sometimes. This is caused by a power surge and is easily solved –
you just unplug your Xbox 360 and then plug it in again.
You might be asking yourself where all these issues come from. Quite
simply, it relates to problems caused by the system’s design. It is
very slim and contains some very powerful components – these
generate a lot of heat and there isn’t enough ventilation to deal
with the build up, so it really is a recipe for disaster – problems
with overheating are just waiting to happen.
The kind of solder used to make the system and its heat sink are
also contributing factors, but basically the Xbox 360 just overheats
way too easily, thereby causing any number of problems, of which
your three red flashing lights are only one.
This might not be such a problem except that the Xbox 360 is
incredibly popular in this day and age. The high quality graphics
and awesome games pull you in and make you forget how long you have
been playing – you completely lose track of time and this is the
danger point.
There are two things you can do to try and prevent the system from
overheating. Firstly, you need to try and limit the amount of time
you spend playing on it in any one period. Secondly, think about
where you have located the system. You need to make sure that it is
receiving as much ventilation as humanly possible, and keep it away
from any other equipment so that it doesn’t get heated up by any
external source.
If those three lights light up, try stopping play and letting the
system cool down for a while, like a few hours. Unplug all the
cables, including the AV, and then plug them back in. You can also
take out the hard drive and turn the Xbox 360 back on afterwards. If
the light is then green, you can put the hard drive back, turn the
system on again and this should solve the issue. If it doesn’t, you
will probably have to get into repairs.
If the guarantee has expired, you can send your Xbox 360 back to
Microsoft who will take a long time to fix it and send you an even
longer bill once they do, or you can take it on yourself to repair
the system.
