So I was talking to a friend of mine and he had mentioned that he heard of a ‘towel trick’ to fix my broken xbox360. Apparently the first consoles had a problem with the heatsinks and would cause this problem. I decided to investigate and looked to cheap ass gamer .com and watched the video there. You can watch that video here.
So I promptly went home from work and wrapped my $400 game console up in 3 towels, and just to make sure i really toasted that little white box, i put a knit blanket and shirt that were laying on my bed on top. I let the box run for 25 minutes with nothing but the power cord attached. 25 minutes passed and i unwrapped the present. It wasn’t as warm as I was expecting, but it was hot. At this point I was skeptical that it would work for me, but after the 12 minutes I let it cool, I reattched the hard drive and the video cables. To my surprise and elation it worked!
From what i’ve read around the web this is a temporary fix, but luckily my box will be ready when I get some new games this xmas season. Microsoft has dealt with this problem and has promised to fix all of the ring of death errors for 3 years from purchase date! Thats how to step up and stand behind your product.
Update 12/26/07 : So the box is still freezing during games and movies, but isn’t giving the lights yet. Waiting for the lights to come back before I inquire with Microsoft about fixing the unit.
