Your Xbox 360 Has 3 Flashing Red Lights - Now What?

I've talked to I don't know how many XBox 360 owners who've experienced the 3 red lights problem on their XBox 360 units. Their reactions range from sad to mad to confused to "HELP!". When an X360 flashes 3 red lights, there's really no need to panic, or even to get bent out of shape at all. You've got lots of company. Several hundred people visit this blog every week. And the only reason they're here is that they are having the exact same problem you are.

It's true that having the so called XBox "Red Ring of Death" is a major bummer. When my son's, X360 had this problem (about 2 week after he got it for Christmas) he was heartbroken. I would have moved heaven and earth to get it fixed for him. As it happened my best course of action was to send the unit back to Microsoft for the fix. It took about 2 weeks and there was no charge because the unit was still under warranty. If your XBox 360 is still under warranty, you should do the same. Don't void the warranty by popping it open and trying to fix it yourself. It just isn't worth it.

If, however, you are out of warranty, you should choose one of the following courses of action:

1. If you are not comfortable popping open the Xbox yourself and doing some simple repairs, then contact a 3rd party repair service for a quote (it'll be around $50-$75 and your XBox360 will be gone about a week, depending on the company's current workload.). Google it. You should find some repair places in your general area.

2. If you're like me and are a compulsive "do-it-yourself'er", you should seriously consider buying one of the XBox 360 3 Red Light Repair Guides that are available. The fix is an easy one, requires simple tools you probably already have, or that you can pick up at your local hardware store, and takes about an hour. And best of all, it sure beats being without your games for a couple of weeks, or more.

I've been through the top 4 guides and used each one to fix a different broken XBox 360 (I bought each of the 4 units on eBay and each had the 3 red lights problem). I managed to get all 4 of them back up and running within an hour by following the instructions in the respective guide book. Then I put them back up on eBay and made a nice little profit for myself. But that's another story.

Here's my no-nonsense reviews of the 4 XBox 360 3 Red Light Fix-it guides. Very brief summary... all of the guides will get the job done, but one of them is clearly superior to the others, in my opinion.

Good luck!