Were you a victim to the RROD back in the day?

[Kane99]

The Xbox 360 originally came out with a major fault, and that fault was overheating. The Red Ring of Death (RROD) was an issue many of the original Xbox 360 consoles faced. When it happened, it meant your system was overheated and it needed a break, thing is, it would never go away. Some people found ways of fixing it temporarily, one way (if I remember correctly) was to wrap the Xbox 360 in a towel while it's on and let it go. Supposedly it's supposed to re-heat some thermal paste, and in turn bring it back, but those who did it, still ended up seeing the dreaded RROD again. 

 

Anyway, did you guys ever deal with this problem? I had to send in my 360 for multiple repairs because of it. All of course, was free since Microsoft had to repaid any consoles that had the RROD problem. So, I ended up sending multiple Xbox 360s in for repair over that time frame. I hated it so much, but, it stopped as soon as I purchased the slim model. 

 

Did you deal with the RROD? How did you handle it? 

[Crazycrab]

I never had an XBox 360 but I did get the "Red blinking Light of Death" on a few PS3's".  I managed to get one or two replaced under warrenty.

[Spikey]

Thankfully I never had to experience this problem. What is the cause for this problem? Is it because people are playing games for too long at a time?

[Crazycrab]

29 minutes ago, Spikey said:

Thankfully I never had to experience this problem. What is the cause for this problem? Is it because people are playing games for too long at a time?

 

In a word, overheating.  repeated electrical loading and unloading of the CPU, GPU and RAM would cause these components to repeatedly heat up and cool down.  As this happens the solder used to connect these to the main board would sometimes fracture under the stress and eventually disconnect, and bingo, "Red Ring of Death".

 

 Lots of people seemed to single out microsoft and their design of the XBox 360 and it got quite a reputation for it which is a bit unfair.  The truth is this was a fairly common failure in other consoles (I mentioned the PS3’s I went through) and various Laptop and desktop computers as well even to this day.  They seem to have improved the cooling systems so thankfully it’s not as common in the XBox One and PS4 as it was last gen.

Edited August 2, 2020 by Crazycrab

[Spikey]

3 minutes ago, Crazycrab said:

 

In a word, overheating.  repeated electrical loading and unloading of the CPU, GPU and RAM would cause these components to repeatedly heat up and cool down.  As this happens the solder used to connect these to the main board would sometimes fracture under the stress and eventually disconnect, hence "Red Ring of Death".

 

 Lots of people seemed to single out microsoft and their design of the XBox 360 and it got quite a reputation for it which is a bit unfair.  The truth is this was a fairly common failure in other consoles (I mentioned the PS3’s I went through) and various Laptop and desktop computers as well even to this day.  They seem to have improved the cooling systems so thankfully it’s not as common in the XBox One and PS4 as it was last gen.

With the way technology has improved it probably doesn't happen as much now as it has in the past which you have mentioned. It would be great if someday we will never have to experience the 'red ring of death' for our systems.

[The Blackangel]

I can’t say I had to deal with it, as I rarely, if ever, played 360. I’ve had the occasional issue with PS3, but nothing big.

[Kane99]

On 8/2/2020 at 12:26 PM, Crazycrab said:

 

In a word, overheating.  repeated electrical loading and unloading of the CPU, GPU and RAM would cause these components to repeatedly heat up and cool down.  As this happens the solder used to connect these to the main board would sometimes fracture under the stress and eventually disconnect, and bingo, "Red Ring of Death".

 

 Lots of people seemed to single out microsoft and their design of the XBox 360 and it got quite a reputation for it which is a bit unfair.  The truth is this was a fairly common failure in other consoles (I mentioned the PS3’s I went through) and various Laptop and desktop computers as well even to this day.  They seem to have improved the cooling systems so thankfully it’s not as common in the XBox One and PS4 as it was last gen.

I wouldn't say they were singled out. The PS3 had their fair share of problems, but the 360 was on another level. Microsoft took a major hit when this issue came up, as they had to extend warranties for mostly all those consoles, as well, each repair was free if it truly was a RROD issue. I think they ended up extending the warranty by like 1-2 years or so. Which is why I was able to get my console repaired multiple times. I think MS at the time, lost billions of dollars because of it. 

 

Current gen and some of the last gen consoles are better made and much more reliable. 

[The Blackangel]

The 360 was a train wreck from the beginning. The technical issues and RROD were turning a lot of die hard Xbox loyalists to other systems, and they lost a lot of support. I don't know if this is bullshit or true, but I read online that the Xbox One almost didn't happen due to what happened with the 360. I know PlayStation and Nintendo saw a surge during that time in sales because of the RROD. But that was the time of Wii and PS3, which both had their fair share of issues as well. Especially the first edition of PS3 that had PS2 capailities. It overheated so bad that the entire system crashed and you were usually forced to buy a new one. That's the reason for the rerelease that removed the PS2 capabilities. Wii, while it was nice to have backwards compatibility with the Game Cube, was horrible with the controller and nunchuk. A lot of people hated it, but a lot of people loved it. I personally despised it.

So there were goods and bads of every system of that gen. Most would agree that there have been massive improvements all around, but there are others who would still argue it.

[Shortie]

I had one issue where I got the RROD one my Xbox 360 Slim version which was very unusual. The console just wouldn't work properly, and I couldn't use it at all when I got the RROD. I did have a friend though who had one of the very first Xbox 360 consoles and we were playing Rainbow Six Vegas 2. We were doing the terrorist hunt which we had a lot of fun on, and his Xbox 360 suddenly decided to RROD on him, however, the console didn't shut off, it stayed going with the game going and his game went funny colors as though it was a heat camera. He was able to see where all the terrorists were during the game, and we managed to get through it when we were struggling. He turned his console off after that and sent it in for repair but that was the weirdest RROD I had heard of.

[Kane99]

3 hours ago, Shortie said:

I had one issue where I got the RROD one my Xbox 360 Slim version which was very unusual. The console just wouldn't work properly, and I couldn't use it at all when I got the RROD. I did have a friend though who had one of the very first Xbox 360 consoles and we were playing Rainbow Six Vegas 2. We were doing the terrorist hunt which we had a lot of fun on, and his Xbox 360 suddenly decided to RROD on him, however, the console didn't shut off, it stayed going with the game going and his game went funny colors as though it was a heat camera. He was able to see where all the terrorists were during the game, and we managed to get through it when we were struggling. He turned his console off after that and sent it in for repair but that was the weirdest RROD I had heard of.

The console probably overheated, that's essentially what the RROD was. If the console got too hot, it would give you the RROD after shutting itself down. THe tricks we used on the original 360 was to open the console up and wrap a towel around it. I think that was what some people did. Supposedly it helped with re-heating the sauder or something on part of the board. 

But I got a 360 slim later on and I didn't deal with the RROD at all. Though my first slim the disc drive died on me, so I got a used 360 a while after. But for the most part, the Slim was a real game changer in that you rarely had to deal with the RROD. Unless you somehow overheat your console. 

[Justin11]

I think there was a time back then when my older sibling who owned and Xbox 360 would complain about overheat at the time we thought the issue was just with the console we owned I didn't Know it was a general Xbox 360 fault.