How much fun are gaming consoles? Get set up with your favorite game and the hours can rush by without you even noticing. Long gone are the days when the Atari was the most advanced gaming unit you could buy and we thought playing tennis with a square ball and two lines as the people was really cool! Back then it was cool.

The gaming consoles that we see today are more powerful than most of the personal computers available when the Atari was king, and it shows. Graphics, game features, basically everything has come a long, long way in a short number of years. However these advances haven’t been made without their problems and unfortunately there seems to be a number of issues that still plague our modern games machines.

One such issue with Microsoft’s Xbox is the three red light problem or the “dreaded red ring of death”. I’m not sure who coined that phrase but it certainly sums up the issue quite well. This usually happens after loading a disc or when the disc needs to read another part of the disc and for some reason has trouble reading the disc and goes into the three red lights dance and this basically spells the end of your game playing until you send it off for expensive, time consuming repairs, or does it?

Thankfully there is plenty of information available for getting over this hurdle and getting back to the most important thing, playing that game that you were so rapped up in before it all went bad. It does not necessarily mean that your days of being able to beat up and shoot anything that moves or the slayer of aliens that make your grandmother look attractive are over for good.

There are many issues that can be solved with the right information and it is no longer a case of sending it off to the manufacturer, waiting forever and getting charged more than the cost of a new unit to repair the old one. You could jump onto a forum and get all sorts of unqualified help that may make things worse or you could be smart and look for proven ways of fixing these issues and enjoy hours upon hours of fun with what you may have thought to be a lost cause.

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If you have an interest in the gaming scene or have bought yourself an Xbox chances are that you have heard of or experienced one of the many problems that these consoles are having. So common is one of these problems that the gaming community has given it a special name - The dreaded red ring of death. In this article we are going to take a look at what is causing the majority of these problems and the best way to go about getting your console repaired.

RROD or red ring of death refers to the normally green lights on the front of the console turning red in a number of the light segments. This, and the majority of other problems is known to be caused by the inability of the console to dissipate built up heat. The design of the case, the size and placement of the heat sinks and the lack of heat sink ‘grease’ are all thought to play an equal part in this problem.

So what is the answer to these problems and how can we get back to the important job of playing our favorite game in the least amount of time? Well thankfully Microsoft has extended the warranty on all consoles affected by the red ring of death to three years, however there are a few stipulations to getting it repaired for nothing. The first is that with the amount of repairs being carried out you will have a considerable wait until yours is returned.

The next one is that you must have the original purchase receipt and the console must be completely original and the case unopened. If your xbox is not within these guidelines expect a bill for around one hundred and forty dollars or the return of you’re unfixed console. Just to top things off, some of the repairs carried out at the factory may not have a guarantee either so if it happens again you are back to square one.

The other option you have is to repair it yourself. As scary as it sounds it really isn’t that hard when you have a step by step repair manual with you to guide you through it. Look for a repair guide that also includes video instruction and with a few basic tools and an hour or so of your time you can have a working xbox once again. There is no need to ship it off and wait for a return and hope that everything goes okay, you can do it all yourself for much, much less than it may cost you from Microsoft.

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Having trouble with your Xbox 360? Don’t worry, you are not alone. The most common problem is the ‘dreaded red ring of death’, so-named by gaming enthusiasts because the usually green lights on the front of the console turn to flashing red lights. These errors can usually be tracked back to an overheating issue which, as Microsoft has admitted, is a design fault of the machines. A few people have speculated that the consoles were released for sale too early and testing was not thorough enough to uncover this fault.

So where does that leave the owners of faulty consoles? Before condemning the console to a life of gathering dust in the cupboard, take a look at the number of red lights showing when the unit is malfunctioning. Four flashing red lights indicate a likely hardware failure, as does one flashing red light. Two flashing lights indicate that the machine has overheated and may be solved simply by switching the unit off and letting it cool down for an hour or so. If you are going to have a problem you want it to be three flashing red lights, as this means that the AV plug is disconnected from the console and simply needs to be reconnected to get the machine working again.

