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☖ Forums → Discussion Forum → 360 two red lights error
360 two red lights error
2010-03-10, 2:54 PM #1
Has anyone fixed this themself?

My warranty is already run out on that, so they want $100 to fix it. It starts up and works fine, I can even load a game but it two red lights after about 5 minutes. I understand that this is an overheating issue. So it sounds like the thermal paste dried up or the heatsink became unseated.

I REALLY don't want to pay $100 to have my xbox fixed.
2010-03-10, 2:56 PM #2
My brother had this - he just cracked it open (being cautious of the "seal") and put on new thermal paste. He also bought on of those "intercoolers" for the 360. Cost about $25 total. Works fine.
2010-03-10, 2:56 PM #3
You should have been nicer to it.
2010-03-10, 2:57 PM #4
I know on craigslist in my area people offer xbox fixing services for like $30

[edit] they probably just do what Steven said.
"Nulla tenaci invia est via"
2010-03-10, 3:21 PM #5
No, you should be able to figure it out yourself.
2010-03-10, 3:44 PM #6
Originally posted by Brian:
You should have been nicer to it.


I didn't do it, my old room mates did.

I rent a big house that is lease to own, and they were douchebags and played my xbox into oblivion. (pun).

But it's cool, I threw all of those people out about 4 months ago.
2010-03-10, 4:06 PM #7
I'm about to buy a 4 light 360 of Craig's list and fix it myself.
2010-03-10, 4:50 PM #8
That one might require soldering.

I can solder, I just don't want to buy a new soldering iron. I have an automotive soldering iron and it's rated for like 45 watts, it gets MEGA hot.
2010-03-10, 6:00 PM #9
Yeah, that's what I figure, but I need to learn and I have a friend who is good at it. It'd be a lot easier if the molten solder didn't have such humongous surface tension.
2010-03-10, 6:27 PM #10
Originally posted by Rob:
That one might require soldering.

I can solder, I just don't want to buy a new soldering iron. I have an automotive soldering iron and it's rated for like 45 watts, it gets MEGA hot.


Nail + stove = win
2010-03-10, 7:37 PM #11
Some people have had success with reflowing their boards in an oven. You can cover the large capacitors and other through-hole components like jacks with clay to prevent them from getting too hot. Coat the problem area with a good liquid (preferably water soluble) flux and reflow at say 500 F for 10-20 minutes. I tried this with a friend's 360 a while ago and unfortunately had no luck. Probably didn't get hot enough to reflow.

I'd ask around electronics forums, stay away from gaming forums with idiot amateurs that don't know what they're doing.
Bassoon, n. A brazen instrument into which a fool blows out his brains.
2010-03-10, 9:43 PM #12
That's bad luck. I thought they had extended the warranty dramatically for this?

Also, try calling them instead of doing it online. Microsoft's tech people are generally extremely nice and they'll help you out with this sort of thing for free. They gave me a month of Xbox Live Gold and 2000 MS Points because I had a hard time getting my account to work. I didn't even yell at anyone.
>>untie shoes
2010-03-10, 10:33 PM #13
They extended the warranty for three red lights.
2010-03-10, 10:45 PM #14
Oh. **** that's right.
>>untie shoes
2010-03-11, 12:12 AM #15
there's always the option of doing what my friend did... try to get your xbox to RRoD so MS will fix that **** for free
eat right, exercise, die anyway
2010-03-11, 12:33 AM #16
Good point. Leave it on for days at a time. It'll do it.
>>untie shoes
2010-03-11, 3:11 AM #17
Originally posted by Obi_Kwiet:
I'm about to buy a 4 light 360 of Craig's list and fix it myself.

isn't four lights what happens when you don't have the video cable plugged in?
Snail racing: (500 posts per line)------@%
2010-03-11, 4:21 AM #18
Originally posted by Obi_Kwiet:
I'm about to buy a 4 light 360 of Craig's list and fix it myself.


THERE... ARE... FOUR... LIGHTS :awesome:

2010-03-11, 4:37 AM #19
Originally posted by DrkJedi82:
there's always the option of doing what my friend did... try to get your xbox to RRoD so MS will fix that **** for free


Soak a warm blanket in hot steaming water (squeeze the liquid out so its just warm and humid) and wrap it around the xbox. Turn on the power, leave it on, dance and behold xbox extinction.
Was cheated out of lions by happydud
Was cheated out of marriage by sugarless
2010-03-11, 9:08 AM #20
Sounds like it just needs blasted out with air. If it's working for a few minutes then getting hot. Probably has an assload of dust in there.
Quote Originally Posted by FastGamerr
"hurr hairy guy said my backhair looks dumb hurr hairy guy smash"
2010-03-11, 9:49 AM #21
Originally posted by alpha1:
isn't four lights what happens when you don't have the video cable plugged in?


yep
eat right, exercise, die anyway
2010-03-13, 9:11 AM #22
I took it apart, which took forever with no instructions.

When I unseated the heat sinks (these are a royal ***** by the way) the thermal compound came out in chunks. It just dried up and got all crusty and useless. So I spent about an hour scrubbing it shiny clean with ethyl alcohol (oldskool) and a lint free 100% cotton rag and put new compound on.

It works fine now. My case looks a little chewed up though, because I have a habit of man-handling things.
2010-03-14, 4:09 AM #23
Well its way better, but it still does it after about 15-20 minutes though. Should I attribute this to the cure time of the thermal compound?

It takes like 50-200 hours of thermal use, correct? Seems like every time I turn it on it goes a little longer before shutting off.
2010-03-14, 4:12 AM #24
Oh, I forgot to add it plays DVDs without doing it, and I can leave it on and it won't do it. Only when I try to play an actual game.
2010-03-14, 10:41 AM #25
Hey guys, I put artic silver on instead... but I got some of it on my hands and it burned the **** out of me!!!!!!111

I think my hand is meltihhngfs
2010-03-14, 12:00 PM #26
I've never had arctic silver burn me. Sure you're not a vampire?
2010-03-14, 7:30 PM #27
It was a joke at the expense of this retard computer whiz that used to post here.

He had a pretty 1337 celeron gaming computer he wanted to sell for like $4000 once. Great deal, right?

Anyways, I get a different kind of two red lights now. This one says my ram is oveheating.

Its not actually getting hot, I bet. But I noticed the themal pads touched the ram, but I don't want to put artic silver on it. So I may just get a small piece of aluminum sheet and put it in there with ceramic based thermal compound.

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