Just do me a favour, make sure your 360 is plugged DIRECTLY into a wall outlet (no extension cords, surge protectors, upses or power strips) these are the leading cause of three red lights as it disrupts the consoles ability to pull clean power, with an HDD it does pull a full 5A thats 33% of a house hold circut.

Also Microsoft does not make or certify ANY cooling device for the 360, most of them are designed wrong, or draw power from the system itself. One that comes to mind actually forces the hot air back into the console, to the point that we have seen several fused to the console (Ironic, considering it is a cooling device!)

Thanks guys, just trying to do my part to stop the 3RL problems.

What kind of half arsed company makes a product that assumes the power company supplies clean power?

j/k dude.

Thats the problem we are expecting dirty power, the better the surge protector the cleaner the power, add our power conditioner and you wind up undervoltiing the console, usually you will see a progression from disc read errors to freezing to 3RL, this can take minutes hours days or months

Any particular reason they designed it to sound like a vacuum cleaner?



Don't get me wrong, I think it's a great product, with maybe one or two little problems.

Ah yes, yes there is 3.06 GHz Tripple core custom processor, Ati sub graphics customer processor, they put out more heat then a 500W Halogen bulb it sounds like a harrier cause it is trying (and being successfull) to dissipate thate heat

A little Myth busting cuz, well I love reading the posts by the dumbasses who think they know what they are talking about. Easy description of the red lights

1 red light - having trouble talking to HDD, DVD, or SATA controller
2 red lights - over heating
4 red lights - Having trouble talking to the TV(Check the microswitch on the side of the AV cable)
3 red lights - Anything else, basically the check engine light in your car

Trust me if it was one issue we would have spent the 1.7 Billion dollars fixing it not extending the warrenty to three years LOL

The problem with the Xbox 360 and three red lights has to do with heat and soldering between the GPU and the mainboard itself. It has nothing to do with how clean your power is. I don't even own one, and I know what the problem is. The only thing that can prevent it is better cooling to the area near the GPU.


Learn what the actual problem is before you post methods to fix the problem, it just adds to the confusion that is console gaming. Not using a surge protector or a UPS is just plain idiotic.

And btw, what does this have to do with projector building?

Okay, I am an engineer with Xbox man, trust me, over heating/solder issues, No, not at all, heating issues present as two flashing red lights, and GPU issues present as 1 flashing red light with a selection of sub codes. Please before you tell an xbox engineer how an xbox works, read the whole thread.

Then why is it, I replace the x-clamps with bolts and used arctic silver on the heat sinks and it stopped the RROD on my 360? Now I am not the kind of person to argue, especially with an engineer, but I look at it this way, if I do something to try and fix an issue and it works then the problem was with the design and/or manufacturing of said part that is now fixed.

Now the disc read errors that I have been getting, I will attribute those to the fact that mine is a first gen 360, and has done a great many bad things in it's life, scratched a few discs to pert near the point of un recoverable.

But none the less I love my 360 and will never be without a 360, I wish I could afford a new 360 with the HDMI but alas, I can not.


OK question for you the XBOX engineer, ok I guess it's 2 questions.
#1 are you a software engineer or hardware?

the second question is a bit out of the scope of this thread by I will ask it anyway.

#2 why wont Microsoft just make a Blu-Ray add-on, I love my HD DVD add-on and would consider buying a BD add-on if there was one

software, Tools engineer



there has been no offical confirmation however alot of rumers have bee flowing arround that something might be coming down the pipe.

I have repaired about 12 360 consoles with the 3 rings with the x-clamp replacements and it fixed every one of them(and every one that I have fixed still work). There is a problem with the clamps that hold the heatsinks on and they dont put enough pressure on the heatsinks. When the gpu heats up and cools down over and over the solder tends to "float" the gpu, and after repeatedly heating and cooling the solder will crack, thus causing the 3 rings. When you replace the clamps with bolts you can tighten them down a little better, and so far every time I have tried it has put enough pressure on the solder points to make contact and after playing the solder will heat up and fix itself.

