Many owners of the X Box 360 have experienced the dreaded 3 red lights, or the ring of death as it is sometimes referred to. These are the names given to the occurrence of general hardware failure, signaled by three red lights that appear around the 360′s power button. When you see this it means that your unit has frozen up and will not work. There are some ways to fix the 3 red lights, but your best bet is to avoid it in the first place.

The only way to be sure that those dreaded lights will not appear on the front of your console is to keep your unit cool. It is equipped with a fan, but if the unit is placed in an enclosed area the fan can only blow hot air around. Keep the unit in a well ventilated place when playing. If you are likely to be playing for a long time it may be wise to use another fan to keep the air circulating around the console.

An overheated power brick can also lead to the ring of death’s appearance. To avoid this place the power brick upright, not laying flat. Also, do not place it against a wall or piece of furniture. This increases the amount of surface area that air can reach.

So what do you do if you are reading this too late and the 3 red lights have already appeared? Relax, there are ways to fix the problem. They are simple and do not require that you have a lot of knowledge about how electronic devices function.

It is possible to resolve the problem by wrapping your console in towels and leaving it on for an extended period of time. A silly as it sounds, this method often proves successful. It is not really a good solution however as the towels have been known to catch on fire. This leads to much more extensive damage to your X Box and perhaps your home.

The towel method works because it heats your system enough to melt the soldering compound that is used to attach wires to the circuit board. Because of the risks involved, it may be wiser to open the system up and reattach the wires with a soldering gun.

Not everyone owns a soldering gun, and risking burning down your house may not seem like your best option. If this is the case for you than you will want to send the unit back to the manufacturer. They will repair the problem and return the system back to you, usually within a few weeks. This does mean you will have to survive without the X Box for that long. The advantage to this method is that when you get it back, the unit will be completely repaired.

If you own an X Box 360 it is really important to keep it from getting overheated. In that way your can avoid having to fix the 3 red lights. If it is too late for that your best bet is to send it back to be repaired.