Microsoft Xbox 360's "three red lights of death" has long been the worst fear of every owner. However, a lot of us probably don't know that the power brick could catch a similar case of the technical gremlins, too. If you're thinking Microsoft has got your back in case this happens, you may be surprised to find out the particulars on one case in the story after the jump.

Think you've seen everything when it comes to Microsoft Xbox 360 cooling mods? Think again! Creative Xbox 360 owners have built one made of Lego building blocks. This mod not only manages the heat, but looks very nice as well. You can view a video of it when you proceed to the full article.

 

We have a couple of interesting photos taken by Ash 2006. What you're seeing right now are extended heat sinks on an Xbox 360 GPU from the UK.

"Modded a 360 today and was shocked to find an extension on the gpu heatsink. The guy had just received it back from M$ as he had the 3 red lights," writes Ash2006 in a forum post.

For the non-hardware savvy types out there, a heatsink is basically a device that prevents overheating in a lot of appliances and consumer electronics. In the case of the Xbox 360, it's used to prevent the dreaded three red lights of death which often means that your system is down for the count.

While the common belief is that cooling the system down will prevent the hardware issue, some people in the QJ forums claim that it's caused by faulty manufacturing with the system's memory. It's a sensible point that may hold some proof, but we haven't seen too many details to confirm or debunk it.

There are no clear stats to indicate how rampant or trivial the issue is, but one thing's for sure: Microsoft needs to take a stronger stance on the matter to keep their large install base happy.

There's not a shadow of doubt that the Xbox 360 Elite launch has been a smashing success when you talk about sales. American fans have responded to Microsoft's invitation to the future of gaming and embraced the Elite like there was no tomorrow.

It's a little heart-wrenching, though, to get reports that the machine has a lot of the old hardware issues that made the original model less than a perfect machine. Sites have been reporting the same noise levels, heat issues and disc-scratching incidents. Scarier still, is the fact that incidents where the three red lights of doom have flashed have been noted.

According to some experiments conducted by reputable sources, the HDMI port added is the key feature added in the new mix. However, they did say that the differences between component and HDMI output seemed almost negligible. Check out the video and tell is what you think.

The Ring of Death is the three red lights that go on around the power button of an Xbox 360. It signals general hardware failure. But we found an Xbox 360 at Target.com being sold for "the low price of $399.99." That would have sounded like a good deal, until we saw the picture of the 360:

Okay, obviously Target takes great care to ensure that the products it sells (in-store or online) are in good working order. So most likely, this was a goof by someone who didn't know how to read the Ring of Light. But, one of our writers just had to laugh: "Cash on Delivery; Brick on Arrival. That explains the low, low price!" All joking aside, though, if you do see the ominous Ring of Death on your Xbox 360, we do have a number of articles here that's all about calming your fears and easing your worries. There's one that's all about interpreting the different Rings of Death (exactly what those pretty red lights mean). We also have another one that offers a DIY quick-fix to the problem.

We earlier featured an article about the Chromehounds Ring of Death. No, it isn't a new game for the Xbox 360. Apparently, some people playing Chromehounds have had a problem with the game because it frequently freezes, and not only that, after switching the machine off then on, three red lights in the ring of power could be seen, which allegedly disables the poor Xbox 360 user to play any other game.

If that's your problem then we might have a solution. One of our avid readers, Lupin, informed us that he has been reading about Chromehounds issues like these, and that the 'ring of death' is "actually a common problem when a game freezes then on reboot gives a 3 ring of red error." The guy works at GameStop and had fixed three 360s with the same error. He gamely shared to all of us the steps on how this could be solved in four easy steps:

1. Unplug everything from 360.
2. Plug in just the PSU/Power to the 360 not AV/HD AV cables and turn on the 360
3. It should now post a 4 Red Light error wich means no AV cable leave that on for like idk a few seconds.
4. Hook back up just the AV Cables not the HD or MU

That ought to do the trick. According to Lupin, if it doesn't work, "leave the 360 off completely unplugged overnight. Then try the above steps again. Hope this works." Thanks for that Lupin! Now, tell us if Lupin's steps worked or not through your comments.

Before anything else, I would like to extend our deepest sympathies here at QJ, to this anonymous person who fell victim to the otherwise great and promising mech-combat game, Chromehounds. Here's his story:

I know you have covered the freezing in chromehounds, but I have something new. Not only did chromehounds freeze my box, but after i kept on trying to play it, i had to turn the box off, and then when i turned it back on there were three red lights in the ring of power (positions 1, 3, 4 while vertical). Turns out i cant play my 360 even with the game out, or with any other games.

Last we heard on the freezing issue, Sega's official statement was that they were looking into it and will give out updates soon as they find the source of the problem. Nothing official yet on addressing the slaughter of Xbox 360s, but a heated discussion on the topic is ensuing in the Chromehounds forums. Hopefully, this would be the last Xbox 360 to have a ring of death associated with Chromehounds. No more.

If you've ever had your XBox freeze on you after a couple of minutes playing a game, then you're very much familiar with what the three red lights are. Found around the power button of your console, it spells doom or General Hardware Failure when these start to blink.

Ben Kuchera had the same type of problem and suspected that it's because of an overheating issue. He opened up his 360 and found that he's right, his GPU is indeed heating up. So what he did is that he replaced the thermal interface material with some Arctic Silver. So far, this fix has worked fine with his 360. If you're having the same trouble with your console, just follow these instructions from Ben and you're well on your way to defeat the three red lights of death.

WARNING: If you're not familiar or knowledgeable in fixing computers, handling sensitive hardware and working with basic tools, please consider other options before doing anything to your console.

Materials:

1. A thin hex head L-shaped wrench OR a probe tool of some sort.
2. 1 T-8 Torx screwdriver
3. 1 T-10 Torx screwdriver
4. Plastic scraper tool or pocket knife
5. Arctic Silver or other brand high quality heat sink paste
6. 1 Brillo steel wool pad
7. Cleaning supplies

Instructions:

• Open your XBox 360. Get the motherboard out of the metal cage and remove the heatsinks from both the CPU and the GPU.
• Scrape off the thermal pad from both the aluminum GPU heatsink and the copper CPU heatsink using the Brillo steal woolpad.
• Clean the remaining thermal paste from the GPU and CPU. After cleaning it, apply a minimal amount of your own thermal paste. Just enough to cover the entire die.
• Finally, reinstall the heatsinks and put your XBox 360 back together.