Hello There Dear Reader,
Well as some of you may already have guessed, this blog is all about the dreaded 'Red Ring of Death' that as affected so many Xbox 360 consoles around this World of ours. My dear old European Launch Xbox 360 suffered it two days ago and I was honestly quite upset. Why I'm not to sure, but my Xbox 360 as been fantastic since I first purchased it so I'm determined to get it up and running again. Even if I have to bleed in the process, although I have already cut the palm of my hand pretty deeply this morning. But I've been following some solid guides and walkthroughs and although I'm pretty confident of the process, that process doesn't seem to be having much of an affect on my system at this point in time. But I'm not one to easily give up and I shall get my baby back up and running. At the moment of writing this I'm currently letting it cool down fully to see if my newest attempt as fixed it but I'm suspect it will still be suffering from the Red Ring of Death. On many of the videos I have watched, they make it look so easy and technically it is, at least it was for me. The actual challenge is either getting the correct screws and finding some good rubber washers (which were surprisingly tough to find). I have after all built my own Custom Gaming PC so I'd like to think I could at least give this a good go. It's this failure to see any improvment in my 360 cause that as had me wondering if there isn't another much bigger issue with it. But I guess I'll have to look further into it. 

I'm sure many of my fellow Giantbombers have fixed this issue so any tips you've learnt along the way would be greatly appriated, but I'm hoping to suddenly have a brain fart of sorts and see what I'm currently doing wrong because the process clearly isn't working. Originally I heated up my 360 which sadly cut out much quicker then I expected (around 10 minutes) but I have been informed that if you feel your heatsink get hot within a minute then it means the heatsink is doing it's job well, though it's still yet to fix the main issue. But now I have decided to leave it for over a hour to see if that as any affect. Heres hoping because I honestly don't like the idea of shelling out hundred and eighty odd sterling for a new system that could easily suffer the same fate. As some of you may know, I do play my Xbox 360 a lot so I'm indeed eager to get it fully operational again. I have (to my shame) been quite ignorant towards this error for many years now, despite it affecting so many folks. I guess the main reason for this as I've never had any issues with my system, I'm slightly regretting my ignorance as I've realised what a pain it is now that it's happened to me. But my system is easily over four years old, I'd hate it if it happened to me with a console only a few days old.   

So I now know what it feels like to have your much loved console hit my this console disease, though I shall fight it and I shall get my system back online because my plastic guitar is already getting lonely. I'll try and create a new blog if I get it back running (with luck!) and I might even see about offering some of my own advice because there are a lot of things I've learnt about the fixing process and the console itself. It's odd, but you always get an extra appriation for what's involved in making a console when you take a closer look. The Xbox 360 isn't anything special but it's also very clear that Microsoft screwed up with it's internals, the heatsinks simply don't do a good job at keeping things cool and I can now see why so many folks have hatred towards Big M for this exact issue. Eitherway, it is a fix that does seem to work and I'm hoping my next blog with offer better news on that front. On a different note I decided to try the Windows 7 Beta and I'm currently really liking key new improvments but also not liking the new taskbar to much, it's just odd to use though I'm sure I'd eventually get use to all it's functions. I do like it though, but I can't help but feel this should just be Windows Vista Service Pack 2 rather then a whole seperate OS which will no doubt cost a arm and a leg. But despite all the Mac love going about nowadays, I still find it a better Operating System  for what I like to do. I used a Mac at College for almost a year in Business and I never found the love for Apple's OS. Anyway, that discussion is for another time. That is if I'm actually allowed to talk about it, betas these days are so odd. 

Anyway, that'll do for now. I better go check if my 360 as cooled enough for another crack at the whip. Wish me luck as I have a feeling it'll be the same. But as I said previously, please leave any RROD tips you learnt in the process of fixing your Xbox 360 console in the comments section. I'm off to bring back my baby back to life! I'll leave you with a odd tribute to RROD from G4!



Thanks for Reading, Appriated!
Joseph Bayliss (TrueEnglishGent!)