Xbox 360 3 red lights

[Intellivision_II]

I decided to take out my Xbox 360 which has been sitting for 5 years. I turned it on, and there are 3 red rings.

[cwilbar]

sounds like the dreaded red ring of death.  There are many hack fixes for RROD where you use a heat gun, hair dryer, oven, etc.... but if it comes back, its a question of when the RROD will return  (I had around 6ish? xbox 360 consoles I had aquired.... 2 or 3 had RROD.... I did not bother to 'hack fix' them.... as they'd just fail again anyway.... they became partts donors).

 

google red ring of death and compare the documented ring configurations with the 3 lights you are seeing to be sure, but it sounds like RROD.

 

 

[Intellivision_II]

2 minutes ago, cwilbar said:

sounds like the dreaded red ring of death.  There are many hack fixes for RROD where you use a heat gun, hair dryer, oven, etc.... but if it comes back, its a question of when the RROD will return  (I had around 6ish? xbox 360 consoles I had aquired.... 2 or 3 had RROD.... I did not bother to 'hack fix' them.... as they'd just fail again anyway.... they became partts donors).

 

google red ring of death and compare the documented ring configurations with the 3 lights you are seeing to be sure, but it sounds like RROD.

 

 

It’s general hardware failure, I believe the gpu or cpu has become desoldered from the board, I think I need to reflow it, and add new thermal paste

[Intellivision_II]

Update: the xbox let its magic smoke out, and started to smoke out of the vents. It made a loud hissing sound. Most likely a capacitor died. At least i have another xbox.

[Leeroy ST]

On 9/2/2021 at 2:48 PM, cwilbar said:

sounds like the dreaded red ring of death.  

RROD is 4 red lights

[Intellivision_II]

16 minutes ago, Leeroy ST said:

RROD is 4 red lights

RROD can be 1 - 4 lights. 4 lights means that your A/V cable isn’t plugged in, or failed. 3 lights means general hardware failure (one or more components failed). 2 lights is overheating. 1 light is hardware failure

[Leeroy ST]

31 minutes ago, Intellivision_II said:

RROD can be 1 - 4 lights. 4 lights means that your A/V cable isn’t plugged in, or failed. 3 lights means general hardware failure (one or more components failed). 2 lights is overheating. 1 light is hardware failure

No RROD was originally given that name for the four ring error. Hence "ring" in the name. 

 

I feel like people forgot that overtime. It was later changed to include 3 in 2006. 

 

 

[Intellivision_II]

Just now, Leeroy ST said:

No RROD was originally given that name for the four ring error. Hence "ring" in the name. 

 

I feel like people forgot that overtime. It was later changed to include 3 in 2006. 

 

 

The 4 ring is an A/V cable error. Also, each ring has a different meaning, 1 - 3 rings are the most common.

[Leeroy ST]

Just now, Intellivision_II said:

The 4 ring is an A/V cable error. Also, each ring has a different meaning, 1 - 3 rings are the most common.

I'm talking about historically. The term Red ring was for 4 rings first. Then 3.

 

This "all red lights are RROD" seems to be a recent thing.

 

But anyway you have an extra Xbox so you at least have a backup.

[Keatah]

There.. Are.. FOUR LIGHTS!

[joeatari1]

360s are cheap to pick up right now.  I just picked up a working white one and two controllers and four games for $50 and a newer black one (these don't usually have any RROD issues as the hardware has been revised by then) with two controllers and 30 games for $135.  So they are somewhat easily replaced right now.

[Leeroy ST]

On 9/15/2021 at 4:38 PM, joeatari1 said:

360s are cheap to pick up right now.  I just picked up a working white one and two controllers and four games for $50 and a newer black one (these don't usually have any RROD issues as the hardware has been revised by then) with two controllers and 30 games for $135.  So they are somewhat easily replaced right now.

Elites are generally good. Pro models depend on when they were produced.

 

The models with the huge RROD issues are the core and arcade skus. There are some places I saw them for $50 with a bunch of games. Even around 2009 retailers wanted to rid the stock of those. They are the ones most stay away from.

[toiletunes]

On 9/12/2021 at 12:39 PM, Keatah said:

There.. Are.. FOUR LIGHTS!

[vintagegamecrazy]

Sounds like the typical red ring of death to me. Before you just tossed this thing out you have a couple of decisions that you could make. Question number one would be how nostalgic are you for the specific console? If it's the one you got when it was brand new then you may have sentimental value in it and want to get it repaired. You would need have it reballed to fix the processor issues. After that you generally have to do some pretty heavy mods to protect it from getting a red ring again. I just did the mod on an old one that I got without an HDMI port. You have to change the heat sink on the GPU to the larger one found in later models and do the 12 volt fan mod. I also installed an additional fan on the CPU heatsink. It is really loud but I was able to put my hands all over the heat sinks even after the system had been running about 30 minutes testing it and there was almost no heat. These things are repairable and able to be reused but they will cost at least a couple hundred I'd you can't do any of it yourself. It's totally up to you but most people opt to get a newer Xbox 360 console.

[Varanis Ridari]

On 9/16/2021 at 8:07 PM, Leeroy ST said:

Elites are generally good. Pro models depend on when they were produced.

 

The models with the huge RROD issues are the core and arcade skus. There are some places I saw them for $50 with a bunch of games. Even around 2009 retailers wanted to rid the stock of those. They are the ones most stay away from.

Anything with the original 90nm cpu boards will fail, and the later Falcon boards will fail, but more slowly (Falcon introduced in the first Elites).

 

Jasper boards were the last for the original Xbox 360 before they totally redesigned the cpu/gpu into a single apu for the Model S.

 

Jaspers can still die, but diligent dusting and breaks every few hours (no marathon gaming) will mostly give it the expected lifespan it should have.

 

Sadly, the design on the OG Xbox 360 was so nightmarishly rushed and manufacturing cost-optimized, that they basically pulled the same trick as an Atari 5200 joystick and destroyed themselves under normal use.