Suggestion:
The reason the red rings come up is because the system is over heating. Sometimes you can catch it before any damage occurs to your xbox though.
If you have 3 red rings that show up, firstly you should try to shut it off right away, and wait a couple hours before attempting to play again. There have been cases where when people have done this quickly, they managed to play later in the day. If you still end up with the red rings of death, check to see if your warranty for your Xbox has run out. (it runs out after one year of warranty). If you have had it for less then a year, then you repackage it, and send it back to the store you bought it from, or send it back to microsoft, and they'll fix the problem for you. You get to keep your memory because the red rings of death are not associated with your hard drive. If you don't have the warranty anymore, you can open up your xbox without fear of voiding your warranty (because if you do open it, your warranty is considered null). Here's a site that will help you will anything more you may be interested in concerning the 3 rings of death and how to fix them.
http://www.squidoo.com/xbox-troubleshooting-red-ring-of-death-fix
hope this helps! =)