Having one red light or three red lights is certainly a problem however these don’t have to spell the end of your gaming fun. The first thing to do is to ensure that the cooling vents of the console are not blocked or covered and fresh air can easily enter and the heated air can easily be expelled. Using the console while it is confined to a cupboard space for example does not allow the built up heat to dissipate. The suggested way to use these machines is to place them on an upturned box in an open area. This ensures that the console gets the maximum amount of fresh air into the cooling vents.

If you find that the error persists after moving the console to an appropriate area and allowing it to cool down, you will need to take a closer look. There is no need to stress though, armed with basic tools and the right information a repair is easily carried out. There are a few so called fixes doing the rounds of the internet and although they may work temporarily the chances of doing more harm than good is very high. Access to guides that have proven methods to solve these problems is easily had and most come with step by step video instruction making the repair simple and easy to carry out.

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Microsoft’s Xbox 360 is a great piece of gear, there is no doubt about that. The amount of computing power housed in that little box is more than what your average personal computer had not so long ago and of course this can be seen in the quality of the graphics and the complexity of the game play. All of this computing power does have a by-product though and unfortunately this can have an adverse affect on machines.

The by-product that I am talking about is heat, and it is the enemy of these gaming consoles. Whether it be put down to a design fault or the placement of the machine when in use, they have trouble in effectively dissipating the built up heat which can have a detrimental affect on the hardware. Often the dreaded ‘red ring of death’ is caused by heat build up, sometimes even after a short gaming session.

The ‘dreaded red ring of death’ is when the lights on the front of the console, which are normally green, turn to red. The number of red lights showing can give you an indication as to the nature of the problem and possible causes. The best situation to have is all four segments of the light showing red as this indicates a disconnected AV cable. Turning the power off and reconnecting the AV cable is all that is needed to solve that one.

Having three or one red light showing is what you don’t want as this indicates a hardware failure, which is quite often attributed to a build up of heat that has affected the internal components such as the motherboard. It is quite possible that switching the unit off and letting it cool down for a reasonable period of time may return it back to normal, however this is not always the case and often further inspection and repairs are needed.

If your machine is out of warranty, and given that the original warranty only covered the first ninety days, there is a good chance that you will be able to repair it yourself with the right information. There is no need to send the console off for repair and wait weeks for it to return and pay through the nose for something that should not have happened in the first place. The frustration of having the machine play up in the first place is only compounded when you are forced to wait weeks for your console to be returned and as documented throughout the net there is no guarantee that it will be one hundred percent when it comes back anyway!

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You know how it goes, you sit down, all geared up to play your favorite game, put the disc in and turn the power on and up comes the dreaded red light ring. Perhaps you are part of the way through annihilating the enemy of killer aliens and the game freezes and once again you are faced with the dreaded red light ring. Frustrating to say the least but contrary to popular belief there are reliable ways to fix this issue.

There are a few different issues that will set the red lights off and the number of red lights dictates what problem you have. The best situation you can hope for is having all four lights in the ring turn red. This usually indicates that the AV connection at the rear of the unit is disconnected or loose and is usually fixed by either pushing the connection in all the way or disconnecting the cable, re-inserting it and restarting the unit.

Having one red light show up usually means a hardware failure, as does three of the sectors lighting up red. This could be due to a number of issues and with any luck it may just be due to over heating of the unit. This can happen when spending a few hours playing your games and if you suspect this might be the problem turn the unit off and make sure that the side and rear air vents are clear of any obstructions and let the unit sit and cool down for a while. After half an hour or so power up the unit and see if the lights have turned a magical green again. If the red lights persist it will be necessary to look further into the problem.

There is talk that the solder used in these machines has a tendency to become brittle when exposed to the heat that these things produce and over time the solder develops hairline cracks. Once these cracks appear the join is no longer able to conduct the way it is meant to and problems occur. One way that people were fixing this was to wrap the unit in a towel or two and with the power switched on leave the unit for a while to heat up and soften the solder in the hope that the joins become one again. In my opinion concentrating the heat inside the unit has the potential to cause further issues and this fix is only temporary and many people have reported that this method has not worked at all for their machine.

So rather than listening to the advice of people who think they have the answer, and good on them for trying to solve the issue, try looking for qualified information that has been proven time and time again as a reliable fix for most problems that these systems suffer from. At any rate there is no need to give up the machine for dead and assume that repairs will cost an arm and a leg, this simply is not the case when you know where to get the right information.

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