marc you are assuming he is still under warranty. plus microsoft charges $100 for red ring repair, not including the shipping. maybe john is intelligent and handy enough to do it himself. you don't have to be a genius with electronics, just be able to follow directions.
i'm going to re-use an answer i gave someone else. it's pretty comprehensive, but sorry if it doesn't completely apply to you. first thing you should do is check your secondary error code. 3 red lights doesn't mean a whole lot by itself. here goes:
replacing the xclamps alone {or the towel trick in your case} is not a very effective way to fix the rrod. i assume you were getting 3 lights. there is a way to get the "secondary error code" to find more specifically what is wrong with your xbox. when you have the 3 red lights of death, you have to hold in the sync button and press eject 4 times. each time the ring will show a different amount of red lights (you can tell because it flashes faster). it will either be 1, 2, 3, or 4 of the lights. 4 is considered a 0 (think of it as a circle). unfortunately you aren't getting the red lights anymore so you can't really check that. but if it freezes right away it's probably a graphics processor issue. a reflow fixes almost every different type of rrod (there are actually a lot of different error codes an xbox can give). what you have to do is heat up the cpu and the gpu (and sometimes the ram also). i use a heat gun, but you could use a hairdryer or whatever. my suggestion is to take it all back apart, and first make sure that you didn't screw down the xclamp replacements too tight, as that can crack the processors or bend the board. if adjusting the screws doesn't work. try the reflow. you have to remove the heat sinks and clean the goop from the chips with rubbing alcohol on a qtip. when you heat it up it basically remelts the solder under the chips back together. leave it sit for at least 30 min to be safe and don't touch it, because shaking the solder while it is liquid can mess it up even worse. then you need to put more heat sink paste back onto the chips (arctic silver is the best, it's worth the $10 for the little tube you find at radio shack, way better than the junk microsoft put on there originally. that old stuff might be hard to get off, just scrape it with your fingernails as much as you can, be careful not to break anything. it's ok if there is a little bit left when you heat gun it. that will cause it to break down more and it should come off more easily after the board cools down, before you put new stuff on it.) so you replace the goop, just put a tiny bit, like one third of what a bb gun bb size is. replace the heat sinks (not too tight, but not loose). you don't have to spread the goop around because the heat sink will smash it down to cover the whole chip anyway, smearing it can cause bubbles and it won't work as well. hopefully after all this it will be working. check the links below for more information and videos or tutorials on reflowing if you'd like to see it done before you try it yourself. there is also an "oven bake" method, that remelts the solder too, but i never tried that. you have to wrap some sort of insulation tape all over the plastic parts and put it at a low temp (like 200 degrees F) for several hours, careful not to bump it until it is cool of course. i would suggest against that however.
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Phone Microsoft instead of trying those community made repairs on the net that can void your warranty.
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