Nooooooooooooo!

The Red Ring of Death (or RRoD). Odds are, if you’re an Xbox 360 user, you’ve either seen it or at least heard of it. Either way, you live in fear of it. The gleeful little power circle on the front of your 360 stops shining a friendly green, and turns into the glowing crimson eye of Sauron. Beyond the obvious fact that you’re probably going to be giving your Xbox a little rest while the folks in Microsoft’s repair division do their thing, what does the RRoD actually mean?

The power circle is split into four quarter-circles, with lights 1 and 2 on top (left to right) and lights 3 and 4 on the bottom (left to right). Which lights are flashing tells you what’s wrong with your Xbox 360.

Problem 1: Four Lights
If all four lights are flashing, the 360 can’t detect the AV cable, hopefully a simple fix. Recheck your connection, wipe down the metal section of the AV pack with a dry cloth, swap out the AV cable if you’ve got a replacement.

Problem 2: Three Lights
If lights 1, 3, and 4 (the top left and both bottom lights) are flashing, you’re looking at a general hardware failure. Try turning the console off, unplugging it from the wall, unplugging all connections, reconnecting everything and turning it back on. If this doesn’t help, shut everything down and remove the hard drive, then start up without the hard drive. If the three blinking red lights no longer appear, shut down, reinstall the hard drive and fire her back up.

You can actually obtain an error code to determine what the specific problem is by following these instructions:

1. Turn the Xbox 360 on and wait until the 3 red lights are flashing.
2. Press and hold the synch button (the small white one), and while holding it down, press the eject button.
3. The LEDs will now blink the first number in the code.
o All four lights flashing = 0
o One light flashing = 1
o Two Lights flashing = 2
o Three lights flashing = 3
4. Release the eject button and press it again.
5. The LEDs will now blink the second number of the code.
6. Release the eject button and press it again.
7. The LEDs will now blink the third number of the code.
8. Release the eject button and press it again.
9. The LEDs will now blink the forth number of the code.
10. Release the eject button and press it again.
11. The LEDs will go back to the 3 red flashing lights.

The known codes are defined as follows:

0001 Power supply problem.
0002 Power supply problem.
0010 Overheating.
0011 Overheating.
0012 Overheating.
0013 Overheating.
0022 GPU Error / GPU Overheating.
0102 Unknown error…this literally means the console doesn’t even know what’s wrong.
0110 Memory Error / Memory Overheating.
1003 Hard Drive Error (problem with the hard drive itself, or the drive connections).
1010 Hard Drive Error, possibly a corrupt or missing EPROM.
1022 AV cable error; see the fixes for Problem 1 (4 lights).

Problem 3: Two Lights
If lights 1 and 3 (the top left and bottom left) are flashing red, you’ve got the most common problem experienced by owners of the early 360s: overheating. Let your system cool down for a while, possibly a few hours. When you start up again, make sure the 360 has proper ventilation. Make sure nothing’s blocking the vents, it’s not in a bookcase or cabinets where air can’t easily get out, and it’s not near another heat source. Whatever you do, do NOT try to cool it down faster by putting in a fridge or freezer. That’s just going to result in internal condensation, at which point you may as well just dump a glass of ice water into the vents.

Problem 4: One Light
If light 4 (the bottom right) is flashing solo, you’ve got a hardware failure. A code number may actually appear on your TV screen, and those are defined as follows:

E65: DVD Drive Error, for example a DVD timeout, the wrong DVD firmware, etc.
E67: Hard Drive Error, possibly with the hard drive or the internal connection. You can confirm by trying to play without the hard drive.
E68: Hard Drive Error, same as E67, but it could also be a hard drive EPROM error.
E69: Hard Drive Error, ditto, ditto, ditto.
E74: AV cable error or a problem with the encoder chip.
E79: Hard Drive Error, same as E67, 68, 69.

If no code appears on the screen, you can self-diagnose the problem using the same error codes outlined in Problem 2.

Generally speaking, if you’ve got anything other than an AV cable problem or a simple overheat, you’re going to find yourself calling the fine folks over at 1-800-4-MY-XBOX (1-800-469-9269) and going cold turkey on your 360 for a few weeks. If none of the suggestions above do the trick, do NOT open up your console and try to repair it yourself. All you’ll do is void the warranty. Give Microsoft a call, and they’ll take care of it quickly and professionally. I’m speaking from experience. I got a bad case of the RRoD last summer (one light), and Microsoft had me back up and running within two weeks. They even sent out prepaid postal packaging to make my part in the return as painless as possible. Meatbätt’s world tour in “Rock Band” was delayed and it gave me an excuse to finish up “Marvel: Ultimate Alliance” on my PS2.

Yes it’s true; in the wake of the Red Ring of Death, life went on.