Also, here is a link to all the error codes that have been discovered by different people in "the scene". If TheTrustedOne can give some better details on some of these error codes it would be greatly appreciated by EVERYONE who might want to repair their own consoles.

On the subject of the blu ray on 360, didn't M$ say a week ago that they were not going to focus on blu ray and instead were focusing on media downloads for the xbox system? Blu ray on the 360 would certainly be nice.

Current gen consoles dont suffer the X-Clamp issue

long live the falcon board

edit: the older boards with the x-clamp problems are called Xenon boards and Zephyr boards

hmmm... today my son was/is playing the 360... random freezes, about every 4-5 minutes... couple of 3 red rings when restarting console... I take it best course of action is to call customer service as the unit is just over 1 yr old and never been opened/modded or such... but I was wondering if ther are any special keystrokes, etc. to get error codes displayed ? Guess i always wondered if this would happen to me... from what i've read, the units are under a 3yr warrentee ?

cheers.
gs

* Turn the xbox 360 on, and wait till the 3 red lights are flashing.
* Press and hold the sync up button (the small white one), while holding that button press the eject button.
* The LEDs will now blink the first number in the code (as described below).
* Release the eject button and press it again.
* The LEDs will now blink the second number of the code.
* Release the eject button and press it again.
* The LEDs will now blink the third number of the code.
* Release the eject button and press it again.
* The LEDs will now blink the forth number of the code.
* Release the eject button and press it again.
* The LEDs will go back to the 3 red flashing lights.

* All four lights flashing - 0
* One light flashing - 1
* Two Lights flashing - 2
* Three lights flashing - 3


There are a great many codes that are unknown to the outside world (non xbox technicians) but there are many that are known, so let us know what error you get.

here is a link to that explains the (known) error codes. M$ did extend the warantee to 3yrs but i believe that is ONLY for the 3 rings problem. i definately would not suggest trying to repair it yourself....you may get a better mobo out of the deal

your problem sounds like the gpu though....every 360 that i have repaired started out with random freezing then went to 3rod shortly after....also my cousins 360 was random freezing(like every 10 min) until he lost his power supply in a move from housing arrangements and when he bought a new power supply guess what, it has never frozen up since

Please do not open the console, we will never fix it if you do. You are in warrenty for three years with 3 red lights, call 18004MyXbox, and we will repair or replace the unit for free, we even pay for the shipping.

The Trusted One

Thanks Silent, that's what I was looking for... too bad I looked at the link Bimp had posted earlier, but I simply did not read far enough... :

I've already contacted MS and spoke with someone that "tried" to put in a request to get it fixed, but alas the system was "updating" (or so I was told) and need to call back to be sure my claim is entered into the system. I also found out the Wireless Wheel I have is also requires a "retrofit", so this is a good time to get that processed as well.

I'm certainly not going to open the thing as it's still under warentee, and who knows "how" they will fix it, but of course i'll always *hope* for something newer and more reliable... The few times i've had things gone in for "repair" they were simply replaced with the "latest and greatest"... I don't think that is likely the case here however... they have a pile of these machines just screaming to be fixed and put back in service... after all, i'm sure that's how they are figureing out what's wrong with them ! ....

TT-one, if you get my machine just be sure to label it "beyond repair" and send me the new "Elite" version... ... funny as I thought this was plugged into the wall outlet (has been since I got it), but I needed a lamp one day and plugged the 360 into a power strip being used for the stereo, so it was somewhat funny that I found it was NOT plugged into the wall and plugged into a power strip.... hmmmm... conspiracy theory, basis in facts, or simple coincidence ???

cheers all.
gs

FWIW, my code is 0102. Thanks again guys.

gs

LOL, Whats the CSN, if you can get back to me before 8:00pm Est I will create the repair

what's a CSN ?? CSN, sometimes CSNY, is Crosby Stills and Nash... and sometimes, Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young !

Console Serial Number?