How to Reduce Your Xbox 360's Chances of Getting the Red Ring of Death

It's been no surprise since the launch of the Xbox 360 that a lot of their systems are defective and will break down. The main problem with the systems have been labeled the red ring of death. This comes from your Xbox 360 console showing you three flashing red lights around the power light on the front of your console. Once you receive these lights, there's nothing you can do except send in your system to Microsoft and they'll send you a relatively new one. I've had the pleasure of doing this twice now but sometimes there are things you can do to help prevent the red ring of death to your Xbox 360 and here are some tips to help prolong the red ring of death to your system and maybe even prevent it all together.

Let me start off by saying that to some people, you can be as careful as anyone with your system and you could still encounter this problem. Sometimes it will take longer in some systems and sometimes it will happen after one week of use. I'm not saying these tips will keep your Xbox 360 alive forever but these are some of the most common tips people use to help their 360's live to their full potential.

A good way to tell if your Xbox 360 is getting ready to quit is when you start noticing performance issues with the system. I was playing Oblivion and textures that were pretty close would often times look fuzzy and really bad. I also had a lot of fog filling the area because the hardware couldn't fully load everything. Load times take a big hit and you can experience really choppy game play. This will ultimately lead to your games freezing, then when you shut it off and back on, you will be presented the red ring of death. Then it's time for that exciting call to Microsoft support.

Let me explain the problem to an extent on whats happening with the Xbox 360's. It took me four different Microsoft reps before I finally get a response on the issue. The problem is coming from the inside components overheating and melting which is causing them to lose connection to vital parts of the system that allows it to run. When this happens, thats when you start seeing the red ring of death and that means your system has come to the end of it's use. There are somethings you can do to help reduce your chances.

Since the prime suspect in these incidents are overheating, you need to make sure to keep your Xbox 360 in a well ventilated place. Keeping it crowded in some storage cabinet or entertainment center is a sure way to start melting away your CPU and GPU inside the system, which leads to the red lights.

Make sure wherever you store your 360, you have plenty of space around where it sits and that nothing is blocking the fans behind the system. It's bad enough the system can double as a heater so you need to give it all the ventilation it can get. Having a small fan blowing on a portion of the system can be a good thing too. Just don't have it blowing up close into the fans on the back of the 360.

Never play your Xbox 360 thick shaggy carpet. If you have to, stack some game or DVD cases on the carpet to help keep your system propped up off the ground. The thick carpet can get in the way of the fans in the back and like I said earlier, this system gets hot no matter what and shaggy carpet is definitely not a good addition. Also make sure to keep your power supply off carpet such as this as well to avoid the same issue.

Making sure to clean out the fans in the back can help ensure that the 360 is getting the proper amount of heat pushing out the back instead of getting blocked by cat or dog hair and dust. Taking an air compressor and blowing out the fans can make a big difference. I was surprised seeing the amount of cat hair I had built up each week. I didn't even have animals in my room and it managed to get dirty pretty quickly.

Try not to leave your Xbox 360 on for long periods of time because the system overheats way to quickly and that will cause the components inside to start melting and getting damaged. Microsoft says after surveying each person that has had this problem. The majority of these users have their machines on for around four to five hours at a time. The longer you keep your system on, the more likely your system will have this problem. For some people the problem will happen no matter how long your system is on but by following some of these tips, you can help ensure your system will stay around a while.

Microsoft recently extended their warranty service so you won't have to pay to have your defective machine fixed. They even send you a box and take care of the shipping for you. Microsoft hopes to have the red ring of death issues resolved by the end of 2008. They need to if they want to have any chance of winning the console war. Pretty much every con I hear about the 360 is that it dies a lot. For some it will but for others who care for their machines, they can at least help its chances of staying around a while.