"2 Red Rings"

So my 360 is getting two red rings the moment I turn it on - that usually signifies an overheating problem but considering the huge amounts of space/good ventilation in my room, I know that''s not the case. I attacked the case's air vents with a blow dryer set to cold air and cleaned out the dust as I hear that that sometimes clogs up the system and stops it cooling down but instead of 2 red ringing instantly, it now does so after 5 minutes...

Any ideas? My warranty's expired (I'm on 360 number 2) and this fault isn't covered under the free repair guarantee - I could always force it to get the 3 light RROD and thus have it covered but would rather try something else as partially cleaning it out seems to have helped a little...


Any help would be great! Especially with AC 2 coming out in two weeks..

How do you have two red rings when the console only has one ring?

Now the pedantry is out of the way...

I'm not sure there's much you can do unfortunately. I wouldn't get a Niko intercooler as they use the power supply for the 360 itself.

Will something like this help?

convercide wrote:
Now the pedantry is out of the way...

I'm not sure there's much you can do unfortunately. I wouldn't get a Niko intercooler as they use the power supply for the 360 itself.

Will something like this help?

Afraid not as I'm pretty sure the console itself isn't actually overheating, the CPU just thinks it is and so shuts everything down regardless

Two means the console is overheating and must be switched off and left to cool.

AltCtrlDelete wrote:
Two means the console is overheating and must be switched off and left to cool.

Thanks for the input. Now read the first post again.

My mate had the same problem. He had a bit of a barney with ms support desk because according to the website three segments means overheating, and two segments means overheating. His argument was if it is covered by extended warranty if it overheats (three segments), why not when it is overheating (two segments). They couldn't answer him and didn't really offer any advice as to what might be the problem other than the usual ventilation stuff. He is on his third 360 now (second elite) so he just sent it to them as warranty claiming three segments. Not sure what happened in the end though, I'll have to ask him and let you know.

guts wrote:
My mate had the same problem. He had a bit of a barney with ms support desk because according to the website three segments means overheating, and two segments means overheating. His argument was if it is covered by extended warranty if it overheats (three segments), why not when it is overheating (two segments). They couldn't answer him and didn't really offer any advice as to what might be the problem other than the usual ventilation stuff. He is on his third 360 now (second elite) so he just sent it to them as warranty claiming three segments. Not sure what happened in the end though, I'll have to ask him and let you know.

Thanks, it'd be good to know how they handle that

What's happening here is that your heatsink has come away from the CPU or GPU. If I'm right, your fans should be going into overdrive and not making the slightest difference to the actual temperature the CPU / GPU is running at.

It's not uncommon. The problem is that it's not technically covered by warranty... though I'd still send it in as a RRoD job. Short of opening it yourself and re-doing the thermal paste there's nothing you're going to be able to do about it... and I wouldn't do that because it's likely the chipset has been irrevocably weakened anyway.

Psychotext wrote:
What's happening here is that your heatsink has come away from the CPU or GPU. If I'm right, your fans should be going into overdrive and not making the slightest difference to the actual temperature the CPU / GPU is running at.

It's not uncommon. The problem is that it's not technically covered by warranty... though I'd still send it in as a RRoD job. Short of opening it yourself and re-doing the thermal paste there's nothing you're going to be able to do about it... and I wouldn't do that because it's likely the chipset has been irrevocably weakened anyway.

That's exactly what's going on - thanks! Just the reply I was looking for (although not the best of news).

Looks like I'll be sending it back in for repairs then...

I haven't spoken to my mate yet, will be seeing him tomorrow. I'm sure MS quoted him £80 over the phone to fix it, that's when he started to get a bit grumpy with them.

Just spoke to my mate. MS returned his 360 to him repaired free of charge under warranty and all that malarky.

HAHAHAHAHAHA the fools, they even gave him the 3 month live voucher aswell.

So what was he grumpy about?

...and why does doing the right thing make them fools?

Edited by Psychotext at 13:45:57 09-11-2009

you can go to youtube and look for a vid to open the 360 and fix it your self if the problem is e 74 you might need to replace the x clamp

If it's under the 3 year warranty it would be really stupid to try and fix this yourself - especially because overheated CPUs/GPUs/whatever can already be permanently damaged and even if you fix the cooling you might still be stuck with a defective system.

Just send it in as a RRoD case. If the heatsinks got loose there's a good chance that the RRoD occured before the system realized that the cooling was gone so I really doubt they will refuse to repair the 360.

guts wrote:
Just spoke to my mate. MS returned his 360 to him repaired free of charge under warranty and all that malarky.

HAHAHAHAHAHA the fools, they even gave him the 3 month live voucher aswell.

Wha? My 360 has RROD'd 3 times, and I only got sent 1 month's worth of gold each time. Fuckin gip.

Psychotext
09 Nov '09 13:45:39 So what was he grumpy about?

...and why does doing the right thing make them fools?

He was grumpy because when he first phoned them up they were quite unhelpful and were refusing to accept it as a waranty as only two segments were lit. After this he sent it to them claiming three red segments (although it was only two) and they repaired it foc for him. It is out of the years warranty, but within three years. Two red segments shouldn't be covered by the three year warranty, even though it appears to be the same, or a very similar fault (overheating). They also gave him live voucher (he said three months, but he is a bit of a div so it might only be one month), so they are fools.
(not really fools, actually I think it was very decent of them, but I have a rep to prtoect).

I did it all online to avoid talking to anyone that might annoy me. I've heard a lot of people had the free RROD repair when it wasn't the proper 3 lights problem. Presumably it must be possible that you have a red ring, and by the time it arrives for repair it's a slightly different fault, so maybe they just trust you. Which is nice.

Only time I had to send mine in it RROD'd following his testing steps ^_^ Never been so glad to have a pushy, by-the-book guy.