Three Red Rings of Death on your Xbox – When this happens to you, do you know what to do?

It finally happened. Now you can see those famous three rings of death on your Xbox. You have read all about this phenomenon before and you know that it can affect any Xbox anytime, anywhere. You never thought it would happen to you. You have taken care of your console by keeping it cool, never operating it for long, and treating it with care. And how do you reward your kindness? It turns around and dies on you.

It wouldn’t be that bad, except now you can’t meet your friends at night on Live. Now you have to face spending long afternoons at home with nothing to do. One of the best features of Xbox is that you can play online against your friends, even if you are on the other side of the country. Of course, you can still email and call your friends, but you know it’s not the same as being able to kick their virtual butt in some games. Now and until further notice, there will be no more social games for you. It is to go back to watching television with your family.

Besides not being able to play games in the near future, it will take time to repair your machine. Microsoft is good at fixing these broken consoles and if your Xbox is still under warranty, it will be free. Anyway, money doesn’t matter much to you, you just need to be able to play again. The problem is that Microsoft takes its time to return a machine to you. We are talking about two months. It’s a full eight weeks that you can spend sitting at home trying to beat boredom and stay sane. Eight weeks without games.

You need to find a way to repair your Xbox yourself. Tips were circulating on how to disassemble the console and then re-solder the connectors. Don’t try this because unless you are experienced it will only cause more damage.

The problem that usually causes the three rings of death is that the motherboard warps a bit when it gets too hot for too long. You can fix it yourself by removing the motherboard from the case. Remove the x-brace and heat sink. Gently clean the GPU and CPU. Then put everything back on, this time putting a pair of nylon washers on the screws that hold the X-clamp in place. Turn your machine back on and start playing.

This process is not very complicated and it is quite easy to do, even if you are inexperienced. You can even find videos to walk you through the entire process.