Expert: Andrew Crome - 6/1/2008

Question
How do you know when you have the red ring of death on a xbox 360. How do u get it?

Answer
Hi Tyler,

The "Red Ring of Death" is three flashing red lights on your Xbox's ring indicator (the lights around the power button on the front of your console). You'll know you have them if the Xbox doesn't turn on, and you see the lights!

As to how you get it, there are a variety of rumours as to why the Xbox experiences this issue. Since Microsoft haven't officially commented on exactly why the consoles have this problem, and the lights mean "general hardware fault", then we just don't know. Certainly it appears to be a motherboard failure, CPU overheat or something similar. I've had the problem, and on return my console had both the motherboard and DVD drive replaced.

If you have the problem, contact MS, as they will repair all 360s suffering from this at no charge.

Hope this helps

Andy