Mythbusters: Xbox RROD

You might have heard some of the Xbox 360 Red Ring of Death rumours, supposed easy cures and suchlike. Let me run a kind of mythbusters here as most of the free tips you can find on the internet are dangerous or could result in you wasting a lot of your time and hard earned money.

Myth One - You can cure the RROD by wrapping your Xbox in a couple of towels and leaving it for a while.

This myth involves wrapping your 360 in a towel, turning it on and then leaving it in a room for ten minutes or such. It has the reputation of being able to work as well - Many an Xbox has been resurrected from the dead! Or maybe not. The way this trick works is by heating up the solder and glue holding together the Xbox 360 and then letting it dry - This provides enough stickiness inside the case for you to be able to boot up your Xbox. So, you wonder, what happens when you actually try to play a game? Well, it crashes on you, with the exact same red rings on your Xbox. As soon as the console heats up (say, while playing a game) the solder immediately melts, and a second “Towel Trick” will not do any difference. Hell, it might even make it worse, as the Xbox can actually catch on fire or completely fry the motherboard if you leave it for too long or try it again.

Myth Two - You can solder the inside of the Xbox 360 to remove the RROD (I fell prey to this - Click here to read my story)

This method involves you buying a home soldering kit, and then opening your Xbox up to solder the parts back together. Notice “Home Soldering Kit”. Microsoft doesn’t use these at their factories - they use expensive, industrial grade equipment that can cost thousands upon thousands of pounds. That is something you can’t reproduce with some hardware store solder and a solder gun. This applies even if you have experience soldering electric equipment. If you do this wrong you can’t send it back to Microsoft as well - By opening the console, you have automatically voided the warranty. However, this may be possible if you have high quality video and sound - not poor quality, juddery tutorials from YouTube.

More myths coming soon… Stay tuned!