That graphics computing power generates a lot of heat and that heat has to end up going somewhere. In hindsight, the designers choice to use heat’s natural tendency to rise as their cooling system was a mistake. In hindsight, this clearly was a mistake. A different design to the cooling issue clearly should have been taken since 30% or more of the early Xboxes suffered from the 3 red lights problem. So that being the case, what are your repair options if you have theXbox 360 3 red lights problem? Yhere are three options open to you:
Microsoft took quite a while before admitting to the mistake and putting into place the extended two year warranty instead of the 90 day warranty that covered the original Xbox. If you during the first two years of owning your Xbox you see the 3 red lights problem, be sure to send it back to Microsoft for repair to maintain your warranty intact. If you are still covered under this two year warranty period and you open up your Xbox for any reason, you immediately void your warranty. Getting your xBox repaired correctly by Microsoft is your best option if this is your situation. It may take a week or two to get your xbox back, but it will be worth it in the long run.
Second on the list is to use a third party repair service that will cost between $40 and $50 take about a week to fix your Xbox. These services will charge between $40 – $50 and have a turnaround time of about a week. If you’re not comfortable opening up your Xbox and fixing the problem yourself, this is your best option. It’s also your best option if time is not essential when you don’t mind waiting the week or so that the repair will take. Many of these repair services advertise themselves on eBay.
Third, you can fix the xbox 360 yourself in an hour or two using one of the many xbox 360 3 red light repair guides that have become available as this problem became so widespread and so widely known. These repair guides are well written and include videos that take you step-by-step through the repair process all for $25-$30. The actual repair is pretty straightforward and the videos that come along with the guides make it that much easier. So if you don’t mind opening up your Xbox taking apart, this is a viable option. You’ll have it fixed and be back playing in just an hour or two.
