Towel Trick - Your Opinion

Hello readers! You may have read my earlier post on the towel trick, and how I thought that it was a bad idea. Well, I have got some quotes from people who have tried the towel trick, and have had varied results.

“Warning it will work but after u do this your xbox will turn off everytime it gets hot which is about every 10mins so ya good luck” - armando1499

“99% of the times you get rrod is because the solder has lost connection either in cpu or gpu. baking the xbox in towels will actually melt the solder so a new connection is made. however personally i dont recommend baking the xbox in towels (fire hazard). disabeling the fans will work much better and it will go much faster”. - poosarri

“It still boggles my mind that this actually worked last night on my friends 360. He had 4 red lights of doom, the first time he tried the towel trick he got on and played for about 20 minutes, then froze up then BOOM back to the red lights, actually only 3 red lights this time. Tried the Towel trick again, green light comes back on. He played for hours and hours and did not see the RED LIGHTS OF DOOM AGAIN! Thanks to who ever thought of this!”  - Anon

“I was desperate to get my 360 running, so I gave it a shot, as I also had the TRLoD (Three Red Lights Of Death). I honestly think the problem has to do with one of the case fans not spooling up fast enough -- it makes a different noise when malfunctioning. Yes, it's hokey and appears to be internet giberrish, but honest-to-goodness, it worked on my 360 (1st gen). It dies after prolonged use (1hr watching a DVD movie on it) and the fan makes funny noise again. I wish I could've had a camera on my face when it powered up successfully after doing the trick (what was I going to do, break it?)... my jaw dropped, and I said loudly "I don't f****** believe it." I wrapped mine in a fleece blanket (towels were in the wash), and let 'er sit for 20 minutes while I played Wii and PS3 (I wasn't sure if something would burst into flames, so I watched it). }=) It didn't auto-shutdown, so I tried it anyway, and it worked. Today, back to the TRLoD, but I know how to resurrect it. I nearly bought a replacement, and then heard about the HDMI version of the 360... I wonder how long this puppy will last.” - Anon

“The towel trick is only a temporary fix for the xbox 360 and if it does work it will only do so for a couple of hours or days then you have to do it again and again... This can in fact further damage your 360” - patkaa

“all we hear about is the 360 and its overheating issues...and you want me to overheat it on purpose!?! WTF?” - GregTheHammer

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